Posted by zweisystem on November 17, 2020 · 5 Comments
It verifies what we all knew: that TransLink underestimated the capacity of surface rail by 150% and the time penalty by infinity.
Professor Patrick M. Condon, James Taylor Chair in Landscape and Livable Environments, UBC
Yes we all knew; American Transportation Expert, Gerald Fox told us in 2008:
The Evergreen Line Report made me curious as to how TransLink could justify continuing to expand SkyTrain, when the rest of the world is building LRT. So I went back and read the alleged Business Case (BC) report in a little more detail. I found several instances where the analysis had made assumptions that were inaccurate, or had been manipulated to make the case for SkyTrain. If the underlying assumptions are inaccurate, the conclusions may be so too.
We were also warned about ALRT (SkyTrain) back in the early 1980’s!
Our politicians, academics, and the mainstream media knew, but did not heed, either blinded by gadgetbahnen envy or were too easily bought and thus continues the planning charade that has so distorted our regional transit planning today.
Tram Capacity to UBC has been grossly understated:
Given the characteristics of the tram’s exclusive lane corridor listed above, a 2.5 minute headway is achievable. This is roughly 60% more practical capacity than a 4 minute headway.
Let us also remember:
- The Millennium Line’s legal capacity, as per Transport Canada’s Operating Certificate is 15,000 pphpd.
- In the 1940’s and 50’s Toronto’s Bloor Danforth streetcar line operate coupled sets of PCC cars, offing a capacity of 12,500 pphpd.
- In Karlsruhe Germany, because of the success of TramTrain was seeing peak hour capacity of in excess of 30,000 pphpd.
Who says, LRT has less capacity than SkyTrain?
The Gelbe Wand or Yellow Wall of trams in Karlsruhe, Germany
As Gerald Fox summed up:
It is interesting how TransLink has used this cunning method of manipulating analysis to justify SkyTrain in corridor after corridor, and has thus succeeded in keeping its proprietary rail system expanding. In the US, all new transit projects that seek federal support are now subjected to scrutiny by a panel of transit peers, selected and monitored by the federal government, to ensure that projects are analyzed honestly, and the taxpayer interests are protected. No SkyTrain project has ever passed this scrutiny in the US.
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Background
In the Jan 2019 UBC transit report1, we see the demand forecast for transit options of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), Light Rail Transit (LRT or street-running tram) and RRT (skytrain or ‘light-metro’). It is clear from the two pictures below, that RRT is the ‘winner’ or preferred option (as represented in the Jan 2019 report):
As an explanation to the charts immediately above, the 2019 report explains:
“ LRT ridership is forecast at about 60% that of RRT, partly because of slower travel times and the transfer penalty, but also because of capacity limitations. The increased speed, reliability and capacity of RRT attracts more ridership from latent and suppressed demand and better serves total demand along this corridor.”
According to the Jan 2019 study1, because of the following, RRT is the only suitable option for transit to UBC..
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Travel times,
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Transfer penalty
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Capacity
It will be shown that the largest of these factors affecting LRT ridership is capacity. For this reason, this paper discusses the capacity limitation newly introduced by the 2019 study1, that was not a limiting factor in the 2012 study2 and why it is not correct.
For a discussion of the other two factors (travel times and transfer penalty) and why they are smaller factors for transit demand in the UBC corridor and how they are also not incorrect, please see How the UBC transit study changed from 2012 to 2019 and why it is incorrect
The pattern is clear that the 2019 study is making incorrect assumptions which is negating all of its conclusions.
For the rest of the report
Posted by zweisystem on November 15, 2020 · 4 Comments
The Vancouver Model Of Transit Planning:
If you build with light-metro, make damn sure you don’t build LRT anywhere near it
In Quebec, Montreal’s REM Lobby, including the Caisse and city, provincial and federal politicians could not afford to have LRT interfere with their light metro propaganda campaign and made sure Quebec City’s $3.3 billion transit plan was nixed. This is exactly what happens in Metro Vancouver when any LRT plan is put forward.
A quick reminder of the Quebec City plan; for $3.3 billion one got 3.5 km of tunnel, 23 km of LRT, 2 lines totaling 15 km of electric powered BRT, 16 km of fully segregated Bus Lanes and a massive update and upgrade to Quebec City’s Express Bus Network.
In Vancouver $4.6 billion buys you 12.8 km of light metro.
If one does build with LRT near a light-metro one would find very quickly:
- Light metro costs much more to build than LRT
- Light metro costs more to operate and maintain than LRT.
- The long term (50 year) costs are more than double than LRT.
- Light metro lacks the all important flexibility in operation that makes LRT successful.
- LRT has a proven ability to attract the motorist from the car.
The good burghers of Quebec City just found out with their failed attempt to build with light rail, if light metro is being built in their province, in no way LRT will be built.
Quebec City’s tramway plan goes off-track
By Kevin Dougherty. Published on Nov 10, 2020
A proposed $3.3-billion tramway plan for Quebec City roads has gone off the rails.
Although “desirable,” the plan in its current state “should not be authorized,” concludes a 441-page report released Tuesday by Quebec’s Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE), which conducts environmental assessments of major projects in the province.
BAPE hearings were held this summer to seek public comment on the ambitious plan for Quebec City’s tramway project.
“We are not going to (approve) the project,” Quebec Transport Minister François Bonnardel told reporters on Tuesday. “Can it be improved? I say yes,” he said, promising “the best project for the people of Quebec City.”
Bonnardel added he’ll be meeting with Quebec City Mayor Régis Labeaume to discuss changes to the plan, which won’t cost more than the $3.3 billion already budgeted for it.
By easing urban congestion, reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, and maybe helping politicians win elections, the tramway is seen in Quebec as a better way to move people around.
But the BAPE evaluation found that fewer than 10 per cent of trips taken in Quebec City are on public transit.
As well, transit use dropped by 4.2 per cent between 2011 and 2017, while in the same period, car trips rose 12.9 per cent.
Furthermore, with more people working at home during the pandemic, the report suggested that transit options be re-evaluated.
The BAPE report recommends more frequent bus routes, and a subway line with two cars per train, due to the city’s small population.
The greater Quebec City region has a population of about 800,000.
A tramway may be appropriate in the city centre, the report said, but in outlying areas, where the population is less dense, buses might be better.
The BAPE report also said planners considered a monorail.
Some people who attended the BAPE hearings said building the tramway would involve removing or trimming more than 5,000 trees in a city with just 32 per cent tree coverage, less than the desired 40 per cent.
In August 2019, in the lead-up to the Oct. 21 federal election, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau announced in Quebec City that Ottawa would contribute $1.2 billion of the $3.3-billion cost of the provincial capital’s proposed tramway project.
That investment, along with Ottawa’s assurances of more federal contracts for the Chantier Davie Canada shipyard in the nearby town of Lévis, may have helped Treasury Board President Jean-Yves Duclos win re-election in his Quebec City riding in a tight race with a resurgent Bloc Québécois.
Of Quebec City’s seven federal ridings, two are Liberal, three Conservative, and two more are Bloc Québécois, making it a likely election battleground.
After the federal election, in his first meeting with Prime Minister Trudeau, Quebec Premier François Legault asked for federal funding of four more tramway projects in: Montreal’s east end; Gatineau, across the river from Ottawa; the Montreal suburb of Longueuil, and south of Montreal between Chambly and St-Jean-sur-Richelieu.
Ottawa has also committed $1.3 billion to the $4.5-billion extension of Montreal’s blue Métro line.
The Legault government considers the electrification of transit, powered by Hydro-Québec’s surplus electricity, key to meeting its commitment to a 37.5 per cent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030, compared to 1990 levels in the province.
Mayor Labeaume, meanwhile, sees a successful tramway project as the signature achievement of his mandate, overshadowing the $400 million spent on a National Hockey League arena, which was finished in 2015 and still doesn’t have an NHL home team.
Labeaume dismissed the BAPE evaluation as “erroneous, biased, short-sighted, and filled with incoherence.” While 68 per cent of briefs presented at the hearings were favourable to the plan as it was presented, the evaluation sided with its opponents, he said.
The mayor called the evaluation a “back to the future” document, because it called for more frequent bus routes, an approach he rejected in 2017.
“Quebec City is the only city in the country with over 500,000 inhabitants that does not have a rapid transit system,” Labeaume said.
He ridiculed the BAPE suggestion for monorail, as it’s not consistent with the city’s historic character. And building a subway for two-car trains, as one study suggested, would require the same tunnelling as for a six-car train, he added.
Posted by zweisystem on November 12, 2020 · 2 Comments
The NDP’s refusal to give Metro Vancouver’s transit planning an independent review has condemned the region to congestion and gridlock for generations. The billions of dollars spent on rapid transit and the future billions of dollars to be spent expanding rapid transit has and will utterly fail to attract the driver from his/her cars.
The continued planning and building of obsolete light-metro, especially the now called Movia Automatic Light Metro (MALM) system, used on the Expo and Millennium Lines, has condemned the taxpayer to ever increasing ‘transit’ taxes, high fares and onerous user fess.
Breaking News: Mobility or congestion charging is now back on the table to pay for TransLink’s and the Mayor’s Council on Transit’s largess.
The continued use of the now obsolete light-metro, means that the region has now past the point of no return for transit being effective in moving people and the family chariot becomes essential for urban mobility.
How the hell did we get here?
The Broadway Subway
The Broadway subway to Arbutus, is based on the 1990’s Broadway – Lougheed Rapid Transit Project, which saw a planned LRT line being built from Arbutus in Vancouver, east to the Tri-Cities. At the time, the plan was to use light rail on the Arbutus Corridor, giving a direct Richmond to downtown Vancouver light rail service and having the proposed Broadway light rail connecting would give many advantages to transit customers.
The NDP flip-flopped from LRT to Bombardier’s new proprietary Advanced Rapid Transit (ART) system, which was a rebuild of the older Advanced Light Rail Transit (ALRT) system used on the Expo Line. Bombardier Inc. purchased the Ontario Crown Corporation’s Urban Transit Development Corporation (UTDC) at a fire sale price after Lavalin, which originally bought the UTDC, went bankrupt trying to sell the again renamed Advanced Light Metro (ALM), in Bangkok, Thailand. Lavalin returned the UTDC to the Ontario Government and then amalgamated with SNC, to become SNC Lavalin. The Ontario government quickly sold the remains of the UTDC to Bombardier Inc.
The NDP naively purchased ART and forced it onto the GVRD, when Bombardier promised to build an assembly plant in Burnaby for ART cars, with promises of major international sales and many union jobs.
Union jobs, you say? The NDP were all over that!
To sell a ART light metro to the GVRD, the NDP government promised to sweeten the deal by paying to two thirds the cost of ART only construction West of Commercial Drive. The City of Vancouver passed a by-law banning elevated construction and the only option for the driverless light metro was to place it in a subway. Then GVRD Chair and Vancouver Councilor, George Puil, was then offered to be Chair of the newly formed TransLink as a further inducement to build with the proprietary ART light-metro.
The international sales for ART did not materialize; the fabrication plant has been abandoned; union jobs gone; but subway planning continued.
Premier Horgan’s chief advisor; big subway booster and former Vision Vancouver Councillor Geoff Meggs, ensured the Broadway subway was made a transit priority. The problem it’s being built on a route with not even close to the ridership numbers that would demand a subway.
Broadway is not the busiest transit route in Canada, rather according to TransLink, it is their most congested route, which sounds more like a management problem than anything else.
The Broadway subway is now an integral part of the NDP’s election strategy and the City of Vancouver’s desire to be seen as world class, yet being part of the Millennium Line will offer no real advantages to transit customers, except making transit more cumbersome to use. The subway, when built will be force fed bus riders from many routes to pretend the subway is carrying high numbers , just as the Canada and Expo Lines do.
The subway will not reduce congestion.
The Fleetwood Extension
As the potential ridership numbers in Surrey did not warrant a “SkyTrain” extension TransLink was forced kicking and screaming to plan for light rail for BC’s second largest city. TransLink did everything in its power to increase costs, delay planning and in the end, designed the Surrey LRT not as a true tram system, rather a “poor man’s” SkyTrain, doomed to fail in the public’s mind.
Then enter the the 2018 civic elections and the former mayor of Surrey running again for mayor, claimed he was some sort of transit guru and ran on a platform of doing a flip flop from LRT to SkyTrain, and he won.
Shades of the Broadway Lougheed!
Building driverless light metro at grade creates the "Berlin Wall" effect.
His claim about building SkyTrain for the same cost of LRT soon turned out to be ‘porkies’, but TransLink, the provincial and federal governments all approved and SkyTrain it was for Surrey, but not to Langley, but just to Fleetwood, a mere 7 km extension.
The funded costs for the Broadway subway and the Fleetwood extension is $4.6 billion and if there is any money left over, an aerial tramway in Burnaby going to Simon Fraser University.
The problem is for the NDP and Metro Vancouver is that SkyTrain is a classic light metro
Light metro was a 1960’s/70’s transit innovation, before the 1980’s light rail renaissance and was an attempt to to build a small metro type system, much cheaper than a heavy rail metro. The main characteristics were elevated construction (about half the cost of subway construction), small trains operating a close intervals, and automatic (driverless) operation.
Light rail could achieve everything a light metro could do at a cheaper cost and more. By the 1990’s, light metro was deemed obsolete and as most light-metro’s were proprietary, such as Vancouver’s ALRT and later rebranded ART, obsolescence has come quickly.
With light metro, came light metro ‘philosophy’, the raison d’etre for building it.
Many academics at UBC and SFU provided one; densification. Rapid Transit (no one in Metro Vancouver calls our light metro system, light metro) is to be built on routes where densification is to be allowed.
Rapid transit was to be a driver for land development, by up-zoning land to build high rise condos and towers.
Rapid transit ceased to become a cost effective and user friendly transportation tool, rather it was built as a harbinger of densification. And with densification, came land speculation, land assembly and land development. Politicians soon jumped on the bandwagon for rapid transit and light-metro because it made their political friends and insiders very happy and very rich.
The transit customer, not so much, as to pretend that rapid transit was successful, bus customers, were forced to transfer to rapid transit and the vast majority, over 80% of SkyTrain’s ridership, first take the bus and that translates into boarding’s as the average transit commuter makes 4 to 6 boarding’s a day!
The Ghost of Transit Costs to Come
What has been ignored by TransLink, the SkyTrain Booster Club, politicians and academics is that rapid transit comes at a cost.
Funded:
– $4.6 billion for 12.8 km of R/T Line
Unfunded:
– $1.6 billion+ To complete the Expo Line to Langley.
– Up to $3 billion to rehab the aging Expo Line (needed before the Langley extension is completed).
– $1 billion+ – New SkyTrain cars to replace the aging MK.1 stock.
Wish List:
– $4 billion+ – Completion of the Broadway subway to UBC
– $5 billion+ – Sending R/T to the North Shore.
– $2 billion+ – Rehab of the Canada Line to increase capacity beyond its current limit of around 9,000 pphpd.
Honourable Mention:
$70 million+ in extra annual operating costs for the funded subway to Arbutus and Fleetwood extension.
Pandora’s Box of Costs:
The 50 year rehab, finance, operational and capital costs of the SkyTrain light-metro system.
The 50 year costs for SkyTrain are never mentioned and for good reason, they are huge.
The NDP, by supporting further light-metro construction has condemned the region to a very small and very expensive light metro system, ill designed for suburban use.
The small network will mean that it will not be a competitive option for car drivers, nor will it be user friendly. The small light metro cars will be expensive to maintain, uncomfortable for longer journey’s and definitely not user friendly; and that is to be expected because rapid transit has been designed to meet the needs of politicians and their political friends and not for the transit customer.
The result of the NDP’s transit hubris will be more cars on the road, more congestion and more gridlock at classic choke points, such as bridges. More car use will bring demands of more roads and highways, only creating more gridlock and the vicious circle will continue because at a minimum cost of $200 million per km to build, the taxpayer will only be able to afford a short light-metro line every decade.
Rail for the Valley offered a decade ago a viable transportation solution for the Fraser Valley, to reinstate the Vancouver to Chilliwack interurban service, using modern vehicles such as TramTrain or light diesel multiple units. The cost in 2020, around $1.5 billion for over 135 km of route mileage, connecting Vancouver to north Delta, Cloverdale, Langley, Abbotsford, Sardis and Chilliwack, and also connecting the many post secondary institutions and business parks along the route.
For less than the cost of the Expo line extension to Fleetwood, we could have had a much longer passenger line, connecting to many destinations; a transit service that would attract more new ridership than a 7 km SkyTrain extension or a 5.8 km subway under Broadway.
Sadly, for the NDP, just like the BC Liberals, rapid transit is being built to meet their political needs and not the transit customer needs and by doing so, ensuring that the auto is the prime transportation mode in the region.
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone?
The NDP have paved paradise
And turned it into a parking lot.
Posted by zweisystem on November 10, 2020 · Leave a Comment
Lost amidst the hurly burly of the American election and the just announced almost total lock down in BC, a fire at New Westminster Station caused the shutdown of service Sunday morning.
What is interesting is that this fire on the main public transit route to downtown was not given great play in the media and with ridership at all time lows, very few people were affected.
I am afraid this is the “shape of things to come” with the aging Expo Line.
Fire causes SkyTrain service disruption in New Westminster
CTVNewsVancouver.ca
Published Sunday, November 8, 2020
Published Sunday, November 8, 2020 12:24PM PST
SkyTrain cars are seen in this CTV News file image.
VANCOUVER — A SkyTrain service disruption that began Sunday morning was caused by a fire at New Westminster Station, according to TransLink.
The transit provider has not provided any further details about the fire, including a possible cause and whether the flames broke out on the tracks or inside the building. It was first reported around 10 a.m.
TransLink said a shuttle train has since been set up to ferry passengers between 22nd Street Station and Columbia Station until the situation is resolved.
“Bus services are also being deployed to assist passengers between Columbia, New Westminster, and 22nd Street stations,” a spokesperson said in an email.
The service disruption is only affecting the Expo Line. TransLink said the Millennium Line and Canada Line are both operating normally.
The transit provider said passengers looking to avoid the affected SkyTrain stops can use TransLink’s online trip planner.
Posted by zweisystem on November 8, 2020 · 2 Comments
You operate a very expensive transit system that is not user friendly.
You build a subway on a route with nowhere near the ridership to sustain it.
You persist in planning and using a very expensive, yet obsolete proprietary light metro.
You pretend that public transit is a right and not a convenience.
You persist in deluding the taxpayer about the costs.
Of course you need revenue to pay for your planning and operating malfeasance.
The real problem is that TransLink, with the approval of the regional Mayor’s Council on Transit; abetted by the provincial government are spending billions of dollars on transit schemes, that are mainly for political prestige and not for the benefit of transit customers.
The result is simply, politicians again will squeeze as much money from the taxpayer as they can.
Road tolls will not improve transit, rather it will just encourage politicians not to change.
For the City of Vancouver, road tolls will make Vancouver a no-go area and for downtown businesses, the well paid politicians and bureaucrats don’t give a damn.
Traffic tolls would hollow out city’s core that has seen more than 1,300 businesses leave downtown in the past eight years, board of trade warns
By Frank O’Brien | November 3, 2020
Downtown tolls would accelerate exodus, GVBOT warns. | BIV file photo
A plan by the City of Vancouver to place a toll on automobiles entering the downtown could accelerate one-way business traffic out of the core, the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade (GVBOT) has warned city council.
City of Vancouver council will debate a city staff recommendation November 3 that tolls – “transport pricing fees” – should be used to curb traffic into the downtown business district.
It is part of the city’s proposed $500 million “climate emergency action plan” that goes before city council for adoption.
“The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade has real concerns over proposals to charge vehicles to enter the city centre, which could spell disaster for downtown businesses who are already struggling in the wake of COVID-19,” GVBOT president and CEO Bridgitte Anderson stated in a in letter to council, released November 2.
The downtown is already losing businesses at a steady clip, Anderson warned, and road tolls would further jam the exit ramps.
Vancouver’s population has increased by 40,000 over the past eight years, but the city lost 1,356 established businesses in the same period – and this was before the impact of COVID-19, the GVBOT noted.
Since the pandemic began, the downtown has started to resemble a “ghost town,” Anderson said, with vacancies soaring in some office towers.
Vancouver’s downtown office vacancy rate has increased 30 per cent since the pandemic began, according to third-quarter study from NAI Commercial, which reported that 717,000 square feet of leased downtown office space has been shoved back on the market as subleases.
“The City of Vancouver was already losing businesses prior to the pandemic, while other cities in the region were experiencing double digit increases,” Anderson stated, noting that Surrey has seen a 12 per cent increase in commercial and industrial businesses since 2013.
“A transport pricing scheme specific to the City of Vancouver would further threaten the viability of businesses,” the GVBOT letter stated.
Calling the traffic toll idea a “game changer,” a 371-page city staff report said transport pricing is the key measure in the city’s climate emergency action plan, which is meant to reduce carbon emissions in the city.
Transport pricing would see a portion of vehicle trips in the metro core area taxed with a fee “to account for and improve carbon emissions, air quality, noise, safety, congestion and the use of public space,” the city staff report said.
Vancouver has not released any estimate of its proposed transport pricing fee.
Staff’s argument for pricing vehicle trips is that it can encourage people to choose a sustainable mode of transportation or shift departure times, routes or destinations.
“This idea needs to be parked for now,” said Charles Gauthier, president and CEO of the Vancouver Downtown Business Improvement Association.
Gauthier said his organization was never consulted on the plan and it is only now studying the staff report. “I don’t think the city took into consideration the effect on downtown businesses [of a traffic toll].”
“The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade has real concerns over proposals to charge vehicles to enter the city centre, which could spell disaster for downtown businesses who are already struggling in the wake of COVID-19,” GVBOT president and CEO Bridgitte Anderson stated in a in letter to council, released November 2.
The downtown is already losing businesses at a steady clip, Anderson warned, and road tolls would further jam the exit ramps.
Vancouver’s population has increased by 40,000 over the past eight years, but the city lost 1,356 established businesses in the same period – and this was before the impact of COVID-19, the GVBOT noted.
Since the pandemic began, the downtown has started to resemble a “ghost town,” Anderson said, with vacancies soaring in some office towers.
Vancouver’s downtown office vacancy rate has increased 30 per cent since the pandemic began, according to third-quarter study from NAI Commercial, which reported that 717,000 square feet of leased downtown office space has been shoved back on the market as subleases.
“The City of Vancouver was already losing businesses prior to the pandemic, while other cities in the region were experiencing double digit increases,” Anderson stated, noting that Surrey has seen a 12 per cent increase in commercial and industrial businesses since 2013.
“A transport pricing scheme specific to the City of Vancouver would further threaten the viability of businesses,” the GVBOT letter stated.
Calling the traffic toll idea a “game changer,” a 371-page city staff report said transport pricing is the key measure in the city’s climate emergency action plan, which is meant to reduce carbon emissions in the city.
Transport pricing would see a portion of vehicle trips in the metro core area taxed with a fee “to account for and improve carbon emissions, air quality, noise, safety, congestion and the use of public space,” the city staff report said.
Vancouver has not released any estimate of its proposed transport pricing fee.
Staff’s argument for pricing vehicle trips is that it can encourage people to choose a sustainable mode of transportation or shift departure times, routes or destinations.
“This idea needs to be parked for now,” said Charles Gauthier, president and CEO of the Vancouver Downtown Business Improvement Association.
Gauthier said his organization was never consulted on the plan and it is only now studying the staff report. “I don’t think the city took into consideration the effect on downtown businesses [of a traffic toll].”
Posted by zweisystem on October 30, 2020 · 2 Comments
The election is over and promises have been made and the winners and the winners the SkyTrain Lobby. Premier Horgan has promised billions of dollars to extend then Expo Line to Langley and with a hint, beyond.
The Broadway Subway, now refereed by many as the BS Line is first in line for a big chunk of taxpayer’s dough.
This $3 billion project is a gift to big labour, nothing more, as union jobs are what the NDP are all about.
Provincial News Release
The project will be delivered under the Province’s Community Benefits Agreement (CBA). Through the CBA, the project will increase training and apprenticeship opportunities and prioritize hiring locals, Indigenous peoples, women, people with disabilities and other traditionally under-represented groups, including youth, who want to build a career in the skilled trades. BC Infrastructure Benefits is responsible for implementing the CBA for the project and will be the employer for the majority of the skilled workforce on the project.
The Expo Line extension is more of the same, as Horgan approved the financing of the extension to Fleetwood and now has promised to extend the line to Langley. Again, this has nothing to do with providing good transit, rather a gift to the big unions.
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With vague promises to extend the Expo line even further up the valley, Horgan and kidnapped the taxpayer for a very expensive ride. Those who want a regional railway, connecting Vancouver to Chilliwack, costing much less than light-metro and would more effective in creating an affordable alternative to the car have been given a big setback by the NDP.
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The E&N folks who want to keep the historic island railway operating have also suffered the same fate.
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The following chart gives the current cost estimated for the Expo Line extension to Langley.
The ridership estimates are grossly over estimated and send that they are based on everyone commuting to Vancouver, but the high cost of Vancouver is driving businesses and people outside the downtown core and into the transit starved suburbs. thus if the ridership numbers are over estimated, so is the fare revenue and the cost/benefit calculations. Also worth noting the cost of cars are not included , nor is the up to $3 billion rehab needed of the Expo and Millennium lines to accommodate the extension.
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Noted American Transportation Engineer, Gerald Fox, said after he read the Evergreen line’s business case:
The Evergreen Line Report made me curious as to how TransLink could justify continuing to expand SkyTrain, when the rest of the world is building LRT. So I went back and read the alleged Business Case (BC) report in a little more detail. I found several instances where the analysis had made assumptions that were inaccurate, or had been manipulated to make the case for SkyTrain. If the underlying assumptions are inaccurate, the conclusions may be so too.
Thus, TransLink’s; the City of Surrey’s; and the provincial government’s case for an Expo Line extension to Langley may be based on a foundation of financial quicksand, just like the Site C damn having a foundation on shale.
No wonder TransLink’s CEO, Kevin Desmond is jumping ship!
Then there are the added operating costs and the added costs for new cars, which will drive the costs higher.
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Fox’s conclusion:
It is interesting how TransLink has used this cunning method of manipulating analysis to justify SkyTrain in corridor after corridor, and has thus succeeded in keeping its proprietary rail system expanding. In the US, all new transit projects that seek federal support are now subjected to scrutiny by a panel of transit peers, selected and monitored by the federal government, to ensure that projects are analyzed honestly, and the taxpayer interests are protected. No SkyTrain project has ever passed this scrutiny in the US.
It is clearly evident that the NDP are continuing TransLink’s and Metro Vancouver’s continued spending on a light metro system, made obsolete by light rail decades ago, to fulfill a political agenda and just do not give a damn about the taxpayer and the transit customer.
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What could go wrong?
Posted by zweisystem on October 21, 2020 · 1 Comment
No surprise here, as I stated before, 2021, will make 2020 look child’s play.
Desmond was hired because of his ability to massage the truth to build the Broadway subway. He seemed ignorant of transit mode and that the Expo and Millennium lines operated with a proprietary light metro system.
I think this is evidence that there are some major upcoming financial problems with TransLink.
Problem Number 1: The major SkyTrain light-metro projects; the Broadway subway and the Fleetwood extension.
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There could be major price adjustments to both projects, meaning TransLink must source more tax money from regional taxpayers. Horgan’s daft promise to extend the the Expo Line to Langley also may prove unfundable, because the Expo line needs $2 to $3 billion in rehab before that can happen and there is no funding in sight.
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This could mean the political career ending, cut and cover subway construction on Broadway, will come into play.
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Problem Number 2: The collapse of ridership.
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The Covid collapse of ridership has lead to a disastrous revenue shortfall and may lead to questions for the need for such expensive projects in the first place.
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Problem Number 3: The collapse of revenue.
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The NDP have spent almost a billion dollars so far to shore up regional transit since Covid 19 and the realities of a diminished ridership may force big changes to the transit system. All of TransLink’s revenue generators are failing to provide the expected income and higher taxes is the only option. A Covid-19 cash strapped taxpayer revolt may result, turning a “mom and apple pie” issue into nasty political issue. Remember it was taxes that chased Gordon Campbell from the Premier’s chair.
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Problem Number 4: The end of MALM production.
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Alstom may have telegraphed their plan to phase out the production of the proprietary Movia Automatic Light Metro System (now owned by Alstom, with their purchase of the Bombardier rail division). The cost for MALM vehicles used on the Expo and Millennium Lines may increase of 20% to 25%. In normal times, this would have been glossed over but post Covid-19, financial disaster.
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Desmond was hired to oversee the BS subway and that job has been done and he has probably looked long term and decided to bail and go back to the USA and enjoy his pension before the financial ‘horse-pucky’ hits the fan in 2021.
The rats leaving a sinking TransLink, with their pensions.
TransLink CEO Kevin Desmond stepping down after 5 years
Kevin Desmond going home to the United States
CBC News · Posted: Oct 20, 2020
TransLink CEO Kevin Desmond is stepping down after nearly five years in his role, the transit authority announced Tuesday.
Desmond is leaving the organization in February to seek “new career challenges” back home in the United States, according to a statement.
“Without a doubt, we are sorry to see him step away from the CEO role, but Kevin is leaving behind an organization that is stronger and more responsive to our customers and our communities and better prepared than ever for the future,” the statement read.
Desmond signed on as authority CEO in 2016, previously having worked at King County Metro Transit and Pierce Transit in Washington state for more than a decade. Desmond, who is an American citizen, also worked as the operations manager for New York City transit before moving west.
“It’s been a joy and pleasure to be leading TransLink through this period, but I also have my family to be thinking about as I think, you know, my family lives across the border in the Seattle region, as does my wife,” Desmond said.
“It’s time to go home and reconnect with my family and think about what I want to do in the next phase of my life.”
Desmond’s time with TransLink saw more than $9 billion worth of approved transit expansion projects, as well as the implementation of “tap-to-pay” and touchless fare gates, quicker SeaBus service and double-decker buses.
His role became more challenging over the past year. TransLink narrowly avoided an all-out suspension of the region’s bus system after transit workers threatened to walk over working conditions last November. This year, the authority expected to lose almost a half-billion dollars, in revenue as ridership plummeted due to the pandemic.
Desmond said he was happy that the transit authority had secured provincial and federal funding to work through the pandemic.
“I’ll be departing TransLink knowing that we’re stable, knowing that we have a good approach going forward to start rebuilding that ridership,” he said.
On a more personal level, politicians, workers’ advocates and the public have criticized the CEO’s salary for years and questioned his resistance to taking heavy pay cuts. Desmond was hired at an annual salary of $365,000 in 2016, but a 2019 review of TransLink’s executive compensation boosted the high end of his salary range to $517,444.
TransLink said Tuesday a new CEO has not yet been selected. The incoming executive will be tasked with rebuilding the authority’s finances.
Posted by zweisystem on October 18, 2020 · 3 Comments
The following should give one pause to think.
Toronto’s Yonge-Bloor Interchange Station Expansion To Cost $1.5 billion
From Drum, via the LRPPro
Report going to TTC Oct 22 is how the current Yonge-Bloor interchange station can be expanded to deal with overcrowding.
This idea been around for a number of years and been placed on the back burner due to the cost of $1.5 Billion. Other options have been looked to the point Yonge line is splice in 2 with north going as it does and a new southbound being built on Yonge with another station for the Bloor station and extension of Bloor current platform.
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There been talk that the current Bay Store above the current station could be torn down for a new tower and a good time to do it with the redevelopment of the subway station.
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2 major problem for the area and station that it sits over a river and swamp land and on an angle due to the unused Y interchange for the University Line that was kill 6 months after the Bloor/University Line open in the 60’s
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If the Tower next to the Bay Tower was torn down as well, then it would allow TTC to totally rebuilt both line station better as redevelop the land above it with taller towers and better access to the stations. There been talked that 2nd tower could be torn down as with a taller tower in it place.
Bloor Street Station at rush hour
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The Canada Line will soon have to be almost completely rebuilt to handle passenger flows above 9,000 pphpd. Short, 40 metre to 50 metre long station platforms, which can only accommodate 41 metre long two car trains, must be lengthened to 80 metres long or more.
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This will be costly, especially for the subway stations.
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Even at third the cost of the Bloor station project, expanding capacity on the Canada line will be very, very expensive. Eight subway stations to be rebuilt and expanded could cost upwards of $4 billion and that is not including the eight aerial stations.
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Posted by zweisystem on October 17, 2020 · Leave a Comment
One just has to shake ones head about this High Speed Rail article in the Daily Hive, but what is even more laughable is the comments by many people, who know little or nothing about HST.
“Build it now“, says one comment; “please make this happen“, says another, yet no feasibility study or local costs are mentioned in the article.
Others blame “eco zealots” or who ever is the current blame worthy group they dislike for not building HST
Reality just is not in the cards for what is called the “Booster Class”; people who support any project with the perception of its being modern or futuristic, regardless of the cost.
The Booster Class rarely asks important questions such as cost, usability, or long term viability, but insist on the project being built with future taxpayers being on the hook to pay for it.
The same is true of the SkyTrain light metro system.
SkyTrain is glitzy, futuristic (because it is driverless) and gives a public view as “doing something for transit”. It also looks nice for political photo-ops.
The Booster Class does not care about cost, rather the look, which is not unlike our local lady who drives her kids to school in a huge $60K Hummer, where a $14K Fiat 500 would do the very same job at a fraction of the cost.
The Booster Class does not care about cost as it is the look they like and with no thought for future costs, happily glad hand SkyTrain expansion until bankruptcy happens.
A current Surrey Councillor stated on last nights news, that “the Langley SkyTrain extension must happen, to solve out transportation problems in our city.”
Really?, Really, really?
What the councilor is not saying is that building SkyTrain to Langley will cost $3.12 billion of which only $1.6 billion is funded, with operating costs, adding another $32.4 million to TransLink’s annual operating costs, with huge rehab costs in about 30 to 40 years time.
The realities of SkyTrain expansion are ignored and the Booster Class, just chuckles and leads the taxpayer to financial slaughter.
The Booster Class never consider long term costs of a project.
Posted by zweisystem on October 9, 2020 · 8 Comments
Trust the NDP, to get embroiled in extending SkyTrain. Again, the NDP proven they haven’t a clue about regional transit or transit mode and if proceeded, there will be severe financial consequences for the taxpayer and the transit user.
Premier Horgan has made a very, very expensive mistake.
Again, for the general benefit of everyone, SkyTrain is the name of our light-metro system. The SkyTrain light-metro system consists of two very different railways; the Canada line which is a conventional railway and the Expo and Millennium Lines, which are an unconventional proprietary railway, now owned by Alstom of France.
The name of the proprietary railway, after five previous name changes is Movia Automatic Light Metro and a total of seven systems have been built.
Light metro, being part of the metro family, becomes exceedingly more expensive to operate in the suburbs. MALM was never designed to be a regional railway and will end up costing much more than other transit modes.
The estimated full cost of the the Extension to Langley is $3.12 million.
Fleetwood Clayton Langley
From TransLink
The estimated added operating cost for this line is $32.4 million.
From TransLink
Added to the estimated $40 million in annual operating costs for the Broadway subway, means that operating costs for these two projects will soar to over $72 million annually.
But there is more, much more.
The Expo line is desperately in need of a major rehab which must include a complete overhaul and an increase in its electrical supply; a new automatic train control system; a rebuilding of all the stations on the Expo and Millennium Lines to extend the station platforms beyond the current 80 metres, to allow for longer trains to increase capacity; and much new track work, including replacing all the switches to allow for faster operation.
The cost for this could be has high as $3 billion!
This means TransLink must source an additional $4.5 billion to Extend the Expo Line to Langley.
What fools paradise do the NDP belong?
There are many other expensive issues to contend with, including the new owner, Alstom, may discontinue the manufacturer of the Mark 2/3 cars, which would mean the costs for the already expensive and small cars may increase by about 20%.
Sourcing spare parts for the proprietary light metro are becoming problematic.
Oh yes, the damn thing doesn’t operate in the snow, and it snows a lot between Surrey and Langley.
Who is going to use it?
Not many because there is little demand for a direct line to Vancouver from Langley. Less than 1,000 pphpd in the peak hour.
When the NDP flip-flopped from planned LRT to SkyTrain on the Broadway – Loughheed Rapid Transit Project, it set back transit expansion in the region by over 20 years. The renamed Millennium Line, using the then called ART system (the fourth renaming of the proprietary system) which was so expensive to build, had to to be built in two parts, with the second section being the Evergreen Line. Sadly this will set back useful transit for the Fraser Valley for generations.
For Added insult, $4.5 billion could buy a Vancouver to Chilliwack TramTrain service; a completely rebuilt E&N and with money left over to build a BCIT to UBC Tram.
This project is neither green or user-friendly, nor cost effective. What it shows is that the NDP have a grave ignorance of transit and regional transit ills.
BC NDP pledges SkyTrain extension to Langley, Liberals promise small business tax cut
by Mike Hall
Posted Oct 8, 2020
File – SkyTrain. (Lasia Kretzel, NEWS 1130)
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — The BC NDP is pledging to complete the Surrey-Langley Skytrain expansion as part of $9 billion more in infrastructure funding, while the Liberals countered on Thursday by promising to eliminate the small business tax and offering help to the hospitality and tourism sector, both hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.
NDP Leader John Horgan said his party’s plan sets out $3.1 billion to complete the Surrey-Langley Skytrain project. Of that, $1.6 billion was previously committed by all partners for the first stage to Fleetwood.
The NDP, if re-elected in the Oct. 24 provincial election, promises another $1.5 billion for the portion to Langley, with help from the federal government.
The remaining portion of the $9 billion would go to building roads, according to the NDP. The party’s overall $32 billion infrastructure plan would create 18,000 jobs.
“We want to make this a provincial project,” Horgan said of the SkyTrain expansion. “So that takes the pressure off municipalities. It takes pressure off TransLink. We’re going to fund it. The municipalities will have to find their share. I’ll work with the federal government, as I’ve been doing for the past number of years, to make sure that we get our fair share of the dollars we send to Ottawa coming back here to build the communities that we want to live in.”
Horgan added SkyTrain to Langley is overdue.
“It connects this community to the rest of the Lower Mainland,” he said.
“Twenty-three billion dollars, plus $9 billion is a lot of money for construction jobs. But we get something out of that — we get an opportunity to train the next generation of skilled workers. British Columbia has been built by working people. We need to make sure that training is there for their kids and their grandkids.”
BC Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson focused on small business and tourism on Thursday, but also said his party previously supported the SkyTrain expansion project.
“The Liberal government is the one that invented the project in the first place,” he said. “Rapid Transit to Langley has been on the books for about 10 years, and the issue has been the financing with the municipalities. So we’re glad to hear that John Horgan is prepared to commit to what the BC Liberals have always supported. And the question now is, is he prepared to pay for the municipal share or not? And if John Horgan doesn’t have the answer to that, this is just another repetition of BC Liberal infrastructure planning.”
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