In today’s world, the lowest bid is not always the best bid, rather it is the lowest bid that will make profit for the company bidding. Thus the lowest bid does not produce the best product.
Like the Canada Line with its many problems, SNC Lavalin, which heads the P-3 consortium operating and maintaining the line only care about profit margins and not operating an acceptable product for the public.
Here are the problems for SNC Lavalin and Bombardier Inc for the BS Line.
From what I have been told, the federal portion of money for the BS and Surrey Lines must be included in a P-3 funding format. With a proprietary railway (which Bombardier Inc. is telling everyone that will listen that the ART/Movia proprietary light-metro is not a proprietary light metro), very few companies will bid on the P-3 because Bombardier and SNC Lavalin will have an insider’s edge and if SNC Lavalin is convicted in federal court for bribery, holding the engineering patents for the proprietary light metro may disqualify them from entering into the P-3 process altogether.
Makes one wonder with the BS Line, is the fix already in and all the bidding process, nothing more than an elaborate “charade”, as what Judge Pittfield called the Canada line P-3 bidding process, during the Susan Heyes lawsuit against TransLink?
Has the Trudeau and Horgan governments paved the way for SNC Lavalin and Bombardier Inc. to further increase their profit margins by allowing the two companies to flaunt the bidding rules for the two light metro projects?
Montreal-based company’s rivals easily met technical score, sources tell CBC
Joanne Chianello · CBC News · Posted: Mar 22, 2019
SNC-Lavalin won the $1.6-billion contract to extend and maintain Ottawa’s north-south LRT line even though it didn’t achieve the minimum technical score to qualify for the project — a threshold its competitors met easily, CBC News has learned.
The Montreal-based company beat out two other consortia to extend the Trillium Line from Greenboro into Riverside South, a decision cemented with a 19-3 vote by Ottawa city council on March 6.
However, sources with direct knowledge of the Stage 2 evaluation process told CBC that SNC-Lavalin failed to achieve the minimum technical score of 70 per cent, a requirement set out in publicly available documents.
CBC is not naming the three sources because they are not authorized to speak with the media.
The troubled company was one of three pre-qualified bidders for the extension of the Trillium Line. The other two — Trillium Link and Trillium Extension Alliance — scored well above the minimum technical grade of 70 per cent, according to CBC’s sources.
City ‘stands by’ process
City officials and their hired experts overseeing the procurement process have steadfastly refused to confirm whether SNC-Lavalin met the technical threshold.
When council debated and ultimately approved the spending for LRT Stage 2, which includes extending both the east-west Confederation Line and the north-south Trillium Line, Coun. Diane Deans asked if the winning bids had met the minimum 70 per cent score.
She was told the scores were commercially confidential. Deans replied she wasn’t asking for the score, only to be assured the winning bids met the threshold.
Again this week, the city refused to say whether SNC-Lavalin made the minimum grade, citing commercial confidentiality of the process.
Given more than two business days to respond to inquiries, the city refused to provide an in-person interview, sending instead an email attributed to Chris Swail, the director of O-Train planning.
“The city stands by the overall integrity of the procurement process in no uncertain terms,” according to Swail’s statement.
The statement also says city officials “are all satisfied with the results” of the procurement process and in “the winning proponent’s ability and capacity to design, build and maintain the Trillium Line extension.”
SNC-Lavalin has built rail systems all over the world, including the award-winning Canada Line in Vancouver.
“We are very proud of the proposal we submitted and look forward to getting started,” said an SNC-Lavalin spokesperson in an email.
The engineering and construction giant said it has no knowledge of the breakdown of the score as the process is confidential.
How the bids were evaluated
The procurement process was overseen by law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, consultants Deloitte, fairness commissioner Oliver Grant, city-hired engineering experts and the city’s own staff.
According to the statement from Swail, the three technical proposals were reviewed by a team of experts for “completeness” and “conformance” to make sure the submissions met the requirements of the contract.
In order to receive a passing score, a technical score threshold of 70 per cent for each of the criteria was required.
– City of Ottawa report
But these “completeness” and “conformance” reviews are not the same as the technical scoring, and in fact were conducted before the bids were scored for their technical merit.
The technical evaluation for the shortlisted bids occurred in two stages, according to public city documents.
Individual expert evaluators reviewed and scored the submitted bids for the Trillium Line on a number of criteria including project design, engineering and operations.
“In order to receive a passing score, a technical score threshold of 70 per cent for each of the criteria was required,” states a city report.
The evaluators then came together to decide on a so-called “consensus” score out of a maximum of 500 points.
It is common in procurement processes that a bid that doesn’t make the technical grade be disqualified and barred from the financial evaluation round. This week, the city would not say whether this was the case with the LRT Stage 2 procurement.
We were warned by the experts of the day to avoid the proprietary ALRT transit system, otherwise known as SkyTrain; we were warned by the best!
No one listened and today, we continue to spend up to ten times more to build with a dated proprietary light metro that no one else in the world wants!
The future is very bleak and I have nothing but contempt for the politicians agreeing to build more and more of what is now a museum piece.
A politician can be forgiven if he/she is unknowledgeable about transit, because they can learn, but if a politician refuses to learn and wishes to remain unknowledgeable, then that politician is ignorant and ignorant people cost the taxpayer dearly!
To day, metro Vancouver is infested with ignorant politicians who insist in doing the same thing over and over again, ever hoping for different results.
Prediction: The B.S. Line will break the back of Translink financially and may never be completed.
Bombardier's SkyTrain, a rubber tired people mover system.
Los Angeles Airport (LAX)t is building a $5 billion SkyTrain system, which may cause confusion because in Bombardier’s line of transit systems, SkyTrain is a rubber tired people mover system and not the trains used on the Canada, Expo, and/or Millennium lines.
Cries of shock and disbelief!
The name SkyTrain, which was chosen by contest, is the name for the Metro Vancouver regional rail system and not the vehicles.
Bombardier’s proprietary ART/Movia Metro is now the official name of the Expo and Millennium Line’s cars and ROTEM, a subsidiary of Hyundai, supply the electric multiple units (EMU’s) for the Canada Line.
So calling the actual trains SkyTrain is wrong as the SkyTrain regional rail system operates two distinct railways, the conventional Canada Line and the unconventional proprietary ART/Movia lines.
They are not compatible in operation.
I would surmise that Bombardier Inc. liked the name SkyTrain so much that they use it for their airport people mover system, which is far more marketable than their now obsolete ART/Movia metro system of which only seven have been built in the past 40 years!
A white elephant is a possession which its owner cannot dispose of and whose cost, particularly that of maintenance, is out of proportion to its usefulness.
To recap, the Canada Line is not a true P-3, rather a mock P-3, where SNC Lavalin/Bombardier, bid against, SNC Lavalin/ROTEM.
Judge Pittfield who presided over the failed Susan Heyes lawsuit against TransLink, called the bidding process a “charade”.
The Canada Line is the only heavy-rail metro built in the world as a light-metro and being only able to operate 41 metre long, two car trains, has much less capacity than a modern tram costing a fraction to install!
At a minimum of $110 million to the SNC Lavalin lead consortium to operate annually, calling the Canada line a “White Elephant” is too kind!
The Canada Line can only operate 41 metre long two car trains, which is smaller than many trams on the market today. Thus the Canada line has less capacity than a modern tramway.
Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan says Surrey must avoid repeating the costly mistakes made when the Canada Line was built as a P3 partnership now that the city is clamouring to build new light rail lines.
Corrigan has been pushing TransLink to disclose details of the Canada Line arrangement, which he says forces the transit authority to pay the private partner not just a higher interest rate than if it had borrowed directly but also additional inflationary and other adjustments.
Those payments cover the cost of operating the line as well as the $721 million in private capital nearly one third of the $2.1-billion rapid transit line that was fronted by the partners after direct contributions from TransLink and senior governments.
The deal to secure and repay the “magic money” through the P3 has financially hobbled TransLink, leaving it unable to afford better transit service in the years since the Richmond-Vancouver line opened in 2009, Corrigan told the Metro mayors’ council Jan. 27.
Dortmund's SkyTrain - no relation to Vancouver's SkyTrain
Ah, the great SkyTrain debate is once again upon us and a Fox News style niche newspaper, the Daily Hive, has decided that SkyTrain is its best friend!
No doubt TransLink is happy, while it is desperately trying to hide the fact that Movia metro is a proprietary railway.
Sorry to say, Movia metro is a proprietary light metro system and a rather unsuccessful one at that, with only seven such systems sold in almost forty years.
SkyTrain is the name of the regional metropolitan rail network and not the name of the two very different railways that operate under the SkyTrain umbrella.
Bombardier's rubber tire SkyTrain, operating at Phoenix's airport.
There are several SkyTrain transit systems in the world, from MAGLEV monorails, to airport people movers.
The H-Bahn in Dortmund and Düsseldorf is a suspended, driverless monorail system called SkyTrain.
There is a SkyTrain corporation in the USA, marketing a monorail type system.
The Bangkok Transit System (BTS) is called SkyTrain, yet no relation to Vancouver’s SkyTrain.
The Phoenix, Arizona airport’s rubber tired people mover is called SkyTrain and is built by Bombardier Inc.
China calls its new monorail, SkyTrain.
And the list goes on; all proprietary railways, all Called SkyTrain, incompatible in operation with Movia metro.
BTS SkyTrain in Bangkok, no relation to Movia metro.
Vancouver’s SkyTrain system consists of a conventional railway (the Canada Line) and an unconventional railway, the now called Movia metro. It is the proprietary Movia metro we are concerned about.
The Movia metro is a proprietary railway which technical patents are owned by Bombardier inc. (cars) and SNC Lavalin own the Engineering patents (viaducts construction). SNC Lavalin inherited the patents when the amalgamated with Lavalin, when the went bankrupt trying to build Advanced Light metro (ALM) in Bangkok Thailand.
The now called Movia metro proprietary railway has had six previous names.
Movia metro was developed by the Ontario Crown Corporation, the Urban Transit Development Corporation and marketed under the name Intermediate Capacity Transit System (ICTS). Only two were built, as modern light rail made ICTS obsolete almost over night.
ICTS was renamed Advanced light Rail Transit (ALRT) and sold to Vancouver in what was then a very dubious business deal. The name change fooled no one, except the then Social Credit government and no other example was built.
The name again was changed to Advanced Light Rapid Transit, to try to deflect the fact it was indeed inferior to LRT.
None were sold.
The UTDC and ALRT was sold to Lavalin, which changed the name to Automated Light Metro (ALM). Lavalin went bankrupt trying to sell ALM to Bangkok.
SNC amalgamated with Lavalin to form SNC Lavalin and inherited the proprietary ALM system.
SNC Lavalin sold the technical patents to Bombardier Inc., but retained the more lucrative engineering patents.
Bombardier completely rebuilt the poorly designed (ICTS/ALRT/ALM) cars and marketed the vehicles as Advanced Rapid Transit (ART).
Only four were sold, with three being airport/theme park people movers and to Kuala Lumpor, which politicians thought ART was a monorail! (in fact Kuala Lumpor’s third transit line was indeed a monorail!)
Lack of sales caused Bombardier to fold ART into their Innovia light metro line and after a decade of no interest, Bombardier folded Innovia into their Movia metro line with linear Induction Motors as a customer add on.
Movia metro is indeed a proprietary railway as it is powered by Linear induction Motors and in fact it is powered by attractive LIM’s. Attractive LIM’s have been rejected elsewhere as being power consumptive.
Movia metro is only compatible in operation within its family of of seven ICTS/ALRT/ART systems operating. The Canada Line, a conventional railway cannot operate on the Expo or Millennium lines and Movia metro cannot operate on the Canada Line. This is the hallmark of a proprietary railway.
No other company produces off the shelf Expo or Millennium Line compatible cars (though they could provide cars if LIM propulsion were to be discarded) and to do so would cost a sizable amount of money by developing the trucks to accept the LIMs and develop a lightly constructed body shell and then safety case the cars to satisfy Transport Canada.
The cost to do this is around $60 million and as Vancouver is the only remaining customer for the obsolete proprietary light metro, why waste the money! This gives Bombardier a financial edge in any P-3 and the same is true for SNC Lavalin who have the technical patents for the viaducts and subway.
Footnote: Automatic train control is a signalling issue and not technology issue. ATC is very expensive and only used on transit systems which see traffic flows in excess of around 20,000 pphpd. ATC is also one of the reasons SkyTrain is expensive to operate.
In Vancouver, Movia metro’s capacity is limited to 15,000 pphpd, by Transport Canada’s Operating Certificate and to increase capacity around $3 billion must be spent to rehab the line to allow higher capacities.
As for Colleen Hardwick being a skeptic of SkyTrain, especially the Movia metro, Zwei again is reminding everyone that Movia metro has been on the market for over 40 years, showcased at Expo 86, one of the most studied proprietary railways in the world, yet only 7 were built, and only three seriously used for urban transport.
Toronto is soon to tear theirs down, due to it being both a proprietary and expensive to operate, as well, the guideway will soon be life expired and costly to update. Bombardier and SNC Lavalin are also embroiled in a corruption scandals in Kuala Lumpor and in Yougin Korea.
To conclude, Movia Metro (Expo and Millennium line) is a classic proprietary railway; the question is: “Why is TransLink, using the gullible Hive, trying to deny this?”
In 2016, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (with then B.C. premier Christy Clark) announced that his government was increasing the federal contribution from 33 to 50 percent for municipal transit projects.
As I watch the breathless media coverage of the SNC-Lavalin scandal, it reminds me of a scene from the 1942 film Casablanca.
A German officer decides that it’s time to close a casino operated by Rick, played by Humphrey Bogart.
So the Nazi gives this order to Capt. Renault, played by Claude Rains, who blows his whistle and declares that the business is being shut down.
“I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here,” Renault says.
Then he collects his winnings
Nowadays, the Ottawa media is expressing shock—shock that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would have tried to put an end to the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, which has more than 50,000 employees worldwide and posted $10.1 billion in revenues last year.
About 49 percent of this—or about $5 billion—came from the Americas and 32 percent of overall revenue came from engineering design project management.
Another 25 percent was from oil and gas, 22 percent from infrastructure, nine percent from nuclear energy, five percent from mining and metallurgy, and four percent from clean power. It’s a big business.
Now, let’s look at some statements from the Liberal Party of Canada platform in the 2015 election campaign:
“We will invest in sustainable infrastructure that makes our communities safer and more reliant.”
That included local water and wastewater facilities, clean energy, and flood mitigation systems—just the type of work SNC-Lavalin specializes in.
“We will establish the Canadian Infrastructure Bank to provide low-cost financing for new infrastructure.”
Bingo—another benefit for SNC-Lavalin.
“Over the next decade we will quadruple federal investment in public transit, investing almost $20 billion more in transit infrastructure.”
In case you’re wondering, SNC-Lavalin has played a major role in the development of all four rapid transit lines in Metro Vancouver. Anytime federal money flows in this direction, there’s a reasonable likelihood that it will benefit SNC-Lavalin shareholders.
“We will run modest short-term deficits of less than $10 billion in each of the next two fiscal years to fund historic investments in infrastructure and our middle class.”
Aside from the fact that the deficits vastly exceeded $10 billion, one of the winners of this promise is most certainly SNC-Lavalin.
Trudeau also pledged to end boil-water advisories on First Nations reserves by 2021. SNC-Lavalin is a big player in developing water-filtration systems, too.
That’s not to say these promises weren’t popular or worthwhile.
It’s just to point out that for a long time, the Liberals have ensured that SNC-Lavalin’s priorities are their priorities, too.
The Paul Martin government increased its contribution to the Canada Line from $300 million to $450 million. SNC-Lavalin is a partner in the operating company.
Canada Line is a prime example
You only have to look at the $2-billion Canada Line in Vancouver and Richmond.
In 2004, Liberal prime minister Paul Martin increased federal funding from $300 million to $450 million. A few months later, SNC-Lavalin/Serco won the bid to build and operate the 19.2-kilometre line.
Twelve years later, Trudeau promised to increase the federal contribution for rapid-transit projects from 33 percent to 50 percent.
Now, there’s talk of a SkyTrain extension to UBC’s Point Grey campus, which could cost $3.8 billion in 2018 dollars. That’s in addition to a SkyTrain project to Langley and a Millennium Line extension to Arbutus Street in Vancouver.
In 2016, Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau also decided that Canada would join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which is a Chinese government–created rival to the World Bank.
That helped offset the damage that occurred when the World Bank penalized SNC-Lavalin. In 2013, it was barred from bidding on World Bank–financed projects for 10 years following a bribery scandal in Bangladesh.
So who benefits when Canada joined the AIIB, likely over the objections of the U.S. government? SNC-Lavalin, of course, which is a major global player in megaprojects.
Then there’s the Trudeau government’s support for pipelines, including Enbridge’s Line 3, which will likely open this year.
The Trudeau government also bought the aging Trans Mountain system from Kinder Morgan for $4.5 billion. An expansion will gobble up another $9.3 billion to triple shipments of diluted bitumen from Alberta to the B.C. coast.
I repeat: a quarter of SNC-Lavalin’s revenues come from oil and gas.
So when the aging Trans Mountain infrastructure needs upgrading, there’s a good chance for more revenue for SNC-Lavalin.
But a criminal conviction would get in the way because it would be barred from bidding on federal projects—and the Trans Mountain pipeline system, right now, is federally owned.
Shocked—we’re just shocked!
The national media have been big cheerleaders of the pipeline purchase.
These newspaper and broadcasting companies have also collected a whopping amount of advertising revenue from supporters of the Trans Mountain pipeline project and the Trudeau government.
Yet now, like Capt. Renault in Casablanca, they’re blowing the whistle on Trudeau’s dealings with SNC-Lavalin in connection with its court case.
They’re shocked, just shocked, by the lengths to which the prime minister would go to assist the corporation.
The only thing missing from this movie is a dewy-eyed Ingrid Bergma
Mind you Ottawa’s, the Stage 2 LRT program went from $3.6 Billion to $4.7 Billion.
This was due to three reasons.
1. Inflation from the 2015-2016 price estimate, mainly concrete and paying user fees for the new lower carbon emitting concrete formulas. Concrete emits massive amounts of polluting gasses like CO2, during the curing process. All of the specialized steel needed for construction (only 3 steel mills make it, 2 USA, 1 Sweden ) are located in countries in which we slap a 25% import duty on this special product, until Trump we got stock US prices for the 2 US steel mills.
2. Originally the Stage 2 LRT project was adding only 30 km of service, now due to a upward scope pressure, mainly political, we have to pay for 44 km of service.
3. When the 3 final P3 proponents crunched the numbers none of them could build the add ons to the Confederation Line for the amount the city wanted, all were a minimum of $600 million over the city of Ottawa’s maximum amount!
Remember Stage 1 costs (12.5 km new line (including a subway)+ 8 km of existing line) $2.137 Billion.
Stage 2 (44 km) costs $4.66 Billion (including major engineering including viaducts and tunnels).
That’s 64 km for $6.797 Billion! Compared to the 6 km, $3.5billion Broadway Subway, is this a good deal?
The real costs for the Broadway subway will be closer to $3.5 Billion by the time construction on the first stage of the BS Line is ready to begin construction in 2020 or 2021.
Meanwhile back in Vancouver let us look at our rapid transit costs.
The extension of SkyTrain to Fleetwood – $1.65 billion (funded)
The extension of SkyTrain from Fleetwood to Langley – at least $1.5 billion (unfunded)
The Broadway subway to Arbutus – $3.5 billion. (funded to $2.8 billion not including cars)
The Broadway subway extension from Arbutus to UBC – at least $4 billion. (unfunded)
The Expo and Millennium line rehab, to increase capacity – $3 billion (full cost – unfunded).
The list does not include the minimum $2 billion rehab of the Canada Line, in increase its capacity, in 25 years hence, when the P-3 ends and the Canada line is handed back to Metro Vancouver and TransLink.
Over $11 billion in direct SkyTrain costs in the next decade or so and not a hint in huge increases in the operating costs for the BS Line; an estimate $40 million, just for the SkyTrain subway to Arbutus!
One just has to shake ones head with TransLink. Calling it the “Ship of Fools” is not correct. The “Ship of Fools are those buying into Translink’s continued propaganda stream.
Earlier, Zwei debunked the TransLink inspired myth that Broadway was the busiest transit Corridor in Canada; no wait North America.
Where was the mainstream media?
Tell a lie big enough and repeat it often enough, the people will come to believe it.
What we see in Metro Vancouver is a rogue bureaucracy, filled with people who really haven’t a clue about our transit system, rather the sole purpose is to build more of the obsolete SkyTrain. In short, BS their way for more SkyTrain construction.
On Feburary 24, 2019, The Vancouver sun ran an Op-Ed piece by Elizabeth Murphy;
I want to dispel the myth that SkyTrain technology is not proprietary. Automated train lines are popular around the world and that growth has brought more choice in the market.
A key to the SkyTrain technology is that it is a driverless, automated system. In addition to reduced operating costs, the automated system also improves safety, as it removes the potential for human error. The technology also allows us to run trains more frequently.
With more cities choosing automated systems, there are now more manufacturing options when it comes to procuring SkyTrain cars from several companies. While the vehicles and technology must be tailored to each agency’s system, the automated technology at the heart of our SkyTrain system is not unique or proprietary.
Sany Zein, vice president, TransLink
The letter written by a TransLink vice president demonstrates that either he is deliberately misleading the punlic or he is profoundly ignorant of the metro railway system.
Let us look at the veracity of his letter.
SkyTrain is not a technology, it is what our metropolitan railway is named. Many elevated transit systems are locally know as SkyTrain.
What we call SkyTrain is actually three different railways, with two being closely related.
The Canada Line is a conventional railway and is not compatible in operation with the rest of the “SkyTrain” network.
The Expo line was built with the old Linear Induction Motored (LIM), Urban Transportation Development Corporation ALRT system, which was renamed from ICTS, because it was unsalable. The Expo Line is not compatible in operation with the Canada Line.
The Millennium Line and Evergreen line expansion, uses the Bombardier Inc. rebuilt ALM system (renamed from ALRT because it was unsalable), which cars are longer and heavier. The LIM powered ALRT/ART system is now called Movia metro.
The patents for the Movia Metro system are owned by Bombardier Inc. and SNC Lavalin
Driverless transit system has very little to do with being a proprietary railway, rather driverless or automatic operation is a signalling issue. Driverless transit systems are very expensive to operate and maintain and are used on large metro operations where the traffic flows are such to make driverless operation sustainable.
The Expo and Millennium Lines operate LIM powered trains, with Bombardier Inc. the only supplier for the proprietary railway. No other railway company can provide a LIM powered train without first designing and safety case a new vehicle and set up a production line, which is very costly.
Vancouver is now the only city in the world, of the seven cities that built with the LIM powered now called Movia Metro, to pursue planning and building with it. Only three of the seven systems were actually built as a metropolitan railway.
Bombardier Inc. is slowly phasing out production of the proprietary LIM powered Movia metro system.
The City of Ottawa sent a delegation to Vancouver to study our SkyTrain system before they were to build their own transit system. They found the transit system, especially the Movia system, very expensive to build and cost more to operate and maintain than light rail. The delegation also found that driverless operation prevented flexibility of operation, that has been proven to attract customers to transit.
TransLink’s executives know this, yet deliberately continue mislead the public about the proprietary Movia Metro system.
Again, I ask; “Where is the mainstream media?” and “where is Attorney General, David Eby?” Should he not be protecting the public from misleading statements from TransLink?
For the past several years, the SkyTrain Lobby, politicians and academics have all said, almost in unison, that Broadway was the busiest transit corridor in Canada, if not North America.
The old Joseph Goebbels quote is true; “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
Thus for the past several years the big Broadway lie, enabled by TransLink has ingrained the notion that Broadway is the most heavily transit route in Canada.
Fact Check!
In a letter to several news organizations, all metro mayors and other interested parties, I laid the foundation that Broadway was not the busiest transit route in Canada .
Stung by this, TransLink wrote a letter to myself and in a round about way claimed that Broadway “is our region’s most overcrowded bus route.”
No apology and not even a hint of remorse, TransLink continues to boast about Broadway!
Finally, on January 31, 2019, you contacted several news organizations and this Secretariat raising concerns over TransLink’s assertion that the 99 B-Line is the busiest bus route in the US and Canada. TransLink is confident in its data collection and peer comparisons, noting that the 99 B-Line route on the Broadway Corridor moves 60,000 customers per day on articulated buses running every three minutes at peak times. This is our region’s most overcrowded bus route. Pass ups are already common, as our regular riders on that route are fully aware. TransLink projects that the 99 B-Line from Arbutus to UBC will be at capacity in the peak when the Millennium Line extension from Commercial-Broadway to Arbutus opens.
Just a minor footnote, according to TransLink the 99B moves about 60,000 customers a day, but of course that is both ways, as TransLink slyly tries to once again inflate the real ridership on Broadway.
Why?
The big prize is the now $3.5 billion Broadway SkyTrain subway to Arbutus and TransLink does not want the truth to upset the subway bulldozer!
After flirting with Bombardier’s Innovia monorail and optically guided buses, Las Vegas is now improving their regional transit system, with a proven winner, light rail transit.
Regional Transportation CommissionA rendering of a proposed light rail system along Maryland Parkway.
Monday, Feb. 18, 2019 | 2 a.m.
Starting this week, the Regional Transportation Commission will hold a series of meetings to gather input on plans for mass transit along the Maryland Parkway corridor into downtown Las Vegas.
Three options will be on the table. But only one will take Las Vegas where it needs to go, and that’s light rail.
This is about way more than transportation infrastructure. The decision on how to move forward on the project will have major ramifications for the city’s ability to compete for tourism and convention business, the development of the valley’s inner core and the quality of life for Southern Nevada residents.
That’s because light rail, unlike the bus options that also are under consideration, is transformational.
As proven in city after city where systems have been built, light rail is a development magnet and a major asset in attracting visitors.
It also offers a check on urban sprawl by encouraging development upward instead of outward, says Brookings Institution transportation expert Adie Tomer.
Residential development near light rail tends to come in the form of multistory structures, Tomer said — not necessarily skyscrapers, but low- and mid-rise condominiums and apartment buildings.
The combination of upward development and mass transit development would produce consequences that would be felt valleywide, Tomer explained. If the community continues to grow outward and remain car-focused, he said, residents’ time in traffic will increase as more and more cars crowd onto more and more miles of roadway.
Look no further than Southern California, with its near-constant traffic congestion, for the logical conclusion of Las Vegas’ status quo.
Meanwhile, as Tomer and many others have noted, bus rapid-transit systems like those also being explored by the RTC simply don’t spark the same kind of development as light rail. Put yourself in the shoes of a developer who, say, plans to construct a mid-rise condo building with restaurant/retail space on the ground floor. Would you rather build it along a bus route, which can change, or a set of steel tracks that have been laid into the ground?
That’s a no-brainer, which is partly why so much development has happened in cities that have invested in light rail systems. Since Phoenix’s system came online 10 years ago, the city estimates that $11 billion in private investment has sprung up within a half-mile of the lines.
But in Las Vegas, the economic consequences go well beyond new development. Cities that compete with us for travel and convention business, such as Orlando, Fla., and regional metros like Phoenix and Denver, long ago recognized the value of light rail and are using it to their advantage.
The Maryland Parkway system wouldn’t directly help Las Vegas make up the distance, but it would be an important first step toward establishing a line to serve the Strip.
That’s a vital need. For a community whose marketing strategy revolves around the richness of our visitor experience, it’s an absolute must to make travel as convenient and carefree as possible for tourists and convention-goers. Being stuck in a taxi or ride-hail car for hours isn’t the kind of thing that will keep people coming back.
And while critics will argue that self-driving vehicles are the 21st-century solution, don’t believe it. Those critics may be right in predicting that the onset of autonomous vehicles will result in more ride-sharing, with drivers signing up for services as opposed to owning their own cars. But it would still take a flood of vehicles to provide drivers with the immediate service they would demand. So that’s not the answer to congestion.
Critics will also howl about the cost of light rail, which is substantially more expensive than bus options.
But there’s a cost for staying with the status quo, too, and it’s a heavy one. Our quality of life is on the line in the form the torturous travel times and environmental damage that come with sprawl. Also at issue is the health of the tourism industry that drives our community and our entire state.
So we’re going to pay one way or another.
Let’s invest in a proven winner, Las Vegas. Let’s commit to light rail.
Regional Transportation CommissionA rendering of a proposed light rail system along Maryland Parkway.
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