What I find amusing is that policy on regional transit has not changed as politicians do the same thing over and over again, ever expecting different results.
It’s easy and they just don’t have to waste time dithering over details and anyways; “the taxpayer has deep pockets and will ante up to pay for our largess“.
That was pre covid-19, things have changed.
As taxes increase, and they will, to pay off the covid-19 emergency measures, the taxpayer will be keenly aware of expenditures and demand the same of elected officials and the bureaucracy.
In the near future, doing the same thing over and over again might just be a hard sell to over taxed voters and that is sending shivers up the spine of elected officials everywhere.
Mayors, Premier and Transportation Minister to meet next week – The Blind Leading the Blind
Posted by zweisystem on Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Talk about the blind leading the blind.
BC Transportation Minister, Shirley Bond (who knows little or nothing about transit), the besieged premier (who knows that building glitzy metro lines buys votes), and regional mayors (who are equally unread on transit) are going to have a private meeting regarding TransLink’s ongoing financial crisis. The first hing that must be done is to invite the public, simply because the public is public transit’s customers and politicians should value their input. Secondly, TransLink and the Premier must understand that TransLink’s perennial financial malaise is due mainly to the SkyTrain light-metro system and our perverse penchant to build very expensive to build and operate light-metro lines instead of modern light rail!
To date the taxpayer has unknowingly spent over $8 billion for our metro system, yet for less than one half the cost, by building with modern LRT we could have had almost double the route mileage – more trams, serving more destinations providing more incentive for people to use transit!
Now there is a clever thought!
Added to TransLink’s woes, is the singular fact that the SkyTrain light-metro system has failed to attract the motorist from the car and it is just far too expensive to extend in lighter populated areas and has not proven to be a credible transit alternative for the car. The current hype and hoopla about the Canada Line is merely self serving window dressing to sell the public on building more metro, but in real terms, for about $2.4 billion costs to date, the new metro has attracted only about 4,000 to 5,000 new riders (which is about normal for a new ‘rail’ line) and the new riders are mainly the elderly going to the River Rock Casino or Asian shops in Richmond, with most using discounted concession fares and students using $1.00 a day U-Passes! The RAV/Canada line has yet to show that it has attracted the motorist from the car.
Yes, the airport is also garnering new ridership, but do not forget the 15 minute service Airporter bus the Canada Line metro replaced.
TransLink is in a conundrum; there is no money for new metro expansion and the bureaucracy refuses to plan for much cheaper light rail. There is no way out, either taxes must increase to pay for metro construction or the transit system stagnates and becomes even more unattractive product for customers.
Next week, Rail for the Valley will present an affordable alternative to TransLink’s present grandiose metro and subway plans, the problem is: Will the premier, Ms. Bond and regional mayors listen!
In BC Rubber on Asphalt Rules!
Mayors, Premier and Transportation Minister to meet next week
By Frank Luba, The Province – September 14, 2010 4:02 PM
A closed-door meeting between Metro Vancouver mayors, Premier Gordon Campbell and Transportation Minister Shirley Bond next week is expected to go a long way toward settling TransLink’s financial woes.
Langley City Mayor Peter Fassbender, chairman of the Metro mayor’s council on transportation, can’t presume to say exactly what will come out of the meeting.
But he and TransLink CEO Ian Jarvis will both speak at the Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce luncheon that follows the meeting. Cambell and Bond will also be in attendance.
When asked if there will finally be some news about TransLink’s long-standing cash crunch, Fassbender replied: We will at least be demonstrating where we need to go and how we are going to get there together.
My hope is that Thursday will be a major step forward in finding the answer specifically to the question people have of; “How are you going to do this?” said Fassbender
“These are not easy answers”, he said There isn’t a quick fix here?
The situation has come to a crossroads.
Are we either going to move ahead or is it clear we can’t work together” said Fassbender. “But you know what? I believe we can.”
The problem of TransLink funding was highlighted again Monday night when transportation commissioner Martin Crilly gave his seal of approval to the transportation authority’s 2011 plans.
Crilly pointed out that TransLink doesn’t have the money to do what its own long-range plans to 2040 call for or what the region needs according to Metro Vancouver.
To gain ground on the background growth of the region, a greater portion of the region’s wealth will need somehow to be devoted to providing that [transportation] capacity”, said Crilly in a release.
TransLink has yet to solve the conundrum of funding for capacity expansion, and cannot do so alone”, said Crilly.
Zwei, with a cup of tea in hand, has been reading the various transit blogs and answering emails from interested parties around the world, trying to get a read on what direction public transit is going in the near and not so near future. Sadly, I see a trend in North America towards supporting building hugely expensive heavy-rail subway metro systems, without any consideration for the cost of such a venture. This unrealistic view has tainted our transit planning on this side of the pond to such an extent, that tens of billions of dollars will be wasted on gold plated, over engineered transportation projects, when far cheaper and just as efficient transit solutions would have worked just as well.
The silliness I see from professionals supporting hugely expensive, to install and maintain, automatic train control signaling on new rapid transit (LRT is not rapid transit) lines, demonstrates a gross naivety on the subject of railway signaling. Has anyone who promotes or supports automatic train control (ATC) ever talked to a signaling engineer? I don’t thinks so by the endless cheer-leading for ATC.
Has anyone compared the operating costs of Vancouver’s SkyTrain with Calgary’s LRT? If they had, they would have found that just the SkyTrain Expo Line costs 60% more to operate (2006) than the Calgary’s C-Train LRT, yet the C-Train carried more customers!
Has anyone thumping the desk for ATC ever stopped and considered that transit systems which include ATC are seldom built and ATC is only used on the heaviest used metro lines where automatic (driverless) operation does save operating costs over older manually operated block signaling?
LRT’s Renaissance started in France in the mid 1980′s, when modern low-floor cars, operating on dedicated or Reserved Rights of Ways, were found to be cheaper to build and operate than France’s home grown automatic VAL mini-metro. In the 1970′s France only had a handful of elderly tram or streetcar systems, but in 2010, the country boasts 16 operating tram/LRT systems; 9 more under construction; and 5 in later stages of planning!
In the mid 1980′s, metro or subway construction was bankrupting scores of transportation authorities in many countries and at one time, there was over 100 km of uncompleted or semi-abandoned subway tunnels throughout Europe! The Chaleroi in Belgium being a good example. Though building subways on heavily used transit routes still continues and rightly so, European transit planners have reduced public transit,construction costs by building new LRT/tram systems. The Germans take top prize for cost efficient public transit with the very successful TramTrain concept.
TramTrain, where streetcars are so designed to track share with mainline railways, see total construction costs well under $10 million/km., a fraction the cost of subway or metro construction, where in some cases see construction costs exceed $500 million/km.!
Yet this is all lost by the many blogs and bloggist who support ATC and denounce LRT as some sort of 19th century folly. What is really sad, is that those supporting subways and ATC, seem completely removed from the real world of finance and financing expensive public, transit schemes. The fairy tale land of subway planning always include new and higher taxes, yet proponents of subways fail utterly to understand that there is precious little money to fund their ever costlier transit plans.
In the end, those supporting automatic metros and their kin, may see a line built, but with little chance of much needed expansion in the near or not so near future, while at the same time, much derided Portland keeps expanding its LRT network by about two lines every decade. In an age of peak oil, global warming, and massive urban congestion, it is completely foolish to keep advocating ‘pie in the sky’ metro projects that in the end, may build one or two line at most (three lines in Vancouver), financially exhausting the taxpayer and not providing a credible alternative to the car.
Those who spend hours condemning LRT with “Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics“, fail to grasp historic lessons with light rail and have invented their own little world, where Tom Swift style $250 million/km. or more, driverless, elevated railways or subways, with all the whistles and bangs, are easy to come by and the taxpayer is only too happy to pay more tax to fund transit mega projects.
Updates:
The cost of the Expo line light-metro extension has now surpassed $200 million/km.
France now has 29 tram systems in operation.
There are now over 30 TramTrain systems in operation with over 30 more either under construction or in advanced (funded) stages of planning.
The cost of the Broadway subway is now estimated at $488 million per kilometre to build.
Every few years, much is made of PRT or Personal Rapid Transit, as being the new way to move people. Except for a few specialized installations, such as Morgantown USA, PRT has proven to be both expensive for what it does and esthetically unappealing.
For a PRT system to actually work, one would need elevated PRT lines every 500 metres or so crisscrossing, grid like, to provide the network that would make PRT attractive to the customer.
In an age where even putting simple tram tracks on a city street may lead to years of public debate, PRT would lead to a public revolution.
Vancouver is the perfect example: After the first elevated SkyTrain was installed Vancouver City Council passed a bylaw outlawing elevated transit systems being built in the city, which helped Vancouver to get the $2.5 billion RAV/Canada line built as a subway in Vancouver.
PRT maybe applicable in specialized locations, but as a comprehensive public transportation system, I rather think not.
The following is the latest in “building a new mousetrap“.
Zwei is going to reserve comment, except for the fact that Rail for the Valley’s Leewood Study, lays the groundwork for a viable regional rail service for the Fraser Valley.
As part of BC’s Restart Plan, the Province is examining a range of possibilities to support growth in the Fraser Valley to help ensure the development of affordable, liveable communities.
“We know that more and more people are choosing the Fraser Valley to live, work and raise their children,” said Claire Trevena, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure. “Traffic congestion in the Fraser Valley continues to be a problem for people. We need to develop transportation networks and invest in solutions that support the successful growth of the Fraser Valley for the people who live and work there, now and in the future.”
This broad transportation and development study is underway. It will look at traffic congestion and travel demand in the fast-growing region and examine and evaluate options for new transit and transportation initiatives in the Fraser Valley.
“We are working together with local government and Indigenous partners on this study, and we will also be talking to local residents and business owners to get feedback,” said Selina Robinson, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. “Findings will inform transportation and development projects that consider trade corridor needs. We want to focus on continuing to create a good quality of life for citizens in the Fraser Valley, and we are asking what solutions will contribute to this in a positive way.”
Nearly 60% of B.C.’s population lives in Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley – nearly three million British Columbians. Decisions on transportation and development in this region have consequences for every part of the province in terms of economic recovery, trade network resilience and housing opportunities. The purpose of the study is to look for opportunities to help reduce future traffic congestion, such as worker mobility, shorter commutes and managing traffic demand.
Improvements to transportation infrastructure are a critical piece of economic recovery – ensuring people have more opportunities for well-paying jobs, shorter commutes and more time to spend with their families.
The ministry also continues to support local, regional and inter-regional transit, and will continue to work with TransLink on its Transport 2050 plan, as well as BC Transit, local governments and their communities to investigate ways to more efficiently move people within and through the region.
Quotes:
Bob D’Eith, MLA for Maple Ridge-Mission –
“When we build new infrastructure, we want to build intelligently and with people at the forefront of these decisions. I am excited about this work and how it will help to promote liveable communities for British Columbians. We are focused on building strong transportation networks that will serve our communities, whether people are driving their vehicles, taking the bus or riding their bikes.”
Henry Braun, mayor, City of Abbotsford –
“One of the most significant challenges facing the City of Abbotsford and for the Fraser Valley region continues to be transportation. We know that effective and efficient transportation systems generate employment and economic development, as well as job creation for local communities. This study will provide useful information as the growth of our economy relies on a safe, reliable and efficient multi-modal transportation network; especially as communities look to expand markets for our key local sectors, such as manufactured goods, agri-foods and aerospace.”
Flexibility: Susceptible of modification or adaptation; adaptable.
Dresden’s successful freight tram, carried car parts from one factory to another in the city.
Modern light rail is very flexible; it can operate as a tram, operating on-street; it can operate as a light-railway, operating on a dedicated rights-of-way; it can operate as a light-metro, on viaduct or in a subway; it can operate as a commuter train, operating on mainline railways; and it can operate as all four on one transit route!
The key is flexibility and no one at TransLink, the regional mayors and the province has considered when planning for rail transit. That would be thinking “twenty minutes into the future”, something seemingly impossible today.
SkyTrain light-metro, built to strict kinematic envelope (The outline of the space occupied by a rail vehicle when in motion, including the effects of tilt, sway, track cant, etc.) and with automatic (driverless) operation, light metro lacks the all important flexibility that has made light rail a success.
Flexibility has been changed to “density” for metro Vancouver, as a reason for building rail transit, yet flexibility would allow LRT to more better service a densely populated area than a light metro.
I think it would better serve those wanting the return of the interurban, from Vancouver to Chilliwack; the return of passenger service to the entire E&N railway and those wishing to stop the Broadway subway, demand adding flexibility into the debate, something SkyTrain/subway/bus/rail to trail competitors cannot do.
From the Railway Gazette:
GERMANY: Trials with a prototype freight tram or tram-train are to start in Karlsruhe and the surrounding area in 2022. The concept is being drawn up with a view to improving urban life by reducing road traffic and the emissions it generates.
Known as ‘regioKArgo’, a pilot operation is proposed to demonstrate the concept, possibly on the 50 km Karlsruhe – Rastatt – Achern route, which has been studied in detail by the project’s promoters.
regioKArgo brings together operators Verkehrsbetriebe Karlsruhe and Albtal-Verkehrsgesellschaft with freight shippers, logistics companies and research institutes to develop alternative forms of local goods transport to replace lorries and vans.
Increasing use of the internet in recent months to order goods has led to an increase in package delivery traffic, in turn leading to congestion and other problems such as a shortage of staff and delivery vehicles.
Freight trams or tram-trains would operate between consolidation centres, set up at locations outside Karlsruhe and surrounding towns, and ‘city-hubs’ in the central area of each town. From there goods would be distributed to the end customer using emission-free methods such as cargo bikes. Studies are in hand to determine where city-hubs could be located.
One option would be to use modified trams that would be dedicated for passenger duties during peak times but would carry both passengers and cargo during less-busy periods. A team of researchers and industry experts is working on the design of a demonstrator tram under the LogIKTram project, the results of which will be fed into the regioKArgo scheme.
Organisations involved in the project other than operators include DB Engineering & Consulting, the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology, the FZI IT Research Centre, Marlo Consultants and Automotive Engineering Network.
The project team is in the process of estimating the likely cost, the aim being to apply for funding under the ‘Regio-Win’ project which promotes Karlsruhe as a technology development centre. Research by Offenburg University suggests that users would be willing to pay for the service if it fits sustainability and environmental goals.
Freight trams would form the centrepiece of a holistic concept which will entail rethinking the existing freight transport delivery model, according to Ascan Egerer, Technical Director at AVG. Explaining that the whole process was being examined to ensure that it would function economically, this entailed looking at what happens before and after the rail leg of a consignment’s journey. ‘That’s why we have partners from all sectors round the table’, he said. ‘It’s not something that can be solved by a transport operator alone. And we are talking about going beyond the city limits into the region’.
Egerer suggested that the idea was to replicate for goods the tram-train concept for passengers that was pioneered in Karlsruhe in the 1990s. ‘The Karlsruhe model offers the best conditions for bringing about a switch for goods transport too’, he said.
The ‘father’ of the Karlsruhe tram-train concept was Dr Dieter Ludwig, who believed that it was necessary to ‘take the train to the people’. Dr Ludwig, who died on July 16, was CEO of AVG and VBK for 30 years, during which the Karlsruhe model became famous – the first route between Karlsruhe and Bretten opened in 1992, leading to spectacular growth in the use of public transport in the area.
The following Google screenshot was made on Wednesday, August 9, 2020, at 7:50 AM.
All major crossings in metro Vancouver show little or no congestion.
Pre Covir-19, there would be bright red at the tunnel, Oak Street, Knight Street, Alex Fraser, Patullo, Iron workers, and the Lions Gate bridges.
In “normal” times, major congestion would rule metro Vancouver but now, commuters have done a disappearing act.
This bodes ill for TransLink, as their income, in part, comes from commuters and their boated ridership statistics come from forced transfers by commuters from bus to SkyTrain, back to bus.
Provincial and Civic politico’s, who haven’t a clue they are being bamboozled by TransLink’s bureaucrats, keep anteing up more money to this bloated and inept organization.
Here is TransLink’s big problem:
Transit customers, except the poor, the elderly and students (who all use deep discounted fares and passes) have abandoned transit for six months and with no timetable to getting back to normal, if there is a return to normal, they may never return; finding new modes to get to where they want to go.
TransLink and the Mayor’s Council on Transit should completely rethink how transit is provided and should institute cost saving measures now.
One cost saving measure would reduce bus stops to a minimum of one every 300 to 400 metres, effectively cutting stops by one third or more. This would both reduce travel times and increase service, without costing the taxpayer more money.
This is but one of several measures that could be implemented during Covid pandemic, to provide a far more cost efficient transit service.
Of course, rethink the $3 billion Broadway subway because there is absolutely no passenger demand to warrant such an investment.
But no, TransLink and the metro mayors insist doing the same thing over and over again, hoping for different results and then expect the taxpayer to again bail them out when it doesn’t.
I know it is preaching to the converted, but we must get serious about regional transit. $4.6 billion to build 12.8 km of light metro is not spending money wisely.
Spending $4.6 billion to build 12.8 km of light metro is based on dated thinking; dated engineering; dated planning; dated transportation philosophy; as well as never dated political and academic corruption.
SkyTrain is a political gravy train for land speculators; land developers; cement manufacturers and all those union jobs building it. For the transit customer it is a slow train the convinces many to take the car.
Isn’t time to end the travesty?
From the Light Rail Transit Association
Trams for a Healthier Future
TramForward welcomes the House of Commons Select Committee on Transport’s Inquiry into Reforming public transport after the pandemic. Whatever the eventual changes in work and leisure patterns resulting from the current pandemic, there will continue to be a need for mass transit to bring people into the centres of towns and cities. With the current gradual revival of public transport use, it is a suitable time to consider how public transport might adapt to meet not only the health requirements of the current situation but also of any future health emergencies that might arise.
Traffic-generated air pollution, from non-exhaust emissions (NEE) caused by tyre and road surface wear as well as exhaust emissions, is not only a major health risk in itself but also a contributory factor in the severity of respiratory diseases such as Covid 19. Trams are free from both types of emissions, as well as having a proven track record in effecting significant modal shift from cars to public transport, and TramForward continues to advocate the development of tram systems as a primary transit mode on major transport corridors.
Trams are relatively easy to adapt to social-distancing requirements, with larger circulating areas than buses and fewer seats in proportion to total capacity, and can be coupled together to increase capacity. They typically have multiple entrances which not only facilitate distanced boarding and alighting but provide regular ventilation. Ventilation could also be enhanced by simple roof to floor forced air circulation. Trams also provide a superior ride quality without the sudden dynamic events which can throw bus passengers into each other.
In its response to the Transport Committee’s Inquiry, TramForward will be calling for increased investment in steel wheel on steel rail urban transport systems, particularly tramways. While trams cannot be expected to replace all other forms of road passenger transport, they can make a significant contribution to the improvement of air quality on the most heavily trafficked urban routes where pollution is highest.
Jim Harkins, Chair of the Campaigns Group of the Light Rail Transit Association said “It is time for the government to show faith in public transport and to increase investment in tramways to create a safer and healthier future for our cities and towns”.
Interesting news from the Light Rail Transit Association – Very Light Rail.
Very Light Rail is a LRT variant where smaller and lighter vehicles are used on routes that cannot support operation of larger vehicles.
The costs for Very Light Rail is something to consider, especially when Vancouver is spending $2.8 billion to build 5.8 km of subway or when modern LRT costs about $50 million/km or more to install.
Maybe its time to think out of the box!
The concept of ‘Very Light Rail’ (VLR) has been developed as a way of creating a light rail system at a much lower cost and with much reduced construction times than traditional tramway or light rail systems. The main features of VLR are lightweight vehicles which will be able to hold 50-70 people, which will be battery powered, so avoiding the need for expensive overhead line equipment, these vehicles are proposed to eventually become autonomous, the first test vehicle is due to be manufactured by the Coventry based RDM Group by mid-2020.
Something to consider for start up tram operations.
TramForward welcomes funding for West Midlands Very Light Rail schemes.
TramForward welcomes the news that the West Midlands Combined Authority has obtained Government funding for two Very Light Rail projects.
They are among eight ‘shovel ready’ projects in the West Midlands which will benefit from £66 million from the Government’s Getting Building Fund, aimed at projects which can be started quickly and completed within 18 months, creating jobs and driving investment to aid economic recovery following the Coronavirus lockdown.
The list was confirmed on Tuesday 4th August by the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Robert Jenrick, during a visit to the site of the planned National Brownfield Land Institute at the University of Wolverhampton.
The two VLR schemes are: the Very Light Rail Innovation Centre in Dudley (£12.4m – CAD $21.5 million), where new modes of transport which are both green and cheaper and quicker to deliver than traditional tram or rail are being developed; and Coventry’s Very Light Rail project (£1.8m – CAD $3.12 million).
Jim Harkins, Chair of the Light Rail Transit Association’s Campaigns Group, said “we welcome this support for these innovative schemes which have the potential to revolutionise public transport provision in our smaller and medium-sized towns and cities”.
Image: Stourbridge Shuttle VLR Scheme. Labelled for reuse on Google Images.
One of the problems with cost reporting is Apple to Orange comparisons. In the report that @Stephen Wickens highlighted, many of the costs he thought were the same are not. The report mentioned legal issues, but what even he didn’t realize is that, many of the subway cost components could only be estimated and many are overestimated because the project timeline length under P3 bidding required certain component costs to be considered non-public information and secret due to bidding and copyright issues for up to a decade after the project is finished.
Other problems like the concrete used in today’s projects is considerably different than the concrete used in earlier projects. Due to strength/safety, longevity and air pollution issues, today’s concrete is much more expensive than concrete used in the past. In fact, there are certain popular concrete formulations used in the 1970′s for example, legally speaking, just can’t be used today. These kind of comparisons make something like a construction cost project database proposed in the report, very difficult if not out right impossible and even unfortunately, possibly, slightly illegal.
Zwei is just sounding the alarm that subways are a very expensive game, that politicians love to play. The more unscrupulous politicians are claiming that a subway will cure our transportation ills; “just build it and they will come“.
Sadly for the taxpayer, subways built on routes without the ridership to sustain them, tend to be a gift that keeps on taking: higher taxes; higher user fees; higher fares; while regional transit services suffer because the subway tends to be a black hole for money.
Notice no one at TransLink or on the Mayor’s Council on Transit, and Metro Vancouver have stated the real operating costs or annual subsidies needed just for the Broadway Subway.
The true cost of the Canada line subway is hidden withing the 35 year P-3 agreement with the province and the SNC Lavalin lead consortium operating the line. Last year TransLink paid over $110 million to SNC Lavalin for operating the line.
The real costs for "rapid transit" (subways and light-metro) are far higher than TransLink or the regional mayor's are telling the public and for good reason, because if the public knew the real cost of "rapid transit" they project would lose public support.
As the cost of the Broadway subway increases and it will, TransLink and the Mayors Council on Transit will look for ways to reduce the scope of the project. With the the Canada Line, cut and cover saved over $400 million in construction costs, especially when no compensation was in the budget for s,adjacent surface businesses.
B.C. Supreme Court documents related to lawsuits brought by Cambie Street merchants show SNC-Lavalin’s decision to employ cut-and-cover rather than boring tunnels for about one-third of the 19.2 km line cut costs by more than $400-million, or 16%, enabling the project to hit its fixed $2.1-billion budget.
Please note: Documents from the Susan Heyes lawsuit against TransLink showed that the actual cost of the Canada line could be higher than $2.6 billion, as these costs hidden in the generous P-3 arrangement, which being a private contract is immune from public scrutiny.
The Broadway subway, like the Canada Line, will probably be cut and cover; the political costs for the NDP and Vancouver politicians supporting the subway, could be akin to political suicide.
Postscript from Mr. Hacveacow.
The one stop subway project ended in, when the Conservatives under Doug Ford were elected. The new project which is fully funded and has almost finished its EA process and engineering work, it is expected to start construction in 2024-2025 and be open around 2029-2030. The extension is now 7.8 km to Sheppard and McCowan Ave. and has 3 stations. This is from one of the Metrolinx Reports.
Scarborough (Bloor-Danforth/Line#2) Subway Extension
The Scarborough subway extension will finally deliver the three-stop subway connectivity that residents of Scarborough deserve.
Runs From: Kennedy station to Sheppard/McCowan
Length: 7.8 km
Stations: 3 Cost: $4.8 Billion – $5.5 Billion
There is another reason why transit may not return to pre Covid-19 levels any time soon; a reason that TransLink would never admit to: the service provided by TransLink is deemed third rate by customers.
User friendliness is the number one reason people use transit and includes ease ticketing, lack of transfers, and the general ambience of the system. Sadly, TransLink does not provide a user friendly service and with Covid-19, the public are beginning to realize, after returning to the car for commuting, that the service is third rate.
Talking to several former transit users in the past month, all have stated that they will not go back to using transit. My wife is of the same opinion. After using transit to commute to Vancouver for the past 20 years, her commute time has greatly increased from under 70 minutes to over 90 minutes each way. Today, by car, it takes her 45 minutes each way to go from Tsawwassen to Broadway and Alma.
The transit users in my demographic hold TransLink and the Mayor’s Council on Transit in very high odor and all I have talked too want major reforms.
TransLink, trying to hide public discontent, use trickery to promote the idea that TransLink is very successful. They boast of “453 million boarding’s”, which seems impressive. Impressive to the uninformed, but TransLink has designed the transit system to force bus riders to take the mini-metro. Thus over 80% of SkyTrain’s ridership must make at least two boarding’s each direction or four boarding’s a day. My wife used to make six boarding’s a day.
Also, not factored in is that the widely distributed U-Pass, giving unlimited daily travel also is responsible for much higher boarding counts.
Thus it is easy to see that the actual number of individual people using transit in metro Vancouver is far lower than the boarding’s number used by TransLink!
Now, if TransLink used the unique use of the Compass Card to determine ridership, a far more accurate ridership number would emerge, but TransLink refuses to provide that data.
So here is the dilemma TransLink finds itself in, as ridership collapsed, those opting not to go back to transit, especially those who had to make two or more transfers per commute, TransLink’s boarding’s numbers will not rebound any time soon and may never attain the the numbers pre Covid.
This puts even more financial pressure on TransLink and the Mayor’s Council on Transit to rethink their present $4.6 billion expansion of the Millennium and Expo Lines, especially the Broadway subway.
This brings us back to the successful German Model of providing public transport;
Public transit to be successful, must be treated as a product and if the product is successful, people will use it and if not, people will not.
We will see how successful the TransLink product really is and how long can TransLink operate empty buses no one wants to use.
TransLink senior managers say it could be as long as three to five years before the system gets back to pre-pandemic ridership.
DARRYL DYCK/The Globe and Mail
In the world before COVID-19, Vancouver’s increasingly successful transit agency hit another new peak in 2019.
According to its just-released report for the year on ridership, the transit system – one of the star performers in the U.S. and Canada – saw a new record high of 453 million boardings and one more year in which the proportion of additional rides far exceeded population growth.
Now, TransLink senior managers say it could be as long as three to five years before the system gets back to those levels, with the region facing the potential for a second wave of shutdowns, a longer-term recession, and some degree of permanent work restructuring as office jobs and education shift online.
“It’s too early to tell exactly, but the preliminary thinking is that it will take several years. It could be three to five,” said Geoff Cross, TransLink’s vice-president of transportation planning.
And, while planners always knew that working from home is a growing phenomenon in many cities, the pandemic has wrenched that trend from a slow upward curve to a rocket launch.
“South of the Fraser, the numbers are 10 points higher – 51 per cent there,” said Mr. Cross.
In the region’s southeast, including Langley, Surrey and Delta, 29 of the 45 routes have gone back to seeing between 60 and almost 80 per cent of their normal ridership.
TransLink planners are not totally sure why some parts of the region are returning to transit faster, but it’s something they’re watching closely to see where the system is going. “It could be affordability issues, it could be the kind of work they’re doing.”
The system is still losing tens of millions a month, though not as much as the $75-million a month reported in the early weeks of the pandemic.
Ironically, the agency is gaining some revenue as people return to work and shopping but by private vehicle. The region’s gas-tax revenue, which earned $34.5-million for TransLink in February, dropped to $19.5-million in April, but was back to $22-million by May. Some of that is also because Vancouverites can no longer go over the U.S. border to buy cheaper gas.
There is going to be some money available from the $540-million that the federal government announced last week would go to help B.C. transit – both TransLink in the Lower Mainland and the B.C. Transit-run bus systems elsewhere in the province – cope with pandemic effects.
Mr. Cross said it’s not clear yet what that can be used for and how it will be distributed.
There might even be some benefits from the pandemic period if people spread out their work and errands more evenly, instead of piling on to commuter rush hours.
“We build all of our systems for the peak of the peak. If we can spread that out, we can have a more efficient system.”
“Working from home, school from home are trends we’ve been looking at for years. But that is accelerated,” Mr. Cross said.
Now, he said, TransLink planners need to use the information about the growth and trends in the system pre-pandemic to figure out what to do going forward.
One strong pattern in the 2019 numbers was the growth of ridership on lines that don’t necessarily convey commuters into downtown and that seem to be serving lower-paid workers who are travelling to jobs all over the region.
Bus lines in Surrey, Delta and Langley, along with those in Burnaby and New Westminster, saw some of the biggest increases: 22 per cent for the south-eastern region; 15 per cent for Burnaby/New West. That compares to the ridership increase in the region overall, which only averaged at 3.7 per cent, or 15.5 million boardings, from 2017 to 2018. (Lines that cross Vancouver east to west in the southern half of the city have also seen significant increases.)
The ridership in some of the suburban areas is also coming back a little more strongly than elsewhere. While the system average now is at about 40 per cent of pre-COVID ridership levels, or 450,000 boardings a day, it’s noticeably higher in some parts of the region.
In BC Rubber on Asphalt Rules!without any consideration for the cost of such a venture. This unrealistic view has tainted our transit planning on this side of the pond to such an extent, that tens of billions of dollars will be wasted on gold plated, over engineered transportation projects, when far cheaper and just as efficient transit solutions would have worked just as well.
not rapid transit) lines, demonstrates a gross naivety on the subject of railway signaling. Has anyone who promotes or supports automatic train control (ATC) ever talked to a signaling engineer? I don’t thinks so by the endless cheer-leading for ATC.
operate than France’s home grown automatic VAL mini-metro. In the 1970′s France only had a handful of elderly tram or streetcar systems, but in 2010, the country boasts 16 operating tram/LRT systems; 9 more under construction; and 5 in later stages of planning!
TramTrain, where streetcars are so designed to track share with mainline railways, see total construction costs well under $10 million/km., a fraction the cost of subway or metro construction, where in some cases see construction costs exceed $500 million/km.!
Swift style $250 million/km. or more, driverless, elevated railways or subways, with all the whistles and bangs, are easy to come by and the taxpayer is only too happy to pay more tax to fund transit mega projects.
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