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.
It is hard to believe, that group of hapless politicians have just signed a death warrant for transit in the region.
The Mayors Council on Transit just gave the OK to build a SkyTrain subway to UBC, which means the rest of the region can kiss goodbye to any sort of credible transit planning for the foreseeable future.
Subways are expensive to build but they are also very expensive to operate and in Canada, the standard for building a subway is a transit route with customer flows in excess of 15,000 pphpd.
Broadway currently has peak hour customer flows of around 4,000 pphpd.
This means a $7 billion dollar SkyTrain subway, will be not just heavily subsidized, it will be massively subsidized which means higher fares and much higher taxes. The poor and the middle income residents of metro Vancouver will have to flee the region due to a huge tax burden.
More people will be moving up the valley, which in turn will put a massive stress on transportation infrastructure in the Fraser Valley.
The mayors that voted for this will go down in history as the most ignorant band of fools yet.
From the TTC, we learn that the operating costs for a subway to Arbutus are in the neighborhood of $40 million annually, and probably $50 million annually if it goes to UBC. But these cost escalate in time as the subway ages.
After all the hype and hoopla of the Expo line, BC Transit became very worried with the huge subsidies being paid.
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The politicians lead the people to believe that it was paying for itself, then paying its operating costs but in 1992 the GVRD and BC Transit release “the Coast of Transporting People……” and showed that the annual subsidy for SkyTrain, just to operate to New Westminster was $157 million and change; more than the trolley and diesel buses combined.
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But let us factor in the inflation rate of 157.63 million in 1982 is now $371.52 in 2019 dollars and that is for a largely elevated system.
With Broadway, the vast majority of users will be $1 a day U-Pass holders which means the subway will not generate revenue.
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The total subsidy for just a Broadway subway to UBC could be higher than $300 annually!
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Forget the pleasant homilies about transit and SkyTrain, the Broadway subway may not only bankrupt TransLink, it may never see a revenue customer! In Charleroi, France, politicians, against the advise of experts, built a regional metro, the costs were so high that there was no money to pay for operation and it remains today almost completed, but never used and has lain rotting with age for over twenty years!
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The mayor’s council’s decision has just demonstrated to the world how stupid they are.
The Charleroi Metro, built but no budget to operate it, it remains largely built, yet never used.
TransLink’s Mayors’ Council chooses SkyTrain for UBC expansion
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – It’s one giant leap forward for SkyTrain to UBC: TransLink’s Mayors’ Council voted to move forward with SkyTrain as the chosen technology to get rapid transit to the university.
The earliest construction would start is 2025 and only if the project receives funding under Phase Three of the mayors’ ten-year transportation plan. The project is expected to have a price tag of more than $3-billion.
Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart is calling this great news for students, workers, educators and businesses across the region.
Regional Mayors just voted yes to move forward with #SkyTrain to UBC! This is great news that will help keep students, workers, educators and businesses moving right across the region. #vanpoli
TransLink Planner Geoff Cross says the next phase includes a lot of public consultation.
“Project planning still to be done is really around station locations, horizontal alignment, vertical alignment, connections, costing to be able for you to understand where this fits, what the business case looks like for future funding decisions,” he adds.
That process is expected to last up to 18 months with a full business plan developed by 2020.
Cross says other factors needing to be considered include the best construction method.
“The next phase would include quite a bit of public and stakeholder consultation, working with the City of Vancouver, syncing up with some of their land use and corridor planning, understanding what the technical and functional requirements for tunnelling, etc. could be.”
Concerns have also been raised about which company will be chosen to build the new SkyTrain considering recent problems being faced by one of the bidders SNC Lavalin.
Protecting renters long new route
Although Vancouver councillor Jean Swanson says she’s in favour of better transit, she says it shouldn’t be at the expense of low-income renters.
She says there are thousands of apartment units along the new SkyTrain route that should be protected.
“I’m not against having better transit, but I am afraid there’s 30,000 purposed built apartment units, they desperately need to be protected from being demolished and replaced with higher density condos,” she says.
Swanson hopes the city can re-zone the areas to be rental-only to protect renters.
The sheer incompetence of TransLink was on show yesterday with a SkyTrain melt down.
The Canada Line is former Liberal brainchild Premier, Gordon Campbell’s, attempt to have a P3 transit project. Well the result is a capacity constipated transit line that is not compatible with the rest of the SkyTrain system, with the operating consortium headed by Canada’s current favourite Company, SNC Lavalin.
Transport Canada must investigate this incident as customers were held hostage for three hours by Translink’s utter incompetence.
Kevin Desmond must resign or be fired!
SkyTrain passengers on a Canada Line train stuck for 3 hours in Richmond
It was a tense and very cold evening for SkyTrain passengers stranded on a Canada Line train for three hours Monday night.
The train became stuck between the Aberdeen and Lansdowne stations at about 8:20 p.m, halting all service between Bridgeport and YVR stations.
TransLink thinks heavy ice on the power rail may be the culprit but it needs to verify that.
Technicians initially tried to recover the train by rocking it back and forth. When that failed, they sent a rescue train to bail out the folks stuck onboard.
Passenger Masooda Shahi tells Global News reporter John Copsey what happened next:
“There was a rescue train, after maybe an hour, right behind us. That was the time the train was moving back and forth, like maybe 10 metres, and that also got stuck.”
Technicians managed to recover the stuck rescue train and tried coupling it with the first train, but there wasn’t enough power to haul both.
Finally, after nearly three hours, customers got out of their train and walked across the guide way to one on the opposite track.
Translink says customers were not evacuated to the opposite guide way right away, as it was not safe to lead them along the elevated guide way in the hazardous weather conditions.
“We extend a sincere apology to these customers,” Translink spokesperson Jill Drews says in an email.
SkyTrain is noted internationally that it doesn’t operate in the snow.
Poorly designed and poorly maintained, means the so called backbone of our transit system, turns spineless, leaving thousands of people to fend for themselves.
Toronto’s Scarborough line fails in the snow.
Detroit’s SkyTrain service stalls in snow.
JFK’s Airtrain balks in the snow.
And in Vancouver, a mere 4 cm of snow causes SkyTrain to crap out!
And the idiots at TransLink and the Mayor’s Council want to build more of it?
To again quote my late father, who was told by the Captain of his frigate, over a snafu from Halifax; “When you have idiot’s running the show, do not be surprised at the results.”
Snowfall hit the Metro Vancouver region quickly and swiftly on Sunday afternoon, with up to 10 centimetres expected.
It took a few months but it seems winter finally decided to visit the west coast.
Snowfall hit the Metro Vancouver region quickly and swiftly on Sunday afternoon, with up to 10 centimetres expected. The southeastern region of the Sunshine Coast, Greater Victoria, Southern Gulf Islands and Eastern and Inland Vancouver Island were also told to expect similar amounts of snowfall into Sunday evening.
“The heaviest snow for East Vancouver Island is expected on the Malahat Highway while the heaviest snow for Inland Vancouver Island is expected in the Lake Cowichan area where 10 to 15 centimetres of snow will fall through Monday morning,” read the snowfall warning issued by Environment Canada.
In Metro Vancouver, road warnings from local police agencies were plentiful, with snow blanketing all major routes and bridges connecting the region.
TransLink’s Expo Line has been negatively impacted from Lougheed to Columbia station. Customers traveling in either direction must now switch trains at Columbia station. A bus bridge put in place has been cancelled.
Update: At 6 pm, TransLink announced that Expo Line service has been impacted from Lougheed to Columbia station.
Any customers traveling in either direction will be required to switch trains at Columbia station. The bus bridge has been cancelled due to poor road conditions.
In Europe, cities with LRT or trams have plows to keep the track and roads clear of snow.
As interest in TramTrain grows abroad, we are left with Translink’s SkyTrain only planning.
The lack of flexibility of SkyTrain will soon hamstring our urban rail system under the weight of massive subsidies and debt serving costs.
TramTrain, first designed to make transit more user friendly, by eliminating transfers, now seems to be the affordable and user-friendly transit system than can affordably connect communities with major urban centres.
UK: Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham introduced the city region’s revised long-term spatial strategy on January 7, which includes a transport investment vision running to 2040.
The transport vision sets out how Greater Manchester’s wider economic objectives can be met through targeted infrastructure investment. It includes a Draft Delivery Plan running to 2025, which is intended to pave the way for the longer-term objectives to be realised. These include a target for no more than 50% of journeys to be completed by private car.
Public transport investment is targeted primarily at enhancing capacity and undertaking asset renewals on the 97 km Metrolink light rail network, developing more bus rapid transit routes, and working with Network Rail and franchisees to improve suburban rail services. Other key objectives include integrating the planned High Speed 2 and Northern Powerhouse Rail projects at a local level, and assessing the case for opening more tram stops and rail stations on existing lines where local development is planned.
The plan supports development of tram-train technology, which is now being trialled for the first time in the UK in Sheffield. Transport for Greater Manchester says it intends to prepare business cases for three ‘pathfinder’ routes, linking the existing light rail terminus at Altrincham with Hale; Bury and Rochdale; and Manchester Airport and Wilmslow. It is likely that the Bury – Rochdale route would partly share the alignment of the heritage East Lancashire Railway. These ‘pathfinder’ projects would be used to test the viability of tram-trains ahead of a wider roll-out to several local rail corridors, including Manchester – Wigan via Atherton, Manchester – Warrington Central and Manchester – Glossop.
Several light rail extensions are also to be evaluated for implementation in 2025-40. These include a possible cross-city tram tunnel linking Cornbrook with an expanded Piccadilly station, relieving pressure on the two existing surface tramways through central Manchester. Other proposals include a branch from the Bury line to serve Middleton, an eastern extension of the Ashton line to Stalybridge, and a light rail or tram-train link between Stockport and Manchester Airport.
A number of other investments are also proposed, which would be funded through developer contributions. These include a Metrolink extension from the Trafford Centre, terminus of a route now under construction, to Port Salford, and a tram stop at Sandhills north of Manchester city centre where the Bury and Oldham lines diverge.
Regional Transportation CommissionA rendering of a proposed light rail system along Maryland Parkway.
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