Posted by zweisystem on January 25, 2019 · 5 Comments
“It is interesting how TransLink has used this cunning method of manipulating analysis to justify SkyTrain in corridor after corridor, and has thus succeeded in keeping its proprietary rail system expanding.”
Gerald Fox, 2008
Malcolm Johnston, 2019
Please deliver to Mayor and Council.
My name is Malcolm Johnston and I have been involved in Metro Vancouver transit issues since 1986 and I again involving myself with the proposed Broadway subway, which is being supported by a foundation of deceit and deception which sadly, seems the common story today in BC.
I find it odd that what we call SkyTrain, has been rejected around the world as being hugely expensive to build than light rail and also has been found to cost more to operate and maintain.
Bombardier Inc. the sole vehicle supplier of the proprietary railway has now folded the Innovia Metro (Mk. 2 & 3 vehicles) line into the existing Movia Metro Line of vehicles. Bombardier likes it so much that ART SkyTrain isn’t even identified as a separate product anymore. It been buried into the larger, better selling Movia line. This means every bit of technology on the SkyTrain is now a design option and not connected permanently to the product. As far as Bombardier is concerned, the SkyTrain has now become indistinguishable from its other Metro and Light Metro products!
I am disturbed that Translink’s old SkyTrain ruse is still so effective, but without any investigative reporting by the mainstream media and so many politicians who want to jump on the subway band wagon the decision to build a subway really does not surprise me.
According to the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), the North American standard for building a subway is a transit route or portion of a transit route that has customer flows in excess of 15,000 persons per hour per direction.
Simple and straight forward.
Calculating the maximum traffic flow on Broadway, using TransLink’s timetabled bus schedule, found the maximum capacity TransLink offered on Broadway was under 4,000 pphpd. Thus customer flows would be about the same.
In no way is there the customer flows on Broadway to justify a subway.
Yes, one can build a subway, but one must be prepared to pay high subsidies to keep the subway operating.
But, TransLink will already be paying extra high subsidies for the subway because the route is heavily used by U-Pass holders, which means, TransLink’s most expensive transit route will be unable to generate much revenue.
This means the Broadway subway must find additional revenue sources.
The TTC estimates that a new 6.5 km subway will add over $40 million in additional operating costs, thus it is safe to assume that the Broadway subway, just to Arbutus will increase TransLink’s operating subsidy by at least $40 million a year.
Combine the operating subsidies needed for the subway, plus the operating costs, the cost to the taxpayer will be in excess of $100 million annually!
This is no surprise as the annual operating subsidy for the original Expo line to New Westminster was estimated by the GVRD at $157 million annually!
From the Cost of Transporting people ….. GVRD 1992.
Has anyone ever thought about the long term financing for the subway?
The following is from a 2012 email from Wolfgang Keller, a German Transportation Engineer, should give pause to reflect that subways do have an expensive down size.
“Over here in Germany where they had this tunnel-building mania from the 60s to the early 90s, at least they’ve stopped now. Simply because the municipalities ran into the fact that while building those tunnels is cheap (for them, not for the taxpayer), since 90% of the cost is financed with state and federal subsidies, they cannot finance maintenance of the fully grade-separated lines at all, so the expensive infrastructure they have built since the early 60’s is slowly rotting into a state of near-inoperability.”
Has anyone looked at the long term finances of this subway?
TransLink planning veterans Tamim Raad and Brian Mills were fired because they asked those same questions and didn’t like the answer. They did not support the subway and were fired.
Now, let’s continue with TransLink’s pro SkyTrain biases.
American Transportation Engineer, Gerald Fox, was asked in 2008, by a Victoria group wanting streetcars in Victoria to look at the business case for the Evergreen Line.
His comments on the Evergreen Line’s business case was telling telling.
“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.
Fox concluded:
“It is interesting how TransLink has used this cunning method of manipulating analysis to justify SkyTrain in corridor after corridor, and has thus succeeded in keeping its proprietary rail system expanding. In the US, all new transit projects that seek federal support are now subjected to scrutiny by a panel of transit peers, selected and monitored by the federal government, to ensure that projects are analyzed honestly, and the taxpayers interests are protected. No SkyTrain project has ever passed this scrutiny in the US.”
The report by McElhanney Consulting Services Ltd is badly flawed from the start, just as the Evergreen Line’s business case was. The consultants apparently have no background light rail or light metro and make many fundamental errors.
From the very beginning the study is biased against light rail and treats light rail as TransLink did in Surrey, planning LRT as a poor man’s SkyTrain.
I have found the Summary of Rapid Transit Technology Alternative Evaluation had too many instances where the analysis had made assumptions that were inaccurate, or had been manipulated to make the case for SkyTrain. Thus, if the underlying assumptions are inaccurate, the conclusions will be too.”
The study gives LRT a practical capacity of 6,120 persons, at the same time ignoring the fact that modern LRT has a practical capacity in excess of 20,000 pphpd, well known since the 1980’s
An extreme example is Karlsruhe Germany. The huge success of its regional tramtrain system, saw the main tram (streetcar) route through the city seeing a peak hour service of 40 second headway’s with coupled sets of trams and tramtrains giving a hourly capacity of in excess of 35,000 pphpd!
The “gelbe Wand” or yellow wall (referring to the yellow trams) on Kaiserstrasse in Karlsruhe, Germany.
Karlsruhe is now building a subway for that portion of route!
Before Toronto built its first subway, the Bloor-Danforth route saw coupled sets of PCC cars operating in peak hours, offering an hourly capacity of 12,000 pphpd!
In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, the Bloor Danforth streetcar line in Toronto saw
coupled sets of PCC cars operating in peak hours obtaining a capacity of 12,000 pphpd!
To say that a modern LRT line has less capacity than an old streetcar line’s capacity, seventy years ago is more than a farce, it is deliberately dishonest!
Another questionable statistic is reliability as there has been no study offered to back up the claims that SkyTrain is unreliable.
Most if not all LRT lines operate to a strict schedule, no so for SkyTrain as there is no strict schedule at all, only a train every few minutes.
Any claim that is based on the reliability figures given should be immediately discounted.
The numbers given for light rail in the study are not just unreliable, they are deliberately skewed to favour SkyTrain. Thus the study is based on dishonest statistics and is useless as a planning document.
It is another glaring example of TransLink using their cunning method of manipulating analysis to justify SkyTrain in corridor after corridor, and has thus succeeded in keeping its proprietary rail system expanding.
Just as a reminder only seven of the proprietary SkyTrain systems have been built since the late 1970’s; only three are seriously used for urban transit; two are mired in court cases and investigations; one will soon be torn down as it is fast becoming “life expired”.
Not one SkyTrain built has ever been allowed to compete directly against light rail and this study by McElhanney Consulting Services Ltd. Is to ensure LRT does not compete against SkyTrain for transit on Broadway or in Metro Vancouver.
Thus the McElhanney Study is a political document masquerading as a technical document.
Addendum:
The following excerpt is from the December 1983 edition of Modern Tramway’s article The direction of TTC Planning in the 1980’s.
Clearly, the elderly Toronto trams were able to move more people in 1983, than what McElhanney Consulting Services Ltd.would have us believe what a modern articulated tram can move in 2019.
I think someone should demand their money back!
Posted by zweisystem on January 23, 2019 · 4 Comments
The Mayor of Vancouver and the Mayor of Surrey discuss the Broadway Subway. What could go wrong?
It takes a lot of money to operate a transit system and subways tend to be a financial black hole and are avoided unless ridership on a transit line demands.
Just the SkyTrain subway to Arbutus will cost TransLink an additional $40 million in operating costs, but there is worse to come. Subways needs a lot of intensive maintenance or servcie deteriorates over time.
TransLink is well known for doing the bare minimum of maintenance needed to keep the mini-metro in operation.
The following is from Wolfgang Keller who now works as a safety engineer in Germany and before the SkyTrain Lobby sneer at this, in Europe, safety is taken much more seriously than TransLink would ever do!
Especially since full grade separation requires loads of technical
equipment, especially in the stations; escalators, elevators, lighting,
ventilation, etc. which all require maintenance and thus, staff.
Besides the fact that for a typical european grade-separated mass
transit system, the energy consumption of elevators, lifts, lighting
etc. is already higher than the energy consumption of the rolling
stock. Not to mention cost for cleaning of all those vast surfaces in
the access tunnels, pedestrian levels, station platforms, etc. and so
on. Another topic that has also been misjudged by many operators is the
requirement to clean the tunnels themselves regularly, because
accumulated dust and garbage of all kinds can easily catch fire and
then fill up the tunnels with smoke and toxic gases, interrupting
operation. Some operators have purchased “vacuum cleaner” trains to
solve this issue.
Line B at Rennes will cost 10**9 EUR for 12.7km. For a line that can
only operate 52m*2m (length*width) trainsets. That’s not more capacity
than any of the modern streetcar lines in France, at a much higher cost.
I must add, that the Canada line can operate only 41 metre long train-sets, thus has less capacity than Rennes!
Over here in Germany where they had this tunnel-building mania from the
60s to the early 90s, at least they’ve stopped now. Simply because the
municipalities ran into the fact that while building those tunnels is
cheap (for them, not for the taxpayer), since 90% of the cost is
financed with state and federal subsidies, they cannot finance
maintenance of the fully grade-separated lines at all, so the
expensive infrastructure they have built since the early 60’s is slowly
rotting into a state of near-inoperability.
No one is asking about the long term operating costs associated with subways. No one is countering Translink’s CEO, Kevin Desmond’s completely dishonest claims about LRT.
This gross dishonesty is badly affecting any hope of getting Valley Rail in operation!
How will the $40 to $50 million in additional operating fees affect Translink’s finances?
Kevin Desmond and the mayors Council on Transit is leading the taxpayer on a one way ride that will end in fiasco, making the FastFerry scandal in the 1990’s, child’s play.
.
By Ben SpurrTransportation Reporter
Fri., Jan. 18, 2019
A new TTC report is sounding the alarm about what the agency says is billions of dollars worth of unfunded work required to keep Toronto’s transit system functional over the next 15 years, a finding that could raise the stakes for the provincial government’s contentious plan to take ownership of the subway system.
The TTC capital plan was released Friday along with the agency’s proposed 2019 operating budget, which recommended a 10-cent fare increase. Both documents were reported by the Star Thursday before they were made public.
The capital plan says the agency will require $33.5 billion of capital investment over the next decade and a half in order keep the system in a state of good repair and meet expected ridership growth. A staggering $23.7 billion of those costs, which don’t include the expense of building new transit lines, is currently unfunded, according to the TTC.
Projects it says are required include increasing capacity on subway lines, replacing the bus fleet, building a new bus garage, buying up to 100 new streetcars, and replacing streetcar track and power systems.
“Without the investments outlined in this plan, service reliability and crowding will worsen,” warns the report, which is signed by TTC CEO Rick Leary.
“This is the fate now faced by some other major transit systems in North America that allowed their assets to badly deteriorate. Our customers, our city, our province and our nation can’t afford to let that happen.”
TTC board member Councillor Shelley Carroll said the new capital plan marks the first time in memory the city has had a clear accounting of the transit system’s infrastructure needs. She said it should be a wake-up call for government to “start having a real conversation about the system” and find ways to fund the existing network instead of focusing on building new lines.
Of the $33.5 billion in costs the report identifies, about $22 billion worth is related to subways and stations. That includes $8 billion for Line 1 and Line 2 capacity improvements, $650 million for a new automatic train control signalling system, $1 billion to expand Bloor-Yonge station, and $1.26 billion for platform edge doors.
A little more than $16 billion of the subway investments are unfunded.
The subway costs in the report are far greater than the $160 million a year the Ontario Progressive Conservatives have pledged to spend on the network if they execute their plan to upload ownership of the lines and stations to the province.
Carroll said she’s concerned that if Queen’s Park follows through on that plan, the province will deem much of the capital work unnecessary.
“Oh it’s necessary all right, and we need to be honest about it and make sure that this system can keep running,” she said.
When asked Friday if the province would commit to funding the capital backlog if it takes over the subway, Ontario Transportation Minister Jeff Yurek replied with a statement that said only: “The government is working with its special adviser Michael Lindsay on the details of the upload, including the financing.”
On the operating side, the TTC budget requests the city increase the subsidy it provides the transit agency and its Wheel Trans service this year to $763 million, a 3-per-cent increase over 2018 that would buck a city directive for all departments to freeze their net budgets.
Among the major drivers behind the increase is $14.4 million in additional costs for the new two-hour transfer policy, and $8.5 million for capacity improvements. There’s also $18.5 million associated with the Presto fare card system.
The agency is predicting 526.3 million riders this year. That’s up from 521.4 million in 2018, but a decrease from the 533.2 million in 2017.
The budget proposes raising $25.8 million in additional revenue by instituting a 10-cent fare increase that would apply across the board to adult, senior, and student rides. An adult fare using a token or Presto fare card would rise to $3.10, while an adult monthly pass would cost $151.15, up from $146.25. The fare hike would go into effect April 1.
Shelagh Pizey-Allen, director of advocacy group TTCriders, condemned the proposed increase, noting Toronto users already pay for a disproportionately large portion of the city’s transit budget compared to those in other comparable cities.
“The TTC is still deeply unaffordable for many people in our city. We already pay more than our fair share,” she said.
In a statement Friday, TTC Chair Jaye Robinson, who told the Star earlier this month she wouldn’t support a fare hike, stressed the need to “balance the cost of capital and service improvements with affordability,” but didn’t say if she would back the increase now that it’s been recommended by transit staff.
“What I can say is that I will be listening very closely at next week’s meeting to transit users, to TTC staff and to board members,” she said.
Don Peat, a spokesperson for Mayor John Tory, said the mayor wouldn’t pre-empt the TTC board’s decision on the fare increase. But he asserted Tory’s administration has “made additional and record-setting investments” in the transit agency, including in popular initiatives such as the two-hour transfer.
The TTC board will consider its 2019 budget at a meeting Thursday.
By the numbers
- $3.10 — cost of adult tokens and Presto fares after proposed 10-cent increase
- $2.15 — cost of student and senior tickets and Presto fares after proposed 10-cent increase
- 4 — number of years in which fares will have gone up since John Tory took office in 2014, if the 2019 increase is approved
- $1.47 billion — annual capital work subways and stations will require over 15 years, according to TTC
- $160 million — annual amount Ontario PCs pledged to spend on capital work if the province takes over the subway system
Ben Spurr is a Toronto-based reporter covering transportation. Reach him by email at bspurr@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @BenSpurr
Posted by zweisystem on January 22, 2019 · 7 Comments
The Broadway SkyTrain subway grift continues with a new band of suckers who will waste billions more of taxpayer’s monies on a politically prestigious transit project.
So, Vancouver’s carpet-bagging Mayor (former Burnaby NDP, MP) is continuing the subway grift, where Vision Vancouver was so rudely interrupted by the voters in last falls civic election.
Facts don’t change (except for TransLink that is), the North American standard to build a subway is a transit route with customer flows exceeding 15,000 pphpd, yet customer flows along Broadway are under 4,000 pphpd in the peak hour.
The result is easily predicted.
Operating costs will be an additional $40 million or more annually.
Ridership will be dismal.
U-pass will be in jeopardy.
Taxes in metro Vancouver will skyrocket.
Transit South of the Fraser will be cannibalized to subsidize the City of Vancouver and UBC’s $7 billion subway folly.
Oh yes, I almost forgot, land speculators and land developers will reap fortunes from up-zoned properties along the subway line, selling high-rise condos to the foreign money laundering crowd!
I am so glad that the former NDP MP, now mayor of Vancouver is so on the side of land speculators, land developers and money launders at the same time paying lip service to the homeless and housing affordability.
Subways make affordable housing impossible.
So reassuring!
SkyTrain at grade and the Berlin Wall effect.
New report says SkyTrain is recommended in expansion to UBC
by Marcella Bernardo
Posted Jan 21, 2019 6:09 pm PST
Last Updated Jan 21, 2019 at 6:29 pm PST
Summary
A new report says SkyTrain is the preferred rapid transit service for UBC
The Metro Vancouver mayors’ council will discuss the recommendations
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — When rapid transit is expanded to the University of British Columbia campus in Vancouver’s Point Grey district, the preferred option is SkyTrain.
That’s what Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart is saying about recommendations to be reviewed by the Metro Vancouver mayors’ council on Jan. 24.
“Seems to be a lot of enthusiasm among the other mayors for this project, and very excited that’s moving forward. I think everybody’s seeing this as a regional project where, for example, the mayor of Coquitlam’s very excited about getting students to UBC, as well as other mayors around the region,” Stewart says.
Back into the swing of things at City Hall with my first media briefing of the new year. I mentioned my work on SkyTrain to UBC, motions to review the empty homes tax and increase support for Councillors, and upcoming meetings with the Prime Minister & Premier.
— Kennedy Stewart
The report, reviewed in private last week, will be openly discussed at the Metro Vancouver mayors’ council meeting and Stewart is confident other mayors will support these plans, even if they don’t know yet how much it will cost.
“It will vary. At UBC there seems to be some will to be above ground, so that, for example, would reduce costs. We have to approve the technology, then they can do the business case and then we can see what it would cost per kilometre.”
Stewart adds the report recommends planning should fall in line with construction of the Broadway to Arbutus line which is slated for completion in 2025.
“What we’re trying to do is develop a parallel planning process, so we can maximize the efficiency of building that line. That’s why approving the technology from Arbutus to UBC is so important. The senior governments are looking for us to really put in cement what that is going to be.”
More details, including how much this extension might cost, will be discussed at Thursday’s meeting.
Stewart also plans to talk about it with Premier John Horgan Tuesday Jan. 22, and on Monday Jan. 28 with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Posted by zweisystem on January 18, 2019 · Leave a Comment
Some transit blogs seem to think that building a subway is easy peasy , costing only a little more than a surface operation. This train of thought comes from a grand ignorance of subway construction and operation; with Translink’s grand subway plans based on the myth that subways carry more people.
As we all know in BC, all mayors are experts are experts on transit and the holy grail in transit planning is a subway.
Yippee!
The mayor’s council on transit is like an old boys rugby game, thirty one referees on the field, but I digress.
The staggering costs for subway construction is clearly evident with subway planning in Toronto.
The following quote should put an end of any discussion for new stations for the Canada line or future stations on the Broadway subway.
“The three stations recently built on New York’s Second Avenue line reportedly cost about $644 million-$812 million (U.S.) each.”
In Canadian funds this cost is $856.2 million to $1,079.5 billion!
Staggering!
Memo to Ontario Tories — there’s no such thing as a free subway
Ah, free transit. Is there anything our politicians like promising more?
Remember departed former mayor Rob Ford promising the private sector would construct a Sheppard subway extension in Scarborough at no cost to taxpayers? Remember when current mayor John Tory promised that the life-changing magic of Tax Increment Financing would deliver a 22-station “surface subway” at no cost to property taxpayers?
Now, as reported by the Globe and Mail, Premier Doug Ford, through his Transportation Minister Jeff Yurek, promises to change the one-stop Bloor-Danforth Scarborough extension back into a three-stop extension, with private sector developers entirely picking up the difference in cost.
They love the idea of something for nothing. I get the appeal. When it comes to prices, $0 looks pretty attractive.
Thing is, you tend to get what you pay for — and to not get what you don’t. Instead of free transit, basing plans on skipping out on the bill might ensure we remain transit-free.
That would be my primary concern when examining the provincial government’s recent idea to revert to the three-stop subway plan in Scarborough. “The developer would pick up the cost of those stations (in Scarborough) as we go forward, and it will not be a cost to the taxpayer,” the Globe reported Yurek saying on the weekend.
Let’s be clear about a something up front.
Wherever and whenever we are building transit, we absolutely should be working with developers to put intense commercial and residential uses on the station sites themselves if possible. It provides job sites and housing in transit-served locations, and can bring in significant revenue for the governments doing the building.
The hitch is that that money — decent as it may well be — is unlikely to be enough to cover the costs of the stations. Not nearly.
The three-stop subway extension was estimated to cost about $1 billion more than the one-stop version, partly because the topography of the area requires the stations and tunnels to be deep underground, and partly because subway stations are monstrously expensive to begin with. (The three stations recently built on New York’s Second Avenue line reportedly cost about $644 million-$812 million (U.S.) each.)
So if this is coming free of cost to the taxpayer, as Yurek says, we’d need a developer to essentially pay the province $500 million each for development sites at Lawrence and Sheppard.
It’s hard to know, in general abstract terms, how much land and development rights above a subway station at Lawrence and McCowan would be worth.
Right now, there’s a two-acre strip mall-and-housing site in Scarborough a few blocks from the proposed subway site listed for sale for $9.7 million. But land in the area would no doubt be more valuable with a subway line there, and land directly atop a subway more valuable still.
How much more valuable? It’s hard to know, exactly. But to get some sense, how about looking at a spot directly beside Finch subway station on the Yonge line with an underground tunnel connected to the subway station? That’s about as close to being on top of a station as a building can get.
Last year, such a building on Yonge St. in North York, a fairly new 18-story office tower, LEED certified and with 92 per cent of its 274,000-square-feet of commercial and retail space leased to mostly government and credit-grade tenants, sold for $85.15 million. That was for an existing highrise tower in an area of the city that is already fairly densely developed and populated.
Or, to look at it from another angle, in 2017 a developer bought a site at Yonge and Steeles — where a subway extension to the 905 is one day expected — with hopes of putting three condo towers and a hotel on it. The price? $53.9 million.
I don’t know which may be a better comparison to a site like the ones Yurek is discussing. But perhaps between the three examples, we see the ballpark value for commercial real estate of that type. It’s a big-league park — the numbers are huge!
But if the province essentially needs someone to buy the land and development rights above a station for $500 million in order for us to get a free subway station, we’re talking about a different order of magnitude.
Some might shrug and say, “Well, so what? This is still more real estate revenue than we were discussing before. It’s better than nothing.”
Perhaps. My concern is that when you promise something for nothing, and it turns out that something may instead cost hundreds of millions of dollars, you either wind up with a shocking and unexpected bill, or you get exactly what you planned to pay: nothing. Both results are as disappointing as they are sadly familiar.
Posted by zweisystem on January 15, 2019 · 20 Comments
It seems TransLink is reading the Rail for the Valley blog and is worried that Bombardier Inc. has folded the Innovia Metro line into the existing Movia Metro Line of vehicles and that Innovia production may cease cease altogether.
With the aging pygmy size MK.1 cars working two to three times harder to carry the same amount of people as a a modern metro car, they are showing a lot of wear an tear after 34 years of regular service.
TransLink needs to renew the fleet before maintenance issues overtakes operations and the system goes ka-put on an all too regular basis.
Thus TransLink is ordering 200 new MK. 3 cars.
200 cars means 50, 4-car trainsets. Now 200 MK. 3 cars heralds out right replacement of all Mk. 1 consists, which equals to 25 – 6 car consists. This is the equivalent to about 30 – 4 car MK. 3 trainsets. This leaves 20 for new service. That remaining 20 will be just enough for a partial Broadway (6.6 km worth) and a full 17 km extension. This leaves the 14 4-car Mk. 3 trainsets already on order to handle future extensions and extra capacity on the Millennium Line.
So yes, they will have just enough trainsets available but they are now fully committed to keeping the aging Mk. 2 vehicles going as well, while the MK.1 cars are sent to pasture.
Questions:
- Is the stage 3 funding needed to complete the order?
- Is this order even covered in the current 10 year transit funding plan at all?
- Or is this just a re announcement of previous and planned new orders from the current 10 year plan, just with the numbers redistributed into different groups?
- Why does TransLink continue the sham bidding process for car procurement? ART Innovia SkyTrain is a proprietary railway and only Bombardier Inc. makes the cars to operate on ART Innovia Lines. TransLink will pay what Bombardier tells them to pay.
In spring 2019, TransLink will issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) to procure approximately 200 SkyTrain cars.
In response to customer requests, refinements to the interior layout of the new SkyTrain cars are being considered.
Have your say by participating in this short, approximately 5-minute survey. The survey will remain open until January 25, 2018.
Click here to start
If you are unable to click the link, please copy and paste the full URL below into your browser:
https://www.translinklistens.ca/c/al/6goKXHFShtG2FahffCkfbF/6mrsmZnDgiRGLVRhyS7ZNn
Thank you!
Translink Listens
Posted by zweisystem on January 7, 2019 · 2 Comments
A letter sent to the Mayor and council’s of the Two Langley’s and Delta, sent by Malcolm Johnston, on Jan. 2, 2019.
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken.
Carl Sagan
On December 13, 2018, the mayor’s Council on Transit was bamboozled by both the mayor of Surrey and TransLink.
A decades worth of transportation and regional planning was tossed out the window, with the Mayor’s Council on Transit agreeing to change from LRT, to SkyTrain This condemns the two Langley’s without having any rail transit for at least a generation, if ever.
SkyTrain cannot be built for the same cost as LRT. Unless the LRT is designed to operate as a light metro and even still, studies have shown that light rail designed and operated as a light metro, operating on a grade separated rights-of-ways, would still be about 5% cheaper overall to operate than SkyTrain!
SkyTrain is not coming to the two Langley’s. The funding, including inflation will mean the Surrey extension will end in Fleetwood, most likely terminating at 168th Ave.
Photo: At-grade SkyTrain. The Berlin Wall effect.
The cost for SkyTrain increases dramatically every year because the cost of cement is increasing at a rate of three times the rate of inflation and by 2022, because of the escalating cost of cement and specialty steel, the price to build with SkyTrain will increase by at least $100 million annually.
SkyTrain uses about ten times the amount of cement as LRT.
It has been known since the early 1980’s, by BC Transit and now TransLink that SkyTrain costs a lot more to build than LRT with no benefit. BC Transit and now TransLink have masqueraded this fact by over engineering light rail planning, in short gold-plating LRT projects to make LRT look like it costs almost as much to build as SkyTrain.
This dishonest approach to transit planning continues as evidenced by the vast costs of Surrey’s proposed LRT.
Added to this dismal picture: With no sale of SkyTrain in the past decade, with only 7 built in the past 40 years (only 3 seriously used for urban transit), and zero interest in SkyTrain internationally, Bombardier may cease production altogether; even before the completion of the Surrey SkyTrain extension. This will leave the Langley’s standing at an empty station platform, waiting for a SkyTrain that will never come.
There is another way.
In 2009, the Rail for the Valley group engaged Leewood Projects of the UK to do a study on the viability of reinstating a modern version of the former BC Electric interurban servcie from Vancouver to Chilliwack. The Leewood Study was released in 2010, finding such a servcie was viable, using TramTrain, a version of LRT that can operate both on-street and on the mainline railway. The cost in 2010 for such a service was CAD $7.3 million per km to build. Accounting for inflation, the cost in 2018 would be $8.4 million per km.
What I propose is an abridged Leewood plan, using light diesel multiple units, such as the Stadler GTW traveling from Trinity Western University to Vancouver’s Central passenger station, a total distance of 52.5km.
Using the Leewood Study distance matrix (page 77) the distance by rail from Trinity Western University to Scott Road is 30 km. and the distance from Scott Road to Vancouver Central station, by rail is 22.5 km.
The travel time terminus to terminus would be under 60 minutes, faster than by SkyTrain!
The cost per kilometer for the full build system proposed by Leewood Projects was $7.235 million per kilometre.
Accounting for inflation the cost in 2018 would be $8.47 million per/km.
The cost for the 52.5 km route using the Leewood Study figures, updated to 2018 plus a 25% contingency would be $555.8 million.
There is more.
The master agreement that came with the sale of the former BC Electric, rights-of-way (from 180th St. to 232nd St., approx. 10 km) to CP Rail stipulates.
- That passenger servcie is guaranteed up to 33% wheelage on the route.
- That owner railway is liable for all upgrading costs for passenger service!
The distance from Trinity Western University to the junction at 184th St. is 10 km. thus the cost to implement a Vancouver to Trinity Western University rail servcie, with two trains an hour (30 minute service), minus the 10km. portion of track which will upgraded at the CPR’s expense. This would reduce the cost considerably, with a revised cost of around $450 million!
The Stadler GTW
The rail-cars or diesel multiple units to be used would be the Federal Railway Administration approved Stadler GTW.
The Stadler GTW can come in may configurations including a ‘two rooms and a bath articulated car with the diesel section in the middle and a five section double motor articulated car. As many as four units can be coupled together in multiple unit operation.
Stadler GTW
The basic concept of the Stadler GTW is rather unconventional: the car is driven by a central “power module”, also known as a “power-pack” or a “drive container”, powered on both axles. Two light end modules, each with a truck, rest on the power module, which produces useful traction weight on the driving axles. The end modules also use the space very effectively, although the railcar is divided into two halves by the power module. Most units have a path through the drive container for passenger access. The end modules can be delivered with standard pulling devices or buffer gears, or with central buffer couplings. They are built with a low-floor design except above the bogies and at the supported ends (more than 65% of the rail car is low-floor). All of the usual comforts to be expected in a modern local network rail car are provided, such as air conditioning, a multi-purpose room, vacuum toilets (in a washroom suitable for the disabled) and a passenger information system. The GTWs can be Diesel-electric or electric-powered (via overhead wires or third rail). Maximum speed 115 to 140 kph. Up to four trains can be operated in multiple unit. A Bistro unit is also available.
Operation
To start, simple stations or stops would be located at Western Trinity University; City of Langley between the Fraser Highway and 200th St.; Cloverdale; King George Hwy.; and Scott Road just in Delta; and Vancouver Central.
Photo: A simple station near Boston.
More station/stops can be added where demand merits and the operation can be extended to Abbotsford and Chilliwack, when funding is made available.
Due to the affordable cost to implement the service the new rail service can be built and operated as a real P-3 project, which could both include Stadler and the Southern Railway of BC, costing the taxpayer little or no money to operate!
An user-friendly rail service, built around the concept of economy and affordability would be a success, serving the many destinations along its route.
The reverse flow of traffic may entice tourists to venture into the Fraser Valley with the knowledge that a comfortable train will whisk them back to Vancouver, when their exploring is done.
Photo: A Diesel TramTrain in the French countryside
Instead of a SkyTrain that will never come, a passenger DMU service from Vancouver to Trinity Western University, servicing North Delta, Central Surrey & Cloverdale and the two Langley’s could be up and running before the Fleetwood extension is completed and by building it with a real P-3, would see real railway experts, plan what would be the most affordable way to proceed.
TransLink need not be involved at all!
Agreements must be made with the SRR of BC and the BN &SF and CN Rail, but this is the job for our provincial and federal Ministers of Transportation, to ensure pathways are available for a two train per hour per direction service.
The plan is there; the tracks are in situ and what only lacks is the politcal will to make it happen.
It is time for Langley politicians not be left lonely at the station, waiting for a train that will never come.
Malcolm Johnston
Posted by zweisystem on January 4, 2019 · 1 Comment
The Metro Vancouver mayors may soon foolishly acquiesce to the mayor of Surrey’s demand to build with SkyTrain instead of light rail.
Foolish, because they will remain tied to one supplier and will have to dance to the tune of Bombardier Inc., when and if new cars are ordered.
Bombardier has ills with its rail sector, with late deliveries and somewhat shoddy product, which is causing it nothing but harm to its reputation.
And how does this effect SkyTrain you say?
As Vancouver is the only customer left for the proprietary Innovia SkyTrain system, deliveries maybe spread over a long time as they will only be manufactured if Bombardier has the time to make them or Bombardier my terminate production of the Innovia vehicle altogether.
Now, wouldn’t that be a game changer.
A MetroLinx tram on the test track.
Metrolinx still waiting for first Eglinton Crosstown vehicle
By BEN SPURR Transportation Reporter
Mon., Dec. 31, 2018
Two months after Bombardier announced the first vehicle for Toronto’s Eglinton Crosstown LRT was almost ready, the car has yet to be shipped, and the Quebec-based manufacturer now has just weeks to meet a deadline to deliver half a dozen of the new cars.
Under the terms of a $392-million contract agreed to last year, Bombardier is supposed to supply Metrolinx with 76 vehicles for the Crosstown, the $5.9-billion midtown light rail line that is currently under construction and is scheduled to open by September 2021.
In late October, Bombardier invited media to its facility outside Kingston, Ont. to demonstrate progress it had made in assembling the first vehicle. The company said at the time it would be ready to ship in November.
But according to Metrolinx, the provincial transportation agency in charge of building the Crosstown, a subsequent inspection in early December determined the car wasn’t ready.
“The vehicle required some corrections and adjustments prior to being released for shipment to Toronto,” said Metrolinx acting chief communications and public affairs officer Jamie Robinson in a statement.
“Due to constraints with shipping prior to the heavy traffic holiday season, Bombardier has informed Metrolinx that the arrival of the first vehicle is now scheduled for early 2019.”
Neither Metrolinx nor Bombardier would specify what adjustments the vehicle required.
Under the terms of the contract, the deadline for delivering the first six cars is Feb. 1.
According to Robinson’s statement, there are “significant financial penalties for Bombardier” if the company fails to supply “quality vehicles” by the deadline.
Metrolinx declined to say what the penalties are or whether it believes Bombardier will supply the six vehicles on time.
In a brief email, Bombardier spokesperson Jade St-Jean said the company is “on the right track” and “confident” it will meet the Feb. 1 deadline for all six cars.
She said the first car “was ready to be shipped in December” but as a result of the Christmas holidays it will now be sent the week of Jan. 7, 2019.
Asked to explain why the holiday would affect delivery, St-Jean said the car is being sent by truck and will require a police escort, which she suggested wouldn’t be available over the Christmas period.
According to Metrolinx, once it receives the first cars they will initially be used to test systems at the Crosstown vehicle maintenance and storage facility at Mount Dennis.
The delay in supplying the first Crosstown car is the latest development in the long-running saga of the expensive vehicle purchase.
In 2010, Metrolinx placed a $770-million order with Bombardier for 182 cars, with the intention of running them on several Toronto-area light rail lines.
But in 2016, Metrolinx filed a notice of intent to terminate the deal, claiming Bombardier had missed deadlines for the delivery of the first cars.
Bombardier countered in 2017 by seeking a court injunction to prevent Metrolinx from cancelling the contract. The company alleged Metrolinx had unfairly refused to take delivery of cars, and claimed the agency wanted out of the deal because several provincial light rail projects had been either delayed or cancelled and it no longer required all 182 vehicles it had ordered.
After a judge blocked Metrolinx from cancelling the contract, the two sides agreed in Dec. 2017 to reduce the number of vehicles in the order to 76.
Metrolinx also inked a deal with Alstom, a French rail manufacturer, to supply the Crosstown cars should Bombardier fail to deliver.
The Metrolinx order is separate from the TTC’s purchase of new streetcars from Bombardier, which has also faced delays.
A spokesperson for the TTC said that as of Monday, the agency had 117 of the new vehicles in service, and at least four more had been approved for delivery.
Bombardier had set a revised goal of supplying a cumulative total of 121 vehicles by the end of 2018. The company says that despite previous delays it is on track to deliver all 204 streetcars by the end of next year as planned.
Posted by zweisystem on December 28, 2018 · Leave a Comment
When one is conned, very seldom will one admit to being conned.
Well, the good burghers of Langley are being conned by the new mayor of Surrey and by their lack of due diligence, will condemn Langley residents with congestion, gridlock, and very poor transit options. SkyTrain is not coming to Langley.
The evidence is now growing that the flip-flop from light rail to SkyTrain is all about land speculation and land development and precious little to do with providing better transit. The mayor and council of Surrey, abetted by TransLink, have bamboozled everyone!
Memo to the Langley mayors and mayors east of Langley: “SkyTrain ain’t a comin”, in fact by the time that there is talk of extending SkyTrain east to Langley, there will not be any SkyTrain available as Metro Vancouver is the the only customer in the entire world, daft enough to pursue SkyTrain planning, production of the proprietary railway will have long ceased.
Langley’s keen for SkyTrain service, but city may have to wait a while
TransLink doesn’t have the money yet for full extension of Expo line
CBC News · Posted: Dec 11, 2018
Langley’s new mayor says she’s excited about the prospect of SkyTrain service in her city — but there’s no clear timeline on when that might happen or how much it will cost.
Langley City Mayor Val van den Broek described the prospect of rapid transit as “quite amazing” for her community in an interview with CBC’s On The Coast.
“It’ll provide new access and connections to Metro Vancouver for us,” she said. “It’ll grow our business community as well.”
She said she’s not bothered by the news that the SkyTrain extension may not come as quickly as some had hoped.
Not enough money to reach Langley
On Monday, TransLink spokesperson Jill Drews said the exact timeline and cost for bringing SkyTrain to Langley aren’t known yet.
To date, the transit authority has only secured $1.65 billion to fund the extension of the Expo Line from Surrey along the Fraser Highway. That’s not enough to get all the way to Langley, and new funding from the provincial and federal governments will likely be necessary.
“What we’re going to do is take everything we know, do some further study, look at where we can build to, how long can we build with $1.6 billion and then tackle a second phase in the future,” Drews said.
Previous estimates have suggested the first stage of construction could extend the line as far as Surrey’s Fleetwood neighbourhood, but solid plans will depend on what comes out of a business case study, which is expected to take 13-15 months.
Right now, the next step is for the TransLink mayors’ council to vote Thursday on a proposal for that study.
If construction goes ahead, the first stage of the extension could be completed by 2025. That’s a bit longer than what Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum predicted in October, when he told CBC News the new line would be built within two to three years.
The mayor has said he’ll find ways to cut costs and speed up construction to deliver on the timeline he promised.
With files from Jesse Johnston
Posted by zweisystem on December 23, 2018 · 2 Comments
A BC Electric Interurban in winter
A Merry Christmas, From Rail for the Valley
and a Very Happy New Year
Posted by zweisystem on December 17, 2018 · Leave a Comment
Hats off to Professor Patrick Condon for this!
The mayor of Surrey may wish he had kept his mouth shut about light rail and SkyTrain.
Oh, he will get his toy train to Fleetwood, no doubt, but after that fiscal reality will hit like a Tsunami.
From the Tyee
Dear Surrey Mayor McCallum.
Congratulations on your recent return to the mayor’s office in my favorite city, Surrey BC. I read where you are wasting no time to capitalize on the mandate granted you (by the 41 percent of the 33 percent of eligible voters that voted you in) to throw out 10 years of transit planning by former and current officials throughout the region. You have successfully trashed their plan for a 10 km surface light rail serving your Gildford and Newton Town Centers in favour of a 4 km Expo line extension to – Fleetwood?
I know you said during the election that you could build Skytrain all the way to Langley City Centre down the Fraser HIghway for the same money as the light rail plan, but sadly Translink and the Mayor’s Council dont agree. They say that since Skytrain costs twice as much per km as surface light rail, the 1.65 billion already allocated will only get you through Green Timbers Park (not a lot of riders there!) to Fleetwood (I bet the owners of the Fleetwood Park strip mall are overjoyed!).
Premier Horgan and PM Trudeau have already said they are still happy to fund the original plan but will not give you one dime extra for the switch to SKytrain. Worse still, the Mayors Council just voted to make you pay back the 56 million already spent on the light rail proposal, which ironically is about the same cost as the Grandview Heights Community Centre and Library, project you scrapped for lack of funds. Wow. That’s what i call a pretty bad day for sure.
But fear not, I can help. What if I told you that there is a way to serve Scot Road, West Surrey, North Delta, Newton Town Center, Cloverdale and Langley City Centre by rail for way less than the cost of the 4 km “FLeetwood Skytrain Express” (as some wags are calling it).
Wait, it gets better! What if I told you that you could also be a hero to the folks in Abbotsford and Chilliwack by extending the line all the way out to serve them too, still for the same money!
Wait! It gets better still! After all that there would still be enough to put a tram line down King George Highway to Newton Town Centre andover to Guildford so you won’t have to pay back that 65 million!
Interested? Here’s how.
For 75 years BC Electric served the locations listed above along a track that is still in use. It’s the old BC Electric Interurban Line. It turns out that the line was never sold, only leased, to CP rail. The conditions of the lease call for the return of the line to the Province if ever passenger rail service were to restart.
Better still, the lease also stipulates that if the frequency of rail service is such that the rail must be double tracked, CP must pay the costs! What can be better than a free double track ROW?
What about vehicles? Well you could run catenary lines on the route for an electric train, but they cost a ton.
Fortunately there is a simpler and far cheaper solution. Alstom Corporation , a global transit company that now supplies transit vehicles to Ottawa and Toronto, just launched a hydrogen powered transit vehicle that can be had for less than the cost of a handful of skytrain cars. And here is maybe the best part. Hydrogen fuel is manufactured right at the BC Hydro facility in Surrey . So the project supports the growth of local green jobs for Surrey too!
The concerns you have voiced about LRT vehicles getting slowed down in traffic and adding to congestion (which are misplaced I would argue, but admittedly strongly felt by some) go away with this plan since the track is in its own ROW for the whole distance with very few at grade crossings. And at grade crossings can be controlled by crossing gates (as is done for hundreds of commuter rail and tram/train systems in North America) or by simply slowing down the train to obey signals as they do in Portland OR. for the MAX Line tram/train.
More good news. This plan has already been studied. The engineering and business case was developed not too long ago in the “Proposal for Rail for the Valley” by Leewood Projects of Surrey UK (yet another Surrey tie in!). They estimated that it would cost around .6 billion for track, vehicles, stations and catenary for a commuter rail tram/train system of over 90 km! A tiny fraction of the cost per km of SKytrain and a 100 year transportation solution for the entire South of Fraser urban region.
That study was conducted in 2010 so it will cost more now. But the study assumed catenary infrastructure not needed if you use hydrogen power and track reconstruction which may not be a cost borne by you (as mentioned above) so who knows, costs could be less.
Worst case, let’s say the cost is a cool billion. You still have $600 million left to play with. And if you want to get the other mayors off your back you could strip the bells and whistles out of the light rail proposal you hate (but the Board of Trade desperately wants) and do a Portland Oregon style tram to Guildford and Newton for less than 60 million per km.
Or maybe you can mollify the other mayors, the board of trade, and your local environmentalists with a hydrogen powered bus rapid transit to Newton and Guildford for even less.
In short, you have many ways to make Surrey the centre of a thriving metropolitan “South of Fraser Kingdom” rather than the dead end of the Vancouver Skytrain line (and get yourself out of what looks like a tight spot politically). Now that you have successfully blown up the whole regional transit plan I am sure you can see the benefits of grabbing this fantastic life preserver, and give Surrey and the whole South of Fraser region the futuristic transit it deserves.
Your humble servant and Surrey booster
Professor Patrick M. Condon.
Recent Comments