SkyTrain’s Billion-Dollar Concrete Bill Coming Due
A must read.
As the SkyTrain light metro system is mostly constructed with concrete and what we see is only about 25% of the concrete used, with the rest underground, all with classic rebar construction, it is safe to say;
SkyTrain’s billion dollar concrete bill is coming due sooner than one thinks.
All that concrete!
America’s trillion-dollar concrete bill is coming due
Concrete construction no longer lasts thousands of years, like the Pantheon in Rome. Instead, its lifespan is roughly 50-100 years, thanks to the way in which modern concrete is reinforced.
Why it matters: That means a multi-trillion-dollar bill is coming due right around now, in the form of concrete construction that needs noisy, dirty, expensive repair.
- The collapse of a residential tower in Surfside, Florida, is a stark reminder of how catastrophically concrete can fail.
- Just as the collapse of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa caused Italy to start paying much more attention to remedial infrastructure projects, the Surfside tragedy might help focus America on the urgent need to fix buildings that are nearing the end of their initial lifespan.
The big picture: As Robert Courland explains in “Concrete Planet,” modern concrete is poured around steel rebar, which gives it tensile strength. But tiny cracks — found in all concrete — cause water to start rusting the steel, which then expands, cracking the concrete.
- Photos of the Surfside basement taken before the collapse show steel rebar breaking all the way through the concrete to the point at which it is fully exposed to the salty and humid Florida air.
By the numbers: One of the most famous concrete buildings in America, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, cost $155,000 to build in 1936 — about $2 million in 2001 dollars. The cost of repairs in 2001 came to $11.5 million.
- Similarly, repairs to Wright’s concrete Unity Temple are estimated at roughly 20 times the original construction costs, even after adjusting for inflation.
How it works: Once rebar starts corroding, the standard fix involves jackhammering the concrete to expose the steel, brushing the steel to remove the rust, reinforcing the rebar as necessary, and then covering it all back up again with carefully color-matched new concrete.
- That labor-intensive extreme noise and dust is actually the green, environmentally sensitive solution. The only alternative is demolition and replacement with an entirely new building — something that involves a much greater carbon footprint.
Between the lines: Because concrete fails from the inside out, damage can be hard to detect. And because concrete looks so solid and impregnable, necessary maintenance is often skipped, causing massive bills later on.
- Local governments are in charge of ensuring building safety, but their willingness and ability to do so varies widely. The owners and residents of concrete buildings often try very hard not to think about corrosion, just because the costs of fixing it are so enormous.
The bottom line: The amount of money needed to fix existing infrastructure (nearly all of which is concrete, in one way or another) stands at roughly $6 trillion, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. That number does not include homes, offices and other private buildings.
- If you live in a concrete building that’s more than 40 or 50 years old, it’s an extremely good idea to check carefully on just how well it’s been maintained, lest you find yourself with an unexpected seven-figure repair bill — or worse.
Langley Expo Line Extension Almost $1 Billion Over Budget!
You just got to love the NDP, as this hapless crew love budget breaking FastFerry style mega projects. Remember the FastFerries? The financial stench from that fiasco hung around the neck of the NDP as a fiscal Albatross for over twenty years and you would have thought that they would have learned…………..but no, they are at it again!
The Site c dam is another brazen example example as spiraling costs which has now topped $16 billion, which wind completed, its power will cost far more than wind or solar power. Now the 18 km Langley Expo line extension has escalated from $3.1 billion to $3.95 billion and I know, small potatoes by today’s standards, but it will be regional taxpayer’s feeling Prime Minister Trudeau’s and Premier Horgan’s financial largess.
The Langley Expo line extension will cost a whopping $247 million per kilometre to build!
In comparison, the full build, 130 km Leewood Projects, Leewood Study, for a reinstated passenger rail service connecting Vancouver to North Delta, Cloverdale, Langley, Abbotsford, Vedder/Sardis anf Chilliwack, with a maximum of three trains per hour per direction is $1,207,692,027.00) or $8.71 million per km in 2021 dollars.
The Leewood Study would give 122 km more of a transportation route for less than one third the cost of building SkyTrain from Surrey to Langley!
The Horgan government seems to want to top the previous 90’s Glenn Clark, NDP government with mega project cost overruns for vote getting, politically prestigious projects.
Zwei received the following Email from our friend Haveacow, who has done some quick research on the funding issue.
According to an unnamed source of your Vancouver Sun newspaper, the total cost of the project is, get this, $3.95 Billion! (UNCONFIRMED)*That price does include 6 new 5 section trainsets (30 cars), a new large capacity yard (The mysterious Yard#4) and I’m assuming integration costs.*Keep in mind the new business case has yet to be written. The new federal funding is part of the Covid-19 relief package. The province of B.C. still has to put in its share and Translink’s 10%- 20%
*$1.65 Billion in existing funding from Translink’s 10 year vision plan*$1.3 Billion in new Federal funding.*That leaves around a $1 Billion hole for the Province and Translink to fill.*The new business case has to be written and the project must still go out to tender.*If the $3.95 Billion price tag is true this line now costs with everything included, this line costs $246,875,000 per km, for how many new riders in 2035? That’s a big bill for 62,000 passengers.*All being loaded on to a 35 year old line, in desperate need for major ($3) billion dollar upgrades.*The Expo Line (prepandemic) was at capacity. Translink has currently only entertained one option to respond to this issue, to buy bigger trains 82 metres long (5 sections long or in layman’s terms 5 cars long) to increase its capacity to just 18,000 p/h/d from its current 15,000 p/h/d.*Unfortunately, none of the big upgrades needed are funded. Your downtown tunnel Dunismuir Tunnel is leaking by the way.
Trudeau And Horgan Codemn Metro Vancouver And the Fraser Valley to Gridlock Hell
SkyTrain, the Edsel of Rapid Transit
An election is coming and time to bribe the voters with their own money.
So the the PM, needing cheap politcal points, helps our the premier with $1.3 billion announcement to fulfill his politcal promise made in the last election to Langley voters to extend the Expo line to their city.
Whether this is new funding or just reannounced funding is anyone’s guess, but it makes for a nice photo-op.
MALM is the 6th rebranding of the proprietary railway, first marketed as ICTS and quickly rebranded ALRT for sale to the BC Government because ICTS was deemed as obsolete as an Edsel!
MALM is an orphan system, obsolete by today’s standards, which is now owned by Alstom after they purchased Bombardier’s troubled rail division.
The announced extension will be a financial albatross around the taxpayer’s necks for generations as higher operational and maintenance costs at the Surrey/Langley end will erode present bus services.
In an age of unprecedented investment in rail transit systems around the world, not one city has copied Vancouver and not one city has copied Vancouver’s exclusive use of a proprietary light metro system for regional transit.
The $3.1 billion cost for the line to Langley is almost twice McCallum’s campaign estimate of $1.65 billion.
Prime Minister Trudeau and Premier Horgan have announced endemic gridlock in the Fraser Valley for decades to come. Well done!
Feds pledge $1.3B to finish Langley SkyTrain extension, funding to plan UBC extension
By Amy Judd Global NewsPosted July 9, 2021
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced federal funding for the Surrey to Langley SkyTrain project.
Speaking in Surrey, B.C. on Friday, Trudeau said the federal government will provide up to $1.3 billion dollars for the Surrey to Langley SkyTrain extension.
This includes an elevated extension of 16 kilometres and eight stations.
“This will cut commute times and make your lives easier,” Trudeau said.
He also said the federal government will invest up to 40 per cent for the SkyTrain extension from Arbutus to UBC.
Trudeau said this was a second big day of announcements for British Columbians, following the news about $10 a day child care on Thursday.
Joining Trudeau was Minister of Infrastructure and Communities Catherine McKenna, British Columbia Premier John Horgan, British Columbia Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Rob Fleming, British Columbia Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy George Heyman, Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum, City of Langley Mayor Val van den Broek, and TransLink Interim CEO Gigi Chen-Kuo.
This federal funding was the third piece of the project needed. Provincial and TransLink portions of the SkyTrain project have already been committed.
Current funding for the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain expansion will only take the line six stops from King George Station to 166th Street in Surrey’s Fleetwood neighbourhood.
Langley Mayor Val van den Broek said in June the final piece of the puzzle to get the trains out to 203 Street in her city is a funding commitment from the federal government.
Reality Check For Autonomous Buses
Ah, the poor futurists, their utopia of driverless buses have had a major setback, as a three year test in Vienna has ended with a;
Unsuitable for use in practice.
Paris also had an unsuccessful trial that ended in 2019.
For all those clamoring for autonomous buses, cars and trucks, please take note, the proverbial, rain, snow and sleet, combined with fog, wind and even daisies caused the buses to be driven in manual.
From Zwei’s point of view, would not the investment in autonomous buses be better spent in designing better and more unfriendly buses?
Autonomous bus does not prove itself in Vienna After three years, Vienna ends its project with autonomous buses from NAVYA. Conclusion: Unsuitable for use in practice.
The state of the art in self-propelled shuttles is not sufficient for use in everyday life. This is the conclusion drawn by Wiener Linien, the largest public transport operator in Austria’s capital, after three years of test operation: “The project has shown that the road to autonomous driving in local passenger transport is still a long one.” On Wednesday, the autonomous buses of the navya company rolled for the last time through the young district of Seestadt north of the Danube. Since April 2018, the two shuttle buses have been used first in a garage and on a university campus and then from June 2019 in public passenger test operation in Seestadt. More than 12,000 kilometres were driven at a maximum of 20 km/h and more than 8,000 passengers were transported. Without the coronavirus pandemic, even more people would certainly be driving, even if autonomous driving can lead to nausea.
Wiener Linien diplomatically calls the result “mixed”: “Both in summer and in winter there are still weather-related problems. Strong winds as well as light snowfall, heavy rain or fog ensure that the e-buses have to be controlled manually. For the continuous use of the vehicles on a regular basis, the market still has to cope with numerous tasks.” The project website has already been removed, a follow-up project is not planned. Ideal test field The Seestadt would be ideal for the slow autonomously driving buses. Urban planners have deliberately left a lot of space and at the same time given cars little space. “The use case in Seestadt was a perfect environment for NAVYA to test the autonomous buses,” said NAVYA Sales Manager Jean-Michel Boëz, “Our buses are ideal for new neighborhoods where there is a need for public transport and space for cars is deliberately reduced.”*However, a young district brings with it that something is constantly changing. Therefore, NAVYA had to constantly re-record the route used and even try to predict new conditions. “The environment itself was a challenge, as it was constantly changing due to construction work, etc., causing our team to continuously adapt the route, as well as predicting future work to ensure the smoothest possible operation,” boëz explained. No flowers, more asphalt The extent of the problem was already evident during the first autonomous test drives in April 2018: the track had been mapped in March, when it was still cold in Vienna. Two weeks later it was warm, and the buses always stopped automatically in the same place. Only after some searching was the “obstacle” found: Daisies had grown from a column in the road surface. This disturbed the artificial intelligence of the autonomous vehicle.
Bombardier’s Skeletons Draining Cash From Alstom
Zwei knew all would not be happiness with Alstom’s acquisition of Bombardier Inc. Lingering court cases, lawsuits and other criminal intrigue with the Yongin and Kuala Lumpor ART systems (that is SkyTrain in TransLink Speak) and other issues pertaining to the now called Movia Automatic Light Metro System (erroneously called SkyTrain), must be causing acute indigestion with the new owner.
One wonders is the proprietary MALM light metro is one of those skeletons? With only one customer for the aging light-metro and no sales for over 15 years, one wonders if Alstom will “cut and run” and abandon production, freeing up production space for more lucrative transportation products.
It certainly fits the reason why TransLink hired a glorified spin doctor from the USA and not a person with credible transportation credentials as the new CEO.
When I asked a transportation engineer in Baltimore, where Translink’s CEO last worked, about his stint with the MTA, I got this reply.
You are about to get a new CEO of TransLink in the person of Kevin Quinn. This is a good news/bad news situation. good news is we are rid of him, bad news you are getting him.
Mr Quinn may be the nicest yes man you will ever meet. he is very personable and friendly but have yet to actually see him in 6yrs have an opinion of his own. and if he has any use for light rail he has kept it well hidden.
Hopefully you will have better luck than Baltimore, ridership is off (before pandemic) 2% year over year since he took over.
Good luck!
Skeletons indeed!
Lingering Bombardier ‘skeletons’ draining cash from Alstom in rocky integration
Expects costly and painful months ahead to turn Bombardier rail operations around
Jul 05, 2021
Alstom SA Chief Executive Officer Henri Poupart-Lafarge expects costly and painful months ahead as the rail-equipment maker works to turn around the flagging operations of the Canadian rival it acquired.
Alstom is set to detail on Tuesday a path for improving profitability for the combined group after the Bombardier deal was sealed in January. Alstom is forecasting a cash drain in the first half of this year and a return to pre-acquisition margin levels only in the 2024-2025 fiscal year, according to a statement.
The shares fell as much as 8.2 per cent in early trading in Paris, the steepest intraday drop since March last year, and were down 4.3 per cent at 11:53 a.m. local time.
There will be “no more skeletons” going forward, he said in an interview, saying provisions for problematic contracts related to Bombardier have been capped at the roughly 1.08 billion euros ($1.3 billion) already announced. “The key element is to turn around Bombardier.”
Alstom has won major large train orders in recent months, benefiting from a wave of investment in carbon-free transport. But integrating Bombardier’s business has been a rocky process.
Alstom is forecasting negative cash flow in the first half of this fiscal year of between 1.6 billion euros and 1.9 billion euros, according to the statement. This will lead to “significant” negative free cash flow for the full year.
This is due to higher spending to make up for delivery delays and mismanagement related to ex-Bombardier orders, Poupart-Lafarge said. These are in countries like the U.K. and Switzerland and will require Alstom to raise train deliveries by 35 per cent.
On the brighter side, Alstom is looking at additional spending in the U.S. on infrastructure under the Biden administration as “upside potential,” he said.
In Europe, the biggest markets will be Germany along with Italy, Spain and Portugal — southern countries set to spend under the region’s stimulus package.
Key highlights
- Alstom sees significant negative free cash flow this fiscal year including between negative EU1.6 billion and negative EU1.9 billion in the first half.
- “Stabilization” of Bombardier legacy contracts in two or three years.
- Adjusted EBIT margin to reach between 8 per cent and 10 per cent from 2024-25 onwards vss 5 per cent pro forma.
- Yearly positive free cash flow toward mid-term target.
- Order backlog stands at 74.5 billion eurosGoal to expand global market share by 5 percentage points to 36 per cent: CEO
The Collapse of U.S. Public Transit?
Interesting article and well worth reading; not all is happiness in transit land.
From Zwei’s almost 40 years advocating for better transit and more affordable transit planning in the region, it seems those in charge are afraid of change. The same thing is done over and over again, ever hoping for different results, because that is the way it always has been done. TransLink’s near religious faith in light-metro is testament to that.
Despite many shortcomings of light-metro, especially the costs involved, TransLink advises politicians with questionable studies that light metro is the only way to go. Sadly local politicos have little knowledge on transit issues and have been walked all over by the entrenched “SkyTrain Lobby”.
Europe faced the same sort of transit crisis in the 1970’s and 80’s, but with modern light rail, low floor cars, modern operating procedures and very user friendly operation the tide turned and good public transit is seen as a necessity of a modern city. Indeed the most successful public transit systems in Europe are very user-friendly because planners and politicians make sure that the transit is built to satisfy customer wants. Karlsruhe’s famed TramTrains are result of planners designing transit to meet customer needs.
Planning for affordable user-friendly transit is unheard of in metro Vancouver.
A Karlshrue TramTrain, winding through Bad Wildbad. TramTrains were first conceived to overcome a troublesome transfer at the main rail station, by providing a direct service; a true seamless journey.
It is also interesting that TransLink’s announced their new CEO, Kevin Quinn, with all the hype and hoopla they could muster.
Quinn is currently the Administrator and Chief Executive Officer of the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA), overseeing one of the largest multi-modal transit systems in the United States including subway, bus, and paratransit modes.
He has served as CEO of the MTA since 2017, focusing on customer experience and employee engagement, overseeing the development of customer-facing real-time tracking technology for local bus and commuter rail service, and introducing the agency’s first mobile payment app. Prior to his role as CEO, Kevin was the Director of Planning and Programming for MTA, responsible for implementing a complete overhaul and rebranding of the core transit system, including the introduction of new, high-frequency bus lines.
Kevin holds a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from Johns Hopkins University. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP).
What TransLink and it’s rather inept board did not say was Baltimore’s transit operations has been hemorrhaging ridership. Zwei has been told from sources within the MTA, that pre covid, ridership is off 2% per year for some time.
Zwei received the following email from a planning engineer in Baltimore;
You are about to get a new CEO of TransLink in the person of Kevin Quinn. This is a good news/bad news situation. good news is we are rid of him, bad news you are getting him.
Mr Quinn may be the nicest yes man you will ever meet. he is very personable and friendly but have yet to actually see him in 6yrs have an opinion of his own. and if he has any use for light rail he has kept it well hidden.
hopefully you will have better luck than Baltimore, ridership is off (before pandemic) 2% year over year since he took over.
Good luck
Getting a John-Hopkins trained spin-doctor as TransLink’s new CEO, , instead of someone who understands transit and transportation issues is hardly reassuring.
The Complex 50-Year Collapse of U.S. Public Transit
ByA new analysis of a half-century of transportation patterns in U.S. cities shows how the share of transit commuters has plunged in most — but not all — metro regions since 1970.
Back in 1970, 77 million Americans commuted to work every day, and 9% of them took a bus or a train. By 2019, the number of U.S. workers had nearly doubled, to more than 150 million. But the vast majority of these new workers chose to drive: The number of public transit riders increased by only around 1 million during those years, and their share of the country’s overall commuters collapsed to 5%.
That historic shift reflects several broad trends in U.S. life, including suburbanization patterns and urban highway expansion, the growth of the car-friendly Sunbelt, and the depopulation of once-robust industrial cities. But fundamentally, the fading usefulness of public transit is a result of the fundamental lack of integration between federal transportation and land-use authorities, says Yonah Freemark, a senior research associate with the Urban Institute.
“In a number of other countries, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development are combined in one entity,” he says. “In the United States, we ended up with two different entities.” As a result, housing and mobility needs have been poorly aligned; the landscape is laden with housing that lacks access to public transportation, light rail lines that course through sparsely settled areas, and too many cities whose transit networks can’t connect riders with jobs.
But as Freemark’s new analysis of commuting data shows, based on his database of long-term trends in U.S. metros, regional patterns reveal a more complex story. Some cities have bucked national trends and gained transit commuters over the last 50 years. Coastal cities like New York City, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, Seattle, and Boston saw an increase of hundreds of thousands of transit commuters between 1970 and 2019. Pre-pandemic, 3 million New Yorkers commuted by bus, subway and train daily — 500,000 more than in 1970 — and the region’s share of transit commuters held relatively steady.
The flip side of the pattern can be seen in Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland, which lead the list of cities — many in the Rust Belt or the South — that have shed tens of thousands of transit commuters.
This unequal pattern of transit commuting is even more acute when the share of commuters is taken into account. In New Orleans, for example, nearly a quarter of residents got to work via bus and streetcar in 1970. By 2019, only about 5% did. Similar drops are seen in smaller industrial cities like Buffalo, Richmond, Cleveland and Milwaukee. “In the 1970s, use of public transportation was really common in cities all across the country no matter their size,” says Freemark. Now, widespread transit commuting is a phenomenon limited largely to large coastal metropolitan areas. “Other regions don’t have realizable public transportation people can depend on.”
Cities where transit use has seen massive reductions tend to be those that have endured deindustrialization and suburbanization during the last 50 years, with a concurrent rise in investments in highways designed to shuttle car-driving commuters in and out of town. “These used to be places that had really successful downtowns, but now most of their workforce has suburbanized,” says Freemark.
The profoundly unequal geography of U.S. transit reflects — and contributes to — the economic gaps that have grown between cities; as struggling metros have shed jobs and wealth, their ability to maintain useful transit systems has likewise declined. “Most money that goes for transportation comes from state and local governments, and their ability to invest is based on their resources,” says Freemark. Poorer regions don’t have enough income to invest in transit, which in turn hampers economic growth even more. “It’s a negative spiral, a vicious cycle; there’s a trap situation going on.”
here are lessons to be learned from the handful of cities — all in the western U.S. — that have managed to grow their share of transit commuters since 1970, Freemark’s analysis concludes. In Seattle and San Francisco, for example, the city has made efforts to centralize jobs in downtown areas, and they boast extensive rail networks that can reach a larger share of commuters in the region. Seattle has also invested heavily in upgrading its bus service, while San Francisco reduced fares for people with low incomes. In Salt Lake City, housing growth in neighborhoods around transit has been prioritized; Portland’s urban growth boundary has been effective in limiting car-centric sprawl.
Not every region has the means to make the kind of transit investments that would be needed to bring riders back to their 1970 levels, and there’s no question that reversing the effects of a half-century of transit-unfriendly land-use decisions is a tall order. But it’s also increasingly urgent, given the role of car-centric planning in boosting greenhouse gas emissions. “The federal government could play an important job filling the gap” between wealthy and struggling cities, says Freemark. “But they haven’t done that yet.”
Trackless Tram Scam
Our mainstream media always over-hypes the latest gadgetbahnen, or transit miracle from elsewhere, which turns out to be a yesterday’s failed transit experiment that was sold off on the cheap to let someone else try to sell it to rubes. This sensationalist reporting seldom, if ever reports that the very same transit miracle, in reality is a repackaged and rebranded proprietary transit system, from 20 years ago, reappearing like Marley’s ghost.
Case in point, the trackless tram or optically guided bus.
Years ago, when TransLink was extremely unhappy with my letters in the local newspapers regarding their planning of the day, I was summoned to TransLink’s golden towers for a session in their “Star Chamber”.
The Star Chamber (Latin: Camera stellata) was an English court which sat at the royal Palace of Westminster, from the late 15th century to the mid-17th century (c. 1641). The Star Chamber became synonymous with social and political oppression through the arbitrary use and abuse of the power it wielded.
I was shown videos of rapid bus as the way of the future. The videos showed an optically guided bus from the Netherlands and several guided buses, including the German O-Bahn. Being an almost 20 year member of the LRTA, I was was more than familiar with the modes shown and much to the astonishment of the chap who was supposed to dictate to me, I gave him a lesson about each mode. Unhappiness prevailed, but I do remember that with the subject of optically guided buses, a recent article I read pointed to the problems of optically guided buses operating in rain and snow.
Rains and snows in Vancouver, doesn’t it?
TransLink ceased communications with me since.
China has been acquiring obsolete or unmarketable transit modes to gain technology on the cheap and when such modes are built, they would like to sell them to recoup the initial investment. The trackless tram or optically guided bus is one of these, but after 25 years the same problems persist, they operate poorly or not at all in snow and heavy rain and of course it is a bus and suffers from the problems associated when comparing a bus to a tram.
The trackless tram scam is more about “locking in” an operator with a proprietary transit mode, just what the UTDC and Bombardier did with ALRT/ART/MALM on the Expo and Millennium lines, than offering an affordable and user friendly public transit alternative.
Caveat emptor!
An optically guided trolley bus in Bologna, Italy.
Light rail report cautions against ‘unproven’ trackless trams
15 June 2021
CRRC Zhuzhou Autonomous Rail Rapid Transit ‘railless train’ on test in Zhuzhou
AUSTRALIA: The Australasian Railway Association has published a report highlighting the social benefits of light rail and making recommendations to help support future development, and also cautioning against ‘gambling’ with what ARA describes as unproven and untested ‘trackless tram’ technology-guided bus systems.
The Renaissance of Light Rail report which ARA commissioned from RPS Group found that trackless trams have been attracting interest because their implementation costs are said to be 50% to 65% lower per kilometre than conventional light rail and 90% cheaper than a metro. However, it says trackless trams are ‘a largely unproven mode’ which has had limited use globally, with technologies being considered in Australia being currently limited to Zhuzhou and Yibin in China.
A number of guided bus systems outside Australia were being decommissioned owing to challenges with delivering reliable services; examples cited included Eindhoven, Nancy and Caen, as well as buses designed with tram-like features in York and Las Vegas.
Concerns raised by the report include operation in snow, heavy rain and fog, regulatory requirements, a need to design road surfaces specifically for trackless trams, and proprietary technologies meaning supplier lock-in and a lack of competition in the market.
‘International experience has shown that while the technology may offer lower costs in the beginning, problems delivering reliable and comfortable journeys can lead to trackless trams being retired after a relatively short time in operation’, said ARA Chief Executive Caroline Wilkie.
Light rail in Sydney
The report also reviews light rail lines in Australia and elsewhere, assessing the circumstances where light rail is a better option than bus, bus rapid transit or heavy rail. It says light rail is well suited to areas where urban renewal is desired, and is the mode of choice when catering for high passenger volumes and a need for frequent stops.
Gold Coast light rail
Recommendations include refining policy frameworks to assess the broader benefits of light rail projects and take into account their impact on ‘place’ outcomes alongside the traditional transport benefits, developing a co-ordinated funding approach including engagement with local government stakeholders, and reducing delivery risks through an improved approach to risk sharing including for utility works.
‘Australia and New Zealand are already experiencing a renaissance of light rail as governments recognise the ease of access, connection and sense of community that can be realised from effective transport planning’, said Wilkie. ‘Light rail is an invaluable part of the wider transport network and offers real value as part of urban renewal efforts to meet population growth in our cities.’
Why the Mexico City Metro Collapsed
First, I must state that the elevated guideway for the Expo, Millennium, and Canada Lines are a completely different build than Mexico’s Metro system and such an accident would not happen, but there are several issues with concrete construction that should give pause for concern.
The quideways must be inspected at regular intervals, to check for structural issues. As TransLink is notorious for fudging maintenance inspections, one wonders how regular a full guideway inspection is?
The following from the New York Times give us plausible reasons for the metro’s guideway collapse.
Is anyone at TransLink listening?
“Why the Mexico City Metro Collapsed:”
A Letter to South Fraser Mayor’s and Councils
Mayor and Council,
The recent poll conducted by Mario Canseco ResearchCo, showed an 88% support for the reinstatement of a passenger rail service in the Fraser Valley.
The ongoing population shift to the upper Fraser Valley needs a transportation alternative to the highway, where local roads are now seeing Vancouver style congestion.
Foreseeing this, in 2009, the Rail for the Valley engaged Leewood Projects (UK) to do an independent feasibility study of using the former BC Electric railway route, reinstating the former interurban route from Vancouver to Chilliwack.
Released in September 2010, the Leewood Study showed that not only a passenger service feasible, reinstating a passenger rail service was affordable.
The Leewood Study can be accessed on the Rail for the Valley website at
In 2021, adjusting for inflation, a regional passenger rail service is still very affordable, when compared to extending the Expo Line light metro, which now has a base cost in excess of $200 million per km to build!
The Leewood Study found that a Scott Road Station to Chilliwack passenger service, adjusted for inflation for 2021 dollars, would be $594,847,133.00) or $6.07m per km).
Leewood Projects felt this would be a good starter service of two trains per hour per direction (a 30 minute service).
The more extensive and user-friendly, 138 km.Vancouver to Rosedale passenger service would cost $1,207,692,027.00) or $8.71 million per km in 2021 dollars
The service would see a maximum of three trains per hour per direction (20 minute service), with a total journey time of 90 minutes from Chilliwack to Scott Road.
Having a direct service to Vancouver would be faster than transferring to SkyTrain and the 45 minute trip to downtown Vancouver and the author of the report felt that by not going into Vancouver, would be detriment for attracting new customers.
Rail for the Valley, upon advice from Leewood Projects, would use modern light diesel multiple units (DMU’s), as there are many suppliers, providing a wide range of product. Modern low-floor DMU’s have wheelchair accessible W.C.’s and some models also offer a “Bistro Car”, serving light refreshments for longer trips.
Those who propose extending the Expo line to Langley and beyond ignore serious problems with the linear induction motor (LIM) powered vehicles, used on the Expo Line and today’s higher costs of operating LIM powered trains.
Light metro was never conceived to be regional railway, but for only inner city use, designed to be a cheaper alternative to subway construction.
Light metro is very costly to operate and in 1992, the GVRD found that just the Expo Line, just from Vancouver to New Westminster was subsidized by $157 million annually, more than the combined diesel and electric bus operations!
Being driverless, the LIM powered transit systems operate extremely poorly in snow!
For many operational issues, only seven of the LIM powered proprietary light metro systems have been built since 1980 and the product has been rebranded six times and today is called Movia Automatic Light Metro or MALM.!
The French transportation giant, Alstom, has purchased Bombardier’s rail division, including MALM and the company has a record of abandoning transportation products that are poor sellers. As MALM has a rather dismal sales record and ongoing legal issues in Korea and Malaysia, it will be of no surprise that Alstom discontinues LIM powered MALM, leaving the remaining operators scrambling for expensive and ever more scarce spare parts!
Today’s modern DMU’s have many suppliers and most parts are interchangeable, greatly lowering maintenance costs.
A Vancouver to Chilliwack DMU service using existing railways is the affordable approach of providing a user-friendly transportation alternative to the car and the modern DMU has become the favoured mode of today’s transportation planner.
The choice facing regional politicians and planners is stark. A $1.7 billion, 7 km. extension of the Expo line in Surrey, which will not attract the motorist from the car and the vague political promise to spend another $1.7 billion to extend the Expo Line to Langley, sometime post 2030 for a total of $3.4 billion plus, if completed.
Or, a $1.21 billion regional DMU service from Chilliwack, connecting Sardis, Vedder Crossing, Abbotsford, Langley, Cloverdale, central Surrey, North Delta to New Westminster, Burnaby, and Vancouver and the many destinations (post secondary institutions and business parks) within easy walking distance from the route.
A regional DMU service will be a major tourist draw, giving easy access for those visiting Vancouver to explore the Fraser Valley, without need of a car.
The recent poll indicating a massive positive response in reestablishing a passenger rail service from Chilliwack to Vancouver cannot be ignored.
The daily congestion and gridlock on the Hwy. 1 cannot be ignored.
The pollution caused by road traffic cannot be ignored.
The need for a viable and affordable transportation alternative cannot be ignored.
Rail for the Valley’s Leewood Study provides the framework for an affordable and proven 21st century transportation solution, instead of bigger and wider highways, which will attract more cars, leading to even greater future congestion and gridlock.
Using existing railways, greatly reduces the cost of rail transit and by doing so, enables a larger rail network, providing more destinations, which has proven to attract new ridership, especially the motorist from the car.
Do not be left at the station, waiting for exotic solutions that will never come, but jump on board a modern 21st century DMU, calling at all stations to Vancouver!
Rail for the Valley
Addendum
The Stadler Flirt DMU, now being used on Ottawa’s Trillium Line. The modular design allows the DMU to increase capacity affordably, by adding modules as ridership grows.
A 2020 cost 50 year cost comparison by Ontario’s Metrolinx showing the 50 year financing on a per kilometre basis. SkyTrain’s 50 year costs would be somewhat higher than elevated LRT and the proposed Valley Rail would be much less than that of a bus.
SkyTrain – Eight myths and the facts
Facts do not change and with SkyTrain, the world understands the facts about this proprietary light metro system; unfortunately our politicians and bureaucrats do not.
We now live in an age of fake news and alternative facts and the SkyTrain lobby and TransLink with their well oiled propaganda machine exploit this extremely well.
Their most recent success is the claim that Broadway is the busiest transit corridor in Canada, if not North America, yet when faced with possible legal action over the claim, they backed down and merely claimed that “Broadway was the most congested transit corridor“.
The following was published in 2009 to try to add “fact” in the regional transit debate and “fact” is something sorely missing with TransLink’s and the Mayor’s Council on Transit’s utter stupid, yet hugely expensive transit planning.
For those who still want to believe in “sparkle ponies” and “pixie dust” SkyTrain planning, the proprietary light metro has now been rebranded six times, yet not one new build system has been sold in 15 years.
With Alstom now owning the proprietary SkyTrain system or more correctly called Movia Automatic Light Metro, the end of production and the abandonment of the proprietary railway will be much sooner than what many think.
First published in 2009.
Oh what tangled webs we weave, when we first practice to deceive!
Since 1980, when SkyTrain was imposed on the region, the SkyTrain lobby abetted by politicians, bureaucrats, and the media, have created a grand SkyTrain myth which is now taken as fact. Lenin’s quote, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth“, is certainly true of the SkyTrain lobby, when defending their beloved light-metro system. Despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, the SkyTrain light-metro system has found a very expensive niche in the ‘Metro Vancouver’ culture and with TransLink and the Minister of Transportation, Kevin Falcon, championing more SkyTrain construction for the region, let us now explore eight SkyTrain myths. A general warning must be issued: the following maybe harmful to the SkyTrain lobby.
Myth #1 – SkyTrain is faster than LRT.
Not true. LRT tram-trains, with speeds in excess of 100 kph, edge out SkyTrain for being faster mode. What is true is that most LRT lines have many more stops per route km., thus having lower commercial speeds than light-metro. Streetcar systems of course have low commercial speeds because they run in mixed traffic because of this, many streetcars or trams have smaller (cheaper) motors for such operation.
An identical LRT/SkyTrain line, having identical stops, would have identical commercial speeds.
The St. Louis LRT system actually has a higher commercial speed than SkyTrain.
Myth #2 – Speed of SkyTrain, alone, attracts people to transit.
Not true. The speed of the transit system is not as important as the SkyTrain lobby would have you think. What is true, if the total travel time (doorstep to doorstep) using transit, is equal to or even slightly more than alternatives, then public transit will attract customers. The actual speed of SkyTrain or LRT trip is only part of the complete ‘transit’ trip package, which would include walking time or taking a bus (if need be) and transfers. Recent studies (Hass-Klau) have concluded that even ‘speed’ is not as important as the over all ambiance of the transit system, ease of use, and ease of ticketing, for attracting customers, especially the motorist from the car.
Myth #3 – SkyTrain is safer than LRT.
Not true. Though this contentious topic sends many of the SkyTrain lobby into fits of apoplexy, the facts are completely opposite. The death rate on SkyTrain is about twice of that of Calgary’s LRT (both transit systems carry high volumes of traffic), yet TransLink and others would have us think differently. The SkyTrain lobby wrongly assumes that all deaths on SkyTrain are suicides and all deaths on LRT is not. Why suicides are supposed to be ignored and other deaths are not, is a sad reflection on those wanting to build with the light metro. According to the Light Rail Transit Association modern LRT/tram is the safest public transit mode in the world.
Myth #4 – SkyTrain attracts more customers than LRT.
Not true. There is no study comparing SkyTrain and LRT, that shows that ‘rail’ mode (light metro/light rail) alone is a determining factor in attracting transit customers. Calgary’s LRT has consistently attracted more customers than SkyTrain. What is true that all ‘rail’ transit modes are far better attracting new customers than buses.
Myth #5 – SkyTrain costs less to operate than LRT.
Not true. This old saw is repeated so often that it has been ingrained as a fact. Early on, it has been found that SkyTrain light-metro, despite being automatic and having no drivers, was much more expensive to operate than LRT systems the same size. As far back as 1990, it was found that SkyTrain cost over 80% more to operate than Calgary’s LRT system, despite the fact Calgary’s C-Train carried more people. Today the figure has dropped to about 60% more to operate.
Myth #6 – SkyTrain has a higher capacity than LRT.
Not true. The capacity game has been far overplayed by the SkyTrain lobby as capacity is a “function of headway“. Any dual tracked LRT/streetcar/tram line can carry over 20,000 persons per hour per direction, as true for SkyTrain. Studies, including Gerald Fox’s A Comparison of AGT and LRT Systems and the Toronto Transit Commission’s ART Study, have found that the capacities for SkyTrain and LRT are about the same.
Please note: The Expo and millennium Line’s maximum legal capacity as per Transport Canada’s Operating certificate is a maximum capacity of 15,000 pphpd.
Myth #7 – LRT delays traffic at intersections.
Not true. TransLink and the SkyTrain lobby become hysterical with the myth that LRT delays traffic at intersections. The fact is, there is less delay than a regular light controlled intersection and no delay for LRT. The logic is troublesome for if LRT delays traffic to such an extent, why don’t other light controlled intersections cause traffic chaos? Shall we ban all light controlled intersections because they delay traffic?
Myth #8 – SkyTrain pays its operating costs.
Not true. TransLink trots out this little gem every once in a while for some positive spin when things go wrong on SkyTrain. TransLink and the SkyTrain lobby quietly forgets that SkyTrain is subsidized by the provincial government at over $200 million annually! In the United States, where many transit initiatives are passed by referendum, the total cost of the project is told, as well as financing options. Example: Seattle’s LRT is said to cost over $10 billion, but that is the total cost of the project including debt servicing! To date, the taxpayer does not not know the total cost of SkyTrain or even RAV, nor how it is financed. The $200 million plus annual subsidy has now put the cost of SkyTrain at over $6 billion dollars. If SkyTrain was really paying its operating costs, it would not need a $200 million subsidy! Note: Dublin’s and Nottingham’s new LRT lines operate at a profit after paying their annual debt servicing charges.
All what Rail for the Valley wants is a ‘level playing field’ when planning for region ‘rail’ transit and not TransLink inspired pro SkyTrain nonsense. Isn’t it odd, that after being on the market for over 30 years, SkyTrain has failed to find a market in North America and Europe and that the owners of the proprietary SkyTrain have forbidden the system to compete in an open bidding process against modern light-rail. “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
Recent Comments