TransLink is spending a lot of time spinning the delivery of the new (or not so new) Mk.5 cars.
Could it be that TransLink wants to hide the fact that the so called new cars are none other than old Innovia 300, 4-car stock, with an added saloon, making it 5-car Movia Automatic Light Metro stock, which to confuse matters more, TransLink now call the trains SkyTrain MK.5’s.
From what Zwei has been told, TransLink was faced with a Hobson’s Choice ( A Hobson’s choice is a free choice in which only one thing is actually offered) with these cars, either take what you get or don’t buy them.
It seems the bidding process for the cars, was as phony as a three dollar bill as the under-bidder for the cars, the Chinese Railway Corporation did not have an operating vehicle and the bidding was basically what Bombardier offered or a vague non existent car by the CRRC.
Then there was Bombardier’s sale of their railway division to Alstom, so they did not care about the order because it would be soon Alstom’s problem. Thus fine details like a 5 cm rise from platform to train was ignored because it would soon not be Bombardier’s concern.
Alstom is sticking, strictly to the contract they inherited from Bombardier and not helping TransLink much, as they will soon cease production of the proprietary MALM system and cannot fathom why anyone would continue building with the now obsolete proprietary light metro system.
As for the mobility impaired, well welcome to TransLink’s world where the customer comes last.
Above: Innovia 300, 4-car stock as used in Kuala Lumpur.
Mind the gap: Wheelchair passengers question accessibility of new Mark V SkyTrains
It has been one month since TransLink announced a “new era” for SkyTrain as its new Mark V trains rolled into service but some riders say they’ve seen a step backward in accessibility. Angela Jung reports.
It has been one month since TransLink announced a “new era” for SkyTrain as its new Mark V trains rolled into service, but some commuters say they’ve seen a step backward in accessibility.
TransLink has ordered 235 Mark V train cars, which will eventually replace older trains serving both the Expo and Millennium lines. The transit authority has touted their wider aisles and open multi-use areas that can accommodate strollers, wheelchairs and other mobility devices.
2:10Accessibility issues remain on SkyTrain in Vancouver
But transit users like Janice Laurence say the new train cars aren’t level with many of the stations’ platforms, forcing riders to hop up as much as five centimetres to get aboard.
For commuters like Laurence, who uses a wheelchair, that is a problem.
“Look at how high that is. There shouldn’t be a gap like that,” she told Global News.
“Sometimes I’ve waited for three trains because I physically couldn’t get on.”
Laurence said the new trains should be flush with the platforms, and that she was frustrated the new trains weren’t better equipped for people with mobility issues.
Mark V SkyTrain cars now in service on Expo Line
Tessa Schmidt, who gets around with a wheelchair and a service dog, said she recently became stuck halfway on one of the new trains because she couldn’t get her back wheel aboard.
Passengers on the train had to hold the doors open so she could back out; her dog had already boarded ahead of her, and she said she feared he could have been separated or hurt.
“I was excited for the new trains to come in, and I expected there to be issues and concerns with new modes of transportation, new things, but I did not expect it to be a couple of inches,” she said.
“I find it frustrating because this is an issue that they should have looked at for not just people in wheelchairs, but people with walkers and elderly people pulling carts… TransLink is spending a lot of money on these new trains.”
Schmidt said TransLink is well aware of the issue, as its station attendants are frequently called on to help people get aboard the trains.
She added that a staff member told her TransLink was looking into possibly adapting the platforms to address the problem.
TransLink says it tested the new trains extensively and that a review of its platform gaps found they met safety and accessibility standards.
“Our gaps go above and beyond when it comes to the Americans with Disabilities Act standards,” spokesperson Anita Bathe said.
2:57Sneak peak into massive Broadway SkyTrain project
However, she said “there’s always room for improvement,” and that the transit agency wants feedback from its riders.
“We want to make sure going forward that no rider has to experience something like this, and we will look at the issue at hand and try to make improvements going forward,” she added.
Laurence and Schmidt both say they hope to see improvements that will make it easier for everyone with mobility challenges to access the transit system.
In the meantime, Schmidt called on other commuters to give their fellow passengers a hand.
“If you see someone struggling to get on the train, maybe offer them help, don’t be looking at your phone as someone’s trying to navigate onto a train and not moving out of their way,” she said.
“If you see a person with a mobility device, you can also go and flag down an attendant for help so that the person with the disability doesn’t have to go and do that and take more time out of the day.”
Currently the full program to extend the Expo and Millennium Lines a mere 21.7 km will now cost in excess of $16 billion. The now, estimated cost to complete the Broadway subway to UBC is now past $8 billion.
Yet the provincial government had be carried kicking and screaming to find a few million of dollars to help ease the passing of a terminally ill girl, who has an almost unique disease.
The estimated cost for Rail for the Valley’s regional railway from Marpole to Chilliwack is less than $2 billion and the estimated cost to upgrade the E&N railway on Vancouver Island to provide a comparable service with the RftV’s project is somewhat north of $4 billion.
The experts long ago, told the politcans in Vancouver and Victoria to avoid building with SkyTrain, but hey, it looks neat and it is sure of a “vote getter’.
Civic, provincial, and federal politcans are now caught in a trap of their own making as they have greatly deceived the taxpayer on the true costs of the SkyTrain light-metro system and are now doubling down planning more.
The key word is planning, because in today’s new Trumpian world there is no money for transit, especially politically prestigious transit projects built to win elections and little more.
Fiscal reality is about to hit TransLink, the regional Mayors, and the Provincial NDP square in the face and it will make them wish that an earlier premier “had listened to the experts”!
First posted by zweisystem on Thursday, October 27, 2022
We should have listened to the experts in the 1980’s when the then Social Credit government forced ALRT onto the regions regional transit planning.
We should have listened again to American Transit Expert, Gerald Fox 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 should have listened to the 62% of those voting against TransLink’s transit plans in the 2015 plebiscite.
$11 billion (the full program cost is now in excess of $16 billion) needed to build a mere 21.7 km of SkyTrain light metro should be setting off major alarm bells in Metro Vancouver and Victoria, but those alarm bells have stayed quiet.
“You don’t meet people of substance here. You meet flakes. The press is dominated by yellow journalism. Rarely if ever have I read a real piece of investigative journalism. You do not meet people who form their opinions based upon facts. When you encounter Vancouverites and engage them in the discussion of social issues the argument usually become circular and they end of talking only about themselves. There is a kind of deep insecurity that comes from profound feeling of self loathing that is hard wired into the political culture here. Narcissism is the dominate religion and worshiping at the Temple of Mammon; real estate speculation is the Holy Grail.“
We must listen to the experts today, as the alternative is more highways, more cars, more gridlock and more pollution.
Hundreds of thousands of trips are taken on Metro Vancouver’s buses and trains every day, but are enough commuters able to get to where they really need to go?
After the civic elections, TransLink is getting a new Mayors’ Council this fall and one expert believes the transit authority and its leaders need to start steering transit development toward change.
“I’ve long argued it’s well past time to do that because our transit model is not suited for the way the region is growing,” Patrick Condon with the Urban Design Program at the University of British Columbia said. “Most of the job growth is not in downtown Vancouver, it’s throughout the region, and it’s very dispersed in many, many locations.”
Condon says the current hub-and-spoke model presumes that all the jobs are downtown and all the workers live in the suburbs, but it’s no longer the case that all roads lead to Vancouver.
“We committed to the SkyTrain system in the 1980s and we seem very reluctant to move away from it into a system that’s much more affordable and much more capable of serving a distributed region with a distributed system of transit,” he told CityNews.
He says surface light rail and express buses are much more affordable ways to move people than using an elevated or underground SkyTrain system, particularly the “fantastically expensive” Broadway subway line currently under construction in Vancouver.
“The problem [with the SkyTrain] is, because of its nature, it can never serve, within reasonable distance, everybody in the region. It’s impossible to serve everybody with such an expensive system. There are much more affordable systems that can reach closer to people’s homes and can bring them to where they want to go if it’s not downtown Vancouver.”
Condon points to the “political brouhaha” in Surrey as an example.
“When Doug McCallum regained the mayoral seat four years ago, he immediately switched away from a completely funded light rail system that was going to serve Guildford, downtown Surrey and Newton, preferring to extend SkyTrain out to Langley without the funding. And they still don’t have the money to go out to Langley. It’s a terrible situation”
Condon argues the at-grade, light rapid transit plan would have served a denser population area, it was cheaper to build and it was fully funded.
“Now you have a situation, which I don’t think was fully recognized during the last election, where most of the job and housing growth are occurring south of the Fraser [River]. The City of Vancouver has a population growth of less than one per cent over the past couple of years whereas, when you get south of the Fraser, it ranges from about 1.8 per cent in Surrey to over three per cent in Langley.”
The good news, according to Condon, is that the growing Lower Mainland is arranged along a corridor.
“It would be relatively easy to service this constellation of linear communities, from Surrey to Langley to Abbotsford to Chilliwack, with a reasonably inexpensive system that just connects the dots.”
That’s if we consider the region as a whole, beyond the Metro Vancouver area served by TransLink, he notes.
“We don’t really think about [the region past Langley] as part of our metropolitan area but it most certainly is and that’s where the growth is happening. And to extend a super expensive subway out to UBC on the premise we are going to add another couple hundred thousand people to Vancouver really defies the gravitational pull of where growth is going.”
The inaugural meeting of the next TransLink Mayor’s Council on regional Transportation is November 17th.
Bi or double articulated buses have created a demand for such buses to operate in Vancouver.
I believe this would be a big mistake because from what I know about bi articulated buses, they are a niche transport system, designed to solve niche transit problems.
What I do know is that they are maintenance intensive and maintenance, especially preventative maintenance is something that TransLink is very poor good at doing.
Bi articulated buses are illegal to operate in Canada, unless they operate in a fully dedicated rights-of-way.
This means the cost difference between a bi articulated bus and a tram (LRT) would be almost the same, without the benefits of the tram with cheaper operating costs; much higher passenger capacities; and lack of flexibility in operation.
From my stays in Germany, the German CDU political party is akin to Canada’s Conservative party and the likes of Doug Ford, who is a Conservative and hates trams.
I do not know why, but the more Conservative a politcal party, the more they dislike affordable public transit and spend huge sums of money on largely unaffordable subways and light-metros. In BC the same is true of the NDP, who ignore affordable transit solutions in favour of hugely expensive “SkyTrain light-metro” solutions.
Back to the bus. I think it would be another grand mistake operating these buses in Metro Vancouver, as for what little increase in capacity on transit routes, would mean a large increase in maintenance and operational costs.
In the end what should be done is not done in favour of gimmicks for election time and to hell with the taxpayer and transit user.
Berlin: Mega buses instead of trams? Between pragmatic solution and political deadlock
The Berlin Transport Authority (BVG) is planning to deploy extra-long electric articulated buses measuring up to 25 metres in length. Supported by Berlin’s CDU party, these ‘mega buses’ are being presented as a flexible, short-term alternative to trams – especially in areas where tram expansion has stalled. Critics, however, speak of a ‘political distraction debate’ and accuse the current Senate of stopping or delaying key tram projects for ideological reasons. Urban Transport Magazine takes a detailed look at the current situation, technical options – and the strategic significance for the transport transition in the German capital.
The idea: XXL buses with a length of 25 metres
As part of its ‘E-Bus 2025’ electric mobility programme, BVG is preparing to purchase a new generation of buses: double-articulated buses with a length of around 25 metres and a theoretical capacity of up to 200 passengers. In reality, the capacity is around 130–150 people – nevertheless, they represent a significant increase over the 18-metre articulated buses currently in use.
In 2020, BVG considered using double-articulated trolleybuses, but this did not happen. Source: BVG/VDV Elekbu Conference 2020
These vehicles are intended for use primarily on heavily used MetroBus lines such as the M32 in Spandau, but also on other lines with high passenger numbers, such as in Marzahn-Hellersdorf or along Heerstraße. The vehicles will be fully electric and charged at terminal stops. Procurement could begin in 2026, subject to political approval and structural adjustments.
Technology meets tactics: the political significance of the bus strategy
While the BVG presents the planned deployment as a logical step towards expanding capacity and electrification, the project has a strategic component, particularly for Berlin’s CDU party, which is aggressively promoting XXL buses as a cost-effective and quickly implementable alternative to trams. In interviews, large buses have even been referred to as ‘tram killers’ – a phrase that has met with opposition not only from transport experts.
In this context, the website Umweltzone Berlin refers to the CDU’s ‘ideology-driven hatred of trams’. Large buses are stylised there in the same way as the magnetic levitation train once was – as a supposedly forward-looking technology, but one that in fact only distracts from the expansion of the tram network. The comparison published there is pointed: ‘Large buses are the new magnetic levitation train – lots of PR, little substance.’
Transport policy reality: tram projects on hold
While the mega buses are being discussed publicly, tram expansion in Berlin is slowing down dramatically. The new black-red Senate has stopped key tram projects or postponed their planning indefinitely:
Alexanderplatz – Potsdamer Platz: The planned closure of the gap via Leipziger Strasse has been halted, even though 530 metres of track had already been laid and €6 million invested. The search for alternative routes is setting the project back by years.
Johannisthal – Gropiusstadt (M11): The expansion was also completed, although initial planning costs had already been incurred.
Blankenburg South, Mahlsdorf, Heerstraße North: Projects in the northeast and west have been postponed or delayed, often citing details such as fire brigade access routes or insufficient prioritisation.
No reliable time frame: The Berlin Senate is currently not giving any completion dates for 12 originally planned tram projects covering a total length of around 60 km.
Transport initiatives such as the Berlin Passenger Association (IGEB) are already warning of a ‘loss of five to ten years for the tram’ in Berlin.
Pro: The Advantages of the Large-Capacity Bus Solution
Despite all criticism, there are valid arguments in favor of XXL buses – at least as a complementary measure:
Fast deployment: Compared to rail infrastructure, buses can be procured and put into service within just a few years.
Capacity increase without tracks: The 25-metre-long buses offer significantly more space than conventional buses and could temporarily relieve capacity bottlenecks.
Easy integration into existing routes: No planning approval process, no construction pits, no years-long permitting.
Environmentally friendly: The new vehicles are fully electric, locally emission-free, and therefore part of Berlin’s climate strategy.
Con: No Substitute for a High-Capacity Rail Network
At the same time, XXL buses are no full replacement for tram systems – neither technically nor from a transport policy perspective:
Lower capacity: Even at 25 metres, buses do not match the capacity of modern trams (up to 250 passengers).
More prone to disruption: Buses still share the road with general traffic – congestion, illegal parking, and accidents impair reliability.
Shorter infrastructure lifecycle: Rubber tires, shorter vehicle lifespans, and charging infrastructure challenges make buses more expensive in the long run.
Problematic policy signal: Promoting XXL buses as “tram replacements” could ultimately undermine commitment to expanding rail services – contrary to the recommendations of mobility research and climate policy.
Conclusion: Megabuses as a Bridge – Not as an Excuse
The proposed bi-articulated buses can provide short-term relief – especially on routes with growing passenger demand and no foreseeable tram expansion. But they must not be used as an alibi to indefinitely delay tram development.
Experience from other European cities shows that a high-performance, electrified public transport system needs both: modern buses and an expanding light rail network. Rather than an ideologically charged “either-or debate”, Berlin needs a pragmatic “both-and” approach: large-capacity buses as a flexible interim measure where necessary – but trams as the structural backbone of the mobility transition. Currently, however, political obstruction seems to outweigh the need for a balanced and forward-looking transport strategy.
Hamburg: Van Hool Bi-Articulated Buses – An Ambitious Experiment with Limited Success
In the early 2000s, Hamburg’s public transport operator Hochbahn AG began searching for ways to cope with rapidly growing passenger volumes on its main MetroBus corridors—particularly on Line 5, one of the busiest bus routes in Europe. Rather than reviving the city’s long-abandoned tram system, Hamburg opted for a high-capacity rubber-tired alternative: the introduction of ultra-long bi-articulated buses measuring 24 metres in length. The city chose the Belgian manufacturer Van Hool and its AGG300 model.
The vehicles could carry up to 180 passengers, featured five axles—three of them steerable—and had four wide double doors on the right-hand side. A conventional rear-mounted diesel engine powered the middle axle. The buses entered service in 2005 on MetroBus Line 5, operating between Burgwedel, Niendorf, Eppendorf, and Hamburg Central Station. The route was specially adapted to accommodate the new buses, including dedicated bus lanes, traffic signal priority, and extended platforms.
In theory, the Van Hool bi-articulated buses were intended to bridge the gap between conventional buses and rail-based systems. In practice, however, the vehicles proved impressive but prone to operational issues. Technical breakdowns—particularly involving the articulations or the complex steering system—occurred repeatedly. The buses struggled especially during winter operations: with only one driven axle, they often lost traction on snow or ice, leading to delays and occasional service suspensions. Their sheer length also made navigation through narrow city streets difficult, particularly when turning. Maintenance posed another challenge, as these non-standard vehicles required special parts that sometimes had to be sourced directly from Belgium.
Despite these issues, the buses remained in regular service for several years and briefly stood as a symbol of Hamburg’s innovative approach to public transport. Ultimately, however, the operational and infrastructural disadvantages outweighed the benefits. As electric articulated buses became more widespread and service frequencies increased, the Van Hool fleet was gradually withdrawn from service. A follow-up order, once considered, was never pursued.
Today, the Van Hool project is viewed as a cautionary case study in the challenges of boosting bus capacity to levels comparable with rail systems—especially without fully segregated infrastructure. While the effort was pioneering, the trade-offs between flexibility, capacity, and reliability proved too great. Since then, Hamburg has not only invested in modern electric buses but has also shown renewed interest in tram systems, particularly in long-term planning for a sustainable mobility transition.
Sources: Berliner Morgenpost, Neues Deutschland, Umweltzone Berlin, Berliner Zeitung, Berliner Senatsverwaltung. 25.07.2025
This is a repost from the Light Rail Transit Association (LRTA), because again politcans in metro Vancouver do not have a clue about “capacity” as evidenced in the local media.
Please copy or Email this to your local civic, provincial and federal politcans.
A QUESTION OF CAPACITY
THE CAPACITIES of different modes of transport are generally quoted as 0-10 000 passengers per hour for bus, 2000-20 000 for light rail, and 15 000 upwards for heavy rail/subway.
* Maximum capacity is only likely to be required for a few hours during peak hours, and even here there are likely to be variations both day by day and within each hour. The capacity required originates from the route’s social characteristics.
* As for the vehicles, buses have a comfort capacity equal to the number of seats, and a maximum capacity equal to seats plus standing load.
* In the case of trams, it is more complicated. The nominal maximum capacity is calculated at four passengers per square metre of available floor space (a reasonably comfortable level), plus the number of seats.
* As trams are designed to carry a large standing load, the ratio of standees to seats is quite high. The standing area is also important for the carrying of wheelchairs, pushchairs, shopping and sometimes bicycles. Some manufacturers quote maximum capacity using 6p/m2 while a figure of 8p/m 2 is used as a measure of crush capacity. This last figure is also employed to determine the motor rating of the vehicle.
* A further complication is that even when there are seats available, some passengers prefer to stand. This may be because they are only traveling for a few stops, that they want to stretch their legs, or may just prefer to stand.
* A tram’s comfort capacity can therefore be considered as the number of seats, plus the voluntary standees who may amount to up to 10-15% of the nominal maximum number of standing passengers.
ELASTICITY
* It is the difference between the average passenger load for any particular time and the crush load which gives light rail its Elasticity Factor, allowing it to cope with variations in conditions such as sudden surges or emergency conditions.
* Standing is made more acceptable by the design of track and vehicle, reducing the forces acting on the passenger to a minimum. This makes for a smooth ride, as well as ensuring ease of access, good support and the ability to see out without having to stoop.
* Where a route is mainly urban with short journey times, the number of vehicles required should be calculated on the nominal maximum. On longer journeys outside the central area, a lower level may be more appropriate, dependent on the route’s characteristics. Even on rural sections, there are likely to be a a number of short distance riders, and the loading factor will increase nearer to the urban area.
COMPRESSIBILITY
* While it might be thought desirable to offer every passenger a seat, it is in fact the ability to carry high loadings in a confined area (the Compressibility Factor) which enables light rail to achieve many environmental benefits, allowing large numbers of people to be carried without harming, and often improving, the features of a city.
* It is city centres where several routes combine that the most capacity is required. A typical situation could be a pedestrian street with six routes operating at 10-minute headway giving 36 double coupled trams per hour each with a capacity of 225. This gives a nominal capacity of16 200 passengers per hour which can be increased to 25 200 pph in extremis without extra vehicles.
Light rail is unique in this ability to operate on the surface with its capacity without detracting from the amenities which it serves. A further factor in setting the resources required is the need to lure motorists out of cars. The more difficult the traffic conditions, the higher the loading’s will be acceptable. It is however important that crush loads are not allowed for more than the shortest of periods on an infrequent basis, both to maintain customer satisfaction and prevent elasticity of the system being compromised.
* It is vital that public transport can cope with sudden changes in demand, such as extreme inclement weather or air quality violations which can cause private traffic to be halted. This is where the elasticity inherent in light rail is so beneficial in enabling an instant response in an economical fashion. A tram may be crowded, but its infinitely better than having to wait in the snow of smog until extra vehicles are brought into service.
* It is this unique combination of Capacity, Compressibility and Elasticity rather than capacity alone which makes light rail so successful as an urban transport mode.
* Note Statistics are based on Karlsruhe, using GT/8 cars
Several recent posts in local transit oriented blogs have denounced the modern tram as some sort of throwback in planning.
Really?
Public Transport is about a user friendly service that provides a quality product for the customer. In over 450 cities around the world (not including strictly Light Rail Operations), the modern tram is the workhorse transit mode, that provides both a user-friendly and non-user friendly transit service that can operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
User friendly means easy for the transit customer to use and a service that satisfies ones travel demands.
Non-user friendly means that the service is affordable to the taxpayer and integrates well in urban, suburban and even in rural areas. In urban and suburban operation the modern tram operates on grassed or lawned track, making the tram route a linear park, environmental friendly in congested neighborhoods.
It is well worth remembering, that since Vancouver’s proprietary “SkyTrain” light-metro has been on the market since the late 1970’s, only seven such systems have been sold, with only six remaining in operation. No new SkyTrain system has been sold, in the past 20 years.
During the same period over 150 new tramways have been built around the world and many of the existing tramways have been rebuilt to modern standards, with many more extensions either under construction or being planned.
The 3.9 tramway expansion in Bratislava, replacing costs much, much less than SkyTrain’s elevated guideway, yet provides the same quality of service.
The value of the Petržalka contract is €83.043.464 (CAD $133 million(no VAT). This works out to $34.1 million/km; based on the current cost of the Expo Line extension to Langley, 3.9 km of elevated guideway costs $1.365 billion or put another way, for the same cost of 3.9 km of elevated guideway for SkyTrain light-metro, we could build 40km of modern Tramway!
That is what TransLink and the Mayors Council on Transit do not want the taxpayer or transit customer to know!
Bratislava: The new tramway extension to Petržalka starts service
The metre-gauge tram network in the Slovak capital Bratislava has been completely renovated in many places in recent years, and various new low-floor railcars from Skoda now form the basis of the fleet.
Since the 1960s, extensive new housing developments have been built on the south bank of the Danube using standardised prefabricated construction methods. These areas were (and still are) served by various bus lines, which attempt to cope with the rush of passengers, especially during rush hour, by running at short intervals. For a long time, there was talk of building a metro to the districts south of the Danube, but these plans ultimately could not be implemented in Bratislava, which is a fairly compact city. An attempt to connect the area to the tram network was finally made in 2016 with the commissioning of a new 2 km long line with three stops between Safárikovo nám. and Jungmannova, which now also crosses the Danube on a large bridge. However, this only connected a small part of the residential areas.
The extension from the previously temporary Jungmannova terminus with six new stops over 3.9 km to the Južné mesto terminus had been planned for a long time in order to provide better and more direct access to the Petržalka residential area and to significantly reduce bus traffic. Construction began in 2021/22 on the route, which is largely laid on grass tracks on its own right-of-way, partly away from the roads, and was largely completed in autumn 2024. But not quite: on 19 December 2024, an initial test run took place, but various defects in the construction were discovered. Discussions about responsibilities and accountability ensued – and delayed the opening several times.
But today, 27 July 2025, the time has come: trams on line 3 run through to the new terminus at Južné mesto – every 5 minutes on weekdays during the day, with even more frequent service in the morning rush hour, running every 2.5 minutes. Tram line 7 and bus lines 59 and 95 have been discontinued, line 192 has changed its route – and the residents of Petržalka finally have an attractive, fast public transport connection to the city centre!
First posted by zweisystem on Thursday, April 8, 2021
Updated.
Reinstating passenger services on regional railways, it is what government should be doing, to deal with traffic congestion and pollution, but they are not, as government would rather spend money on prestigious “rapid transit” monuments to cut for photo-ops at election time.
The E&N, the RftV TramTain from Vancouver to Chilliwack; and the Okanagan corridor from Salmon Arm to Kelowna are all candidates for regional passenger rail.
The former BC Rail line to Prince George and beyond should also have passenger rail service reinstated.
Government refuses and instead, invests billions of dollars on a glitzy, propreitary light-metro transit system, which has proven not very good in attracting the motorist from the car, nor will it be, at a cost of over $350 million/km to build! Too expensive to extend to where transit is needed, means potential customers must first take the bus, which translates to, “taking the care is just easier and faster“.
With the now over $16 billion investment to extend the Expo and Millennium Lines a mere 21.7 km, means there is little money for anything else. Yet, is investing in a now obsolete, proprietary light metro a good investment?
Mode share for transit in Metro Vancouver in 2017. Despite over $15 billion in investment on the SkyTrain light-metro system, mode share for transit is slowly decreasing.
The rails to trails lobby, abetted by the various cycle lobbies, who have attached themselves to both major provincial parties, have become selfish, self-absorbed anti-rail cynics and, have done everything they can to thwart any sort of modern use on rail corridors.
The refusal of government to deal with 21st century transit and transportation issues, with 21st century transit solutions and instead rely on obsolete transit solutions born in the 60’s and 70’s only demonstrates how ossified government and the bureaucracy have become.
With no tangible improvement in the future, except greatly increased congestion on highways, more pollution and ever higher taxes to pay for governments grand mistakes, doing the same thing over again and expecting different results is the government’s mantra.
Using existing railways or former rail routes to provide a cost effective rail transport only makes sense, but common sense is in short supply in government, where the “grand spectacle” such as the World Cup Games become the great government event.
Global warming is only a theme, which the current government has paid lip service too as they pander to environmental groups but in the end are not serious.
Government at all levels, do not care!
As stated before in a previous post:
The NDP are paving paradise and turning it into a parking lot.
A French regional rail service has boosted tourism in areas it serves.
By Patrick Carnahan, Co-Executive Director, All Aboard Washington and Tim Gould, Transportation & Land Use Committee Chair, Sierra Club Washington
Rail is the only form of mechanized ground transportation that does not contribute to tire-related massive salmon die-off. Yet, news of University of Washington research on tire dust toxicity to coho salmon coincides with the state virtually freezing intercity passenger train service. The toxic effects to salmon, caused by a compound in rubber tire dust that runs off roadways into streams, do not occur with steel-wheeled trains. How frustrating that the energy efficiency advantage of steel wheels on rail, and the mobility access provided by the rail network are ignored as solutions to pressing environmental and transportation challenges.
Amtrak Cascades has connected the Vancouver-Seattle-Portland corridor since 1995, offering a green travel alternative to I-5. Cascades handled over 800,000 annual riders in 2018 and 2019. However, in response to the pandemic, service has been curtailed to only one train per day. Worse yet, due to an equipment shortage, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) does not envision a full return of service for up to five years. Our best hope for a sustainable, equitable transportation network is being terribly neglected at this critical moment in the fight against climate change.
Passenger trains can make a difference in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions during the next decade, the critical time to avoid climate change tipping points. WSDOT has had plans since 2006 to improve and expand service. Hourly train trips between Portland and Seattle would divert three million people annually from aircraft and highways to curtail GHG emissions. However, this plan has been neglected and is not even available on WSDOT’s website (find it on All Aboard Washington’s [AAWA’s] website).
Time is of the essence. Within a decade, we need to leverage the sustainable transportation alternative we already have: Amtrak Cascades. AAWA and Sierra Club recognize the pandemic-induced budget limitations that the Legislature faces. Yet, the state’s economic recovery and environmental goals can be advanced using existing rail infrastructure to restart and enhance Amtrak Cascades service.
To fight for our salmon and climate today, five Cascades projects are needed:
Restore North Sound Service
Cascades train service north of Seattle has been discontinued during the pandemic due to the Canadian border closure, eliminating twice-daily round-trips that serve Edmonds, Everett, Stanwood, Mount Vernon, and Bellingham. WSDOT should restore North Sound service, and extend it to Vancouver when the border re-opens.
Complete the Cascades Long Range Plan (LRP)
Realizing the vision presented by the 2006 Cascades LRP will be critical in our efforts to combat climate change. An update this year to the LRP will position the Cascades to seek federal grant money, implement shovel-ready projects, and acquire new train equipment with sufficient funding.
Secure Stable Funding
Rail needs consistent, robust funding in order to become our accessible, equitable, and climate-friendly transportation backbone. Let’s support creative revenue sources such as land value recapture and county rail districts.
Strengthen Local, Regional, and Federal Partnerships
Cascades service, supported by Oregon and Washington, can be more successful with closer cooperation between the states, the province of British Columbia, and stakeholders. Streamlined governance relationships, regional rail commissions, and rail advisory committees can facilitate better cooperation.
Expand Service Statewide
Washington’s commitment to equitable, sustainable mobility for rural and urban communities across the state requires more intercity rail service to complement other transportation modes. The Legislature needs to embrace a bold vision of mobility justice with passenger trains serving more of Washington.
First posted by zweisystem on Wednesday, March 2, 2022
One of the RftV’s many friends, Haveacow is a Canadian transportation specialist. He uses the Avatar Haveacow because in the arcane world of Canadian and American public transportation, speaking the truth may find you out of a job.
An American transportation Engineer who has helped Zwei in the past, found this out when the long arms of SNC Lavalin and Bombardier caused him much worry due to a not to pleasant factoid about our locally venerated SkyTrain light-metro system.
TransLink is seldom honest with the public, but with the TransLink’s new CEO taking to the stump, drumming up support for new taxes for TransLink one can believe that TransLink is in dangerous economic peril.
This, of course , is not new and has been long predicted by experts outside the metro Vancouver/TransLink bubble.
Gerald fox had a terse comment about financial ills in his 2008 critique of the Evergreen Line and stated:
“But, eventually, Vancouver will need to adopt lower-cost LRT in its lesser corridors, or else limit the extent of its rail system. And that seems to make some TransLink people very nervous.“
TransLink is nervous and Mr. Cow gives detailed insight at TransLink’s financial ills in a comment in the previous post. Insight that the Hive or the mainstream media do not give, nor care to give.
A subsidy of $157.6 million in 1992, translates to $275 million in today’s money.
Over to you Mr. Cow!
When you have a regional transit agency like Translink it’s very difficult to not use taxation as a form of operating funding. When I refer to taxation, I mean taxes the transit agency itself can levy against taxpayers. I knew a long time ago that agencies that use this revenue or somewhat dubious private investment funds filled with taxpayer funding to fund not just operating budgets but a portion of future capital budgets as well, are headed for great troubles unless, they are very, very careful. North America is full of regional transit agencies that have done this since the 1960’s and been burned financially, some are still paying for it (SEPTA, MBTA, TriMet, MPAT and PATCO come to mind).
When I saw that a not to small amount of funding from Translink itself was required to fund Stage 1, 2 and 3 of their 10 year capital works funding plan (2018-2028), I started to worry for Translink. This is the current 10 year plan that has several high order projects like, the phase 1 of the Millennium Line extension to Arbutus, the original SNG LRT Line, which were all part of stage 2 of the plan. Projects like phase 2 of the Millennium Line extension to UBC and the LRT extension from Surrey to Langley (which was actually affordable), which were funded in stage 3 of the 10 year plan.
However the most important parts were the hundreds of smaller, state of good repair and operational improvements in all 3 stages of the plan. Many of those were highly dependant on Translink’s funding. Many of these desperately needed items can’t happen without the portion of funding from Translink’s coffers. As early as the implementation of stage 1 of the 10 year plan, Translink’s own financial documents questioned if the planned funding from Translink for stages 1-3 would be enough (about $725 million). These comments were usually in the “financial risk portions” of the documents, at the end of the financial documents. The parts after they would show how great their financing ability was and how “on track” they were going towards their financing goals. These comments are essentially, under the category of “look guys and gals we’re just covering our buts here”. The public and many politicians have been conditioned over the years to ignore these sections but they all said the same thing essentially, “we really need a lot more funding in the future than we currently have but we are ok for now. However, one catastrophe and everything changes, forever”. Without a lot of these little projects being completed many of the big ones become impossible.
The Catastrophe Begins
First, a fool (the current Mayor of Surrey), believed he could fund a 16km long Skytrain line with the same amount of funding for 11 km of surface LRT, a yard and its LRV’s. He didn’t understand that just the concete alone for a 16km long, above grade Skytrain line was going to cost almost as much as the entire LRT Line over the original 11 km distance in phase 1 of the LRT plan. The new Skytrain extension price didn’t include new trains where as the LRT price did. This cost was added into a Skytrain vehicle order which was now costing around $727 million. The final cost of that contract has gone up, believed to be now around $800 million simply due to the length of the contract being extended multiple times let alone inflationary costs and not immediately nailing the cost down at the time of it’s announcement. This is a common error made by agencies. Other cost increases have and will occur because Bombardier was bought out by Alstom
This mayor didn’t realize that, if this line became a Skytrain line a massive new operations and maintenance yard (OMC#5) would be needed, this alone will add $350 – $600 million in cost to the line, depending on the yard’s capacity and capabilities.
He also didn’t know that surface LRT along the highway median through certain portions of the Surrey to Langley LRT line (phase 2) was cheaper because an above grade Skytrain line running at the north side of the highway alignment would mean, building a concrete viaduct through 3 to 4 km’s of wet unstable soil as well as bog and swamp.
There’s a few more cost surprises coming and it all depends on the choices made by Translink in the extension’s final design. So 2 LRT lines costing a combined $3.4-$3.5 Billion covered by 2 different stages of the 10 year plan as well as everything 27 km’s of LRT operations would need is replaced with, 16 km of Skytrain, costing $3.95 Billion and rising, not including the trains or financial risk costs, with the final price rising because none of these costs have been finalised yet.
This forced the Province to take over the project because Translink could no longer afford its portion of the costs. The original LRT money now doesn’t even cover the 7 km long first stage, in the originally 2 stage funding plan. Then the plan became a single stage plan, all 16 km to be built at once, all having to be covered by the provincial government. This maneuver alone will raise the cost of the line not to mention, the extra time costs Translink is now forcing on the project to modify its entire 10 year funding plan. Remember Covid 19 hadn’t hit yet and a reworking of the 10 year funding plan was already needed by late 2019. This means costs for materials that were to be ordered, based in 2021-2023 costs now have to be all budgeted at costs based in 2024 and later, adding at the least, 2 years of increasing inflationary cost to this project, let alone any other inflationary costs. That’s why I know the line cost will continue to go up. The entire $3.95 Billion cost for the Surrey to Langley extension is based in ordering construction materials based on prices for 2021, 2022 and 2023 levels. The line’s new cost benefit analysis being done by the provincial government won’t be complete until late 2022 at the earliest. Then they have to finalize cost estimates. Which aren’t truly, actually known until the tendering process is complete.
Then Covid 19 hit!
Yes the Fed’s bailed out Translink on its operating funding from 2020 through part of 2022 but that doesn’t cover capital costs. Funding that was supposed to go into the existing 10 year plan from their own taxation was extremely degraded because of Covid 19 costing not only the total missing amount of funding for capital project costs versus pre Covid levels but the future potential interest, that holding some of that cash would have provided towards Translink’s portion for stage 3, 10 year plan funding. The federal government is spending $750 Million this year in operating funding relief (operating funding only) to bail out transit agencies but that’s for all Canada not just Vancouver. This continues to put a bigger and bigger hole in capital funding until Translink’s tax levies return to pre Covid levels, sometime between 2024-2028. This may never happen if electric vehicles take hold in a big way because they (Translink) rely on a lot of gas taxes for their funding. Hence the call for new funding sources from Translink’s CEO.
A repost. First posted by zweisystem on Friday, March 27, 2020
With all the hype and hoopla about the new SkyTrain 5-car train-sets being delivered and the media oo-ing and aw-ing about the system, I thought retelling a little history was in order.
One just has to shake ones head!
Except for brief mentions of our local SkyTrain Lobby, we do not hear about the now called Movia Automatic Light metro system in Youngin and for very good reason, as it has mired Bombardier into a massive local scandal.
The local prosecution office is more blunt: EverLine, a lead prosecutor says, was built after Bombardier engaged in corrupt practices to win the 2004 contract for its construction.
The evidence his office gathered showed that Bombardier supplied its South Korean representative, Henry Kim, with lobbying fees totalling $1.8-million over a five-year period. Bombardier sent gifts to the homes of local politicians, as well as to researchers tasked with creating the ridership forecasts that would underpin construction of the new light-rail line, the prosecutors found. Mr. Kim received a further $4.7-million in advanced payment incentives that were deposited into a Swiss bank, under the name of Mr. Kim’s wife, Mr. Cha said.
One wonders what gifts and lobbying fees were given or paid locally to in Metro Vancouver to continue planning for the now obsolete MALM system?
Why do local politicians still strongly support building with it, when expert opinion, in Canada and abroad, has deemed our SkyTrain light-metro system obsolete?
Why do local politicians never explain that only seven such systems have been built in the previous 40 years and only three are seriously used for urban transport?
why do local politicians sidestep any question about the light metro system with inaccurate or misleading statements?
In Canada, politicians and police don’t care to know!
The Bombardier-built EverLine, which runs along an 18-kilometre track in Yongin, South Korea, was sold to local leaders as a vision of the future, but is now derided by locals as a bus on rails.NATHAN VANDERKLIPPE/THE GLOBE AND MAIL Dec. 30 2017
Yongin, South Korea
Every few minutes, a single car passes by Chodang station, one of the stops on 18 kilometres of elevated track that wind through Yongin, a small city 40 kilometres south of Seoul. When the EverLine was sold to local leaders, it was a vision of the future – driverless cars that would swiftly transport tens of thousands of passengers a day.
Today, locals mockingly call it a bus on rails, slower on some routes than taking an actual bus, and, for the city that built it, far more expensive. The local prosecution office is more blunt: EverLine, a lead prosecutor says, was built after Bombardier engaged in corrupt practices to win the 2004 contract for its construction.
The project’s one-trillion-Korean-won price tag, equivalent to $940-million in today’s dollars, was based on initial expectations that some 160,000 people would ride the EverLine every day. But even three years after operations began in 2013 – a start date delayed by legal wrangling between Yongin and the Bombardier-led consortium that built the line – actual ridership was less than a fifth of that figure. The resulting financial shortfalls have saddled Yongin with so much debt that the municipal government was forced into austerity measures around the time the line entered service.
The problems have brought intense scrutiny to how a consortium led by Bombardier won the right to build the project. A special investigation by Yongin prosecutors concluded that the company operated a slush fund and bribed researchers and decision-makers with gifts and trips. For half a year, a team of six South Korean prosecutors, 14 investigators and two certified public accountants worked together. They examined the records of 52 fixed phones, analyzed 115 cellphones and computers, scoured 725 bank accounts and accumulated 285 boxes of documents. “We were aiming to hold people responsible for this wrongful private-sector investment project,” prosecutor Cha Maeng-ki told The Globe.
In Yongin, lawyer Hyun Geun-taek is surrounded by more than10,000 pages of paper, the accumulated record of legal challenges to the Bombardier-backed Everline.NATHAN VANDERKLIPPE/THE GLOBE AND MAIL
The evidence his office gathered showed that Bombardier supplied its South Korean representative, Henry Kim, with lobbying fees totalling $1.8-million over a five-year period. Bombardier sent gifts to the homes of local politicians, as well as to researchers tasked with creating the ridership forecasts that would underpin construction of the new light-rail line, the prosecutors found. Mr. Kim received a further $4.7-million in advanced payment incentives that were deposited into a Swiss bank, under the name of Mr. Kim’s wife, Mr. Cha said. Some of that money, Mr. Cha said, was used to buy real estate in South Korea.
The company also flew 37 people, including 18 city councillors, to Canada, where it “paid their full expenses, put them up in luxury hotels, and provided them with golfing trips, a trip to Niagara Falls and other luxuries,” he said. “These trips took place at the time during which Yongin city and Bombardier were going through negotiations for their business conditions.”
Mr. Cha said, “Providing gifts or funding trips to civil servants in the line of duty constitutes bribery.”
The results of Mr. Cha’s investigation were made public in 2012 and, in the years that followed, local courts found Lee Jeong-moon, the former mayor of Yongin, guilty of corruption on charges related to the EverLine construction. He was sentenced to prison for bribery related to the selection of subcontractors, including his younger brother and friends, for the rail-construction project.
Mr. Kim was found guilty of embezzling funds from the Bombardier-led consortium, where he had served as CEO. But the Bombardier representative did not face trial on charges of corrupting officials nor was the company itself charged with wrongdoing. By the time prosecutors began digging into the company’s South Korean project, it was too late for charges. “The statute of limitations at the time was five years,” Mr. Cha explained.
Canada’s toughened anti-corruption law contains no such statute of limitations.
(Mr. Kim’s phone number in South Korea has been disconnected, and The Globe was unable to reach him for comment.)
Bombardier’s Mr. Marcil, however, contested Mr. Cha’s interpretation of events. “We reject the insinuation that we, in any way, acted wrongfully in the Yongin project, or that we unduly influenced either the choice of technology or the decision to build the transit system,” Mr. Marcil said. “After our full cooperation in their investigation, South Korean investigators determined that there was no cause for charges against Bombardier.”
Mr. Lee, the former mayor sentenced to jail on corruption charges, also defends the EverLine – and the company that built it. He is “completely in favour of them,” he said in an interview. “Bombardier didn’t hurt Yongin City the tiniest bit. Not one bit.”
Bombardier had been given preferential status in bidding for the Yongin project, and was the sole company to submit a bid, according to a local lawmaker.
But the company has since gained many detractors in a city where the EverLine has grown into a symbol of extravagance and waste. The lower-than-forecast number of riders has meant less revenue than initially expected and has sparked a dizzying number of efforts to assign blame. Prosecutors charged 10 people, accusing them of bribery and violating construction safety laws. A citizens group has sued Yongin for damage compensation.
The city and the Bombardier-backed consortium faced off twice before the International Court of Arbitration, or ICA, after Yongin accused the consortium of safety flaws and noise issues. The consortium then sued over delays in opening the line, and won. In two judgments, the ICA awarded the consortium a total of 778.6 billion Korean won, an amount roughly 22-per-cent greater than the consortium’s share of construction costs. Because the city could not afford to pay the entire sum at once, it agreed to continue payments until 2043. After a contractual change, Bombardier no longer operates the rail project that it helped bring to Yongin, where the project continues to raise local passions.
Lee Sang-cheol, one of the 18 councillors who travelled to Canada with Bombardier, acknowledged that the company gave him gifts, although he down-played them as “nothing out of the ordinary.” He also defended the trip he took to Canada on Bombardier’s dime. “If they want to sell us machines, they have to show us those things,” he said. And he added that “stopping by some tourist attractions shouldn’t be such a big deal. How can we just see light rail and nothing else?”
Still, he has come to regret the company’s involvement. “Bombardier made zero losses in this transaction. Bombardier lost absolutely nothing. It took everything it wanted to take,” he said. And he resents the financial duress that the EverLine project inflicted on his city. “Honestly, what Bombardier did, it caused massive harm to Yongin city.”
This post was released on Wednesday, February 11, 2009, sixteen years ago under the title, “Five reasons Why Gordon Campbell and his ‘Falcon’ don’t want the “Return of the Interurban”. It is still relevant today, only the names have been changed, to expose the guilty.
Under the NDP, nothing has changed and in fact has gotten worse!
So, with a little tweaking here and updating there, we have the following……..
Five reasons Why the NDP don’t want the “Return of the Interurban”.
It is all too simple, the tracks are there from Vancouver to Chilliwack, the diesel light-rail vehicles are available from many manufacturers and have been proven in revenue operation, and the precedent of the Karlsruhe two-system or zweisystem LRT, with over 33 years of safe operation, track-sharing with mainline railways, makes the return of the interurban an almost shovel-ready project. Why then does Premier David Eby and his Minister of Transportation and now demoted Mike Farnsworth , do not want the “return of the interurban” for the Fraser Valley.
Here are five main reasons.
1) The interurban is not seen to be a Metro Vancouver rapid transit project. The monied ‘West-side types’ (locally known as the creme de la creme) who run and finance the provincial and federal NDP, see the interurban as a non-vote getter, thus not essential – not needed. It was the same Liberal ‘West-side types’ that forced the now $2.5 billion (actually with 16 years of operation the cost, due to the payments to the consseionaires of the P-3 Canada Line, the cost is approaching $4 billion!) Canada Line subway on TransLink because they did not want LRT operating on the former interurban rapid transit route, the Arbutus Corridor.
2) Because LRT is much cheaper to build, there is less chance of ‘friends of the government’ or ‘ ‘friends of the bureaucracy’ getting contracts to work on the project. Simply put, light rail is too cheap to build for political or bureaucratic benefit. The NDP would be very embarrassed if a 130 km, under $2 billion rail route from Marpole to Chilliwack would attract more new customers than a now almost $7 billion, 16 km SkyTrain extension from Surrey to Langley.
3) Over 40 years of the SkyTrain myth has ingrained itself on planning in the region; transit is no longer built to move people affordably, rather it is built to facilitate land development. For developers, the bigger and more expensive a transit project is, the better it is. Building SkyTrain in the region has been like forcing round pegs into square holes.
4) The NDP have all but written off‘ valley‘ seats in Parliament as most are safe seats, in a largely Conservative farming region, the same time ignoring the explosive population growth along the former interurban line. The NDP don’t care about any transit improvements because they think Fraser Valley voters, like sheep, will always return non NDP MLA’s to the legislature.
5) The unions representing trucking industry and the Road Builders Association are big supporters of the the NDP and the NDP’s ‘rubber on asphalt’ transportation policies favour theses two groups. Rail, unless there is political benefit, is not even on the radar screen. ‘Rubber on Asphalt’ , especially the now almost $10 billion upgrade to Highway 1, is the credo of the Transportation Ministry.
There are many more reasons why Eby’s NDP, like Gordon Campbell’s Liberals do not want the ‘return of the interurban’ to the valley. It is up to ‘rail’ advocates to make ‘Rail for the Valley’ an election issue, to force both the BC Liberals and the NDP, to come out of the closet with real (not empty promises) plans for the return of passenger rail service from Vancouver to Chilliwack. The clock for the next election election is ticking down……………………………..
Forget the hype and hoopla from politcans about transit; forget the well timed media releases; forget the staged photo-ops for the local papers, if any local papers have survived. The big question facing the region is; has TransLink given up?
The big news is that fares are going up, yet the service provided seems unattractive to potential customers. Actual ridership numbers are increasing somewhat, but the overall percentage of mode share for transit is dropping. it seems increasing ridership numbers are coming from population increase and not modal shift from car to transit.
In my wee part of the world in South Delta, the express buses are operating with a large number of empty seats and even the local buses are bereft of customers except for students and those working at Tsawwassen Mills.
Of course the 620 bus to the Tsawwassen Ferry terminal is full, but the rest of the services are grossly underused.
Venturing to SFU last week, where the traffic was almost in perpetual gridlock, what few buses I saw were half full at best. Even passing by SkyTrain at 22nd Ave Station, there was no indication of over crowding ( lots of space between the standees) and this was at 5PM on a Friday!
This not to say all the buses were operating half empty but it wasn’t the transit chaos espoused by many in the many public forums on social media blogs.
At present, TransLink provides an adequate service for the region, with a few select bus routes purposely under-served by buses to give the impression that the system is full to the brim with customers.
The “TransLink Listen’s program is a failure simply because the first question asked is “do you use transit” and if you answer “No”, end of survey. Should not TransLink investigate the reasons why people do not use transit, rather than “should bicycles use transit” sort of question.
It seems the mandarins in their ivory towers do not want to know why people do not take the transit provided.
TransLink is out in full force, with spin-doctors galore for all SkyTrain or BRT announcement, but that’s about it. It seems TransLink has given up and just does what its told to do by the premier’s office and that is to give transit a “happy face” at election time.
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