Why do politicians always think they are transit geniuses?
Mostly because they are too stupid to understand the basics of transit planning and the application of modern public transit philosophy.
Doug McCallum is one, a former Surrey Mayor who was and still is completely out of touch with regional transit planning, now claims if elected, will cancel current current light rial planning and development in favour of SkyTrain.
Simple yes?
No. If McCallum does succeed, all he will achieve is delaying rapid transit in Surrey until the late 2030’s and by that time, Innovia ART will have passed long into the history books and planners will be dusting off the old LRT planning and restart the process.
Mr.Haveacow, a contributor to the blog has been very detailed about the problems and issues of switching from LRT to SkyTrain, so the following is just a recap of the many hurdles a Langley SkyTrain would face and with no cost estimate or budget, it will be the late 2013’s before Langley will be serviced with transit, which makes the Rail for the Valley/Leewood TramTrain plan more viable than ever.
A recent comment from Mr. Cow, who has studied our SkyTrain system and has for the past several years advised of the perils of extending SkyTrain to Langley. By switching from LRT to SkyTrain, it will delay rapid transit in Surrey/Langley until the mid to late 2030’s
They (TransLink) don’t even fully know what they have to do yet, to begin an actual upgrade. This is a brief survey of the components needing work. The actual full list would take too long to type. Many if not nearly all of the costs for these aren’t part of the current 10 year plan. Meaning, they won’t see a lot of attention until 2024 or later when most of the current work in the 3 stages of Translink’s 10 year plan is either fully complete or is well along the path to completion. The Expo Line’s original section will be around 40 years old by then.
1. The Expo Line’s power systems must be upgraded or they can’t exceed the number of trains per hour they are currently running! All the running way electric transformers have to be upgraded or the increased number of trains will cause the electric current level to drop below the operating threshold and they all stop. If they had even begun this process yet they have to show you the environment assessment that they did. Electrical transformers have PCB’s in them you just can’t swap old and new ones with each other. They are also very large, usually in one of those huge locked rooms in the stations, it will take a few weeks to do just one!
2 Much of the power cables which connect from the electric system to the third rails and the induction rail need to be either replaced or have the current connection ripped out entirely and relaid with new technology. A friend who did get the contract for some of this work from TransLink won’t be finished his assessment for weeks. What he has said so far is no less than a few months of work if they shut the line down completely, much longer if they want to keep the Expo running while they do the work.
3. Yes they are doing upgrade work on a few stations, but the whole viaduct structure of the Expo Line, about 18-20 km worth between the stations is 3 and half decades old and aging rapidly. Concrete ages at a geometric rate and you guys are right at the point of the geometric curve were the costs are about to take off. There is no budget for this work, there isn’t even an official assessment of the full costs yet. This work will take year or more, depending on the amount of concrete degradation. Would you like to see the pictures of the pieces of the viaduct that fell from the structure when the planning/engineering firm I was consulting with got a tour of the Skytrain system. One of the engineers I worked with confirmed advanced concrete degradation was occuring. She’s on maternity leave right now, twins very very cute!
4. All of the mainline turnouts (track switches) need to be changed from the shorter slow speed variety to the much longer higher speed variety. This makes running more trains possible because you don’t have to slow down as much when you run through them. I believe many people have been complaining about this phenomena lately. I know they did an assessment but the work will takes months if not years and may require certain track sections to be shut down on the weekends or at the least, early closing of affected sections during the week. The motors and all the cabling between the motors, power supply and signal boxes of the turnouts which allow the control room staff to remotely activate the turnouts need work immediately. Many of the mentioned turnout components need replacement as well.
5. As I mentioned before, many components of the signaling system on the main line have to be replaced. Thales, the company that made most of them knows their supply of spare parts is running out! Like Zwei said, Automatic Train Control, is all about the signaling. Their cable connections, remote antenna control units, tower supports and other components determine the how well the Citiflo 650 operating system runs your trains. The hardware which gets ignored often in these systems, is quickly approaching end of it’s useful lifespan. This work is extremely time consuming and will take months or longer if the system is kept running during the upgrades/replacement!
6. When all this work is done, TransLink then sends a report to both Transport Canada and the Canadian Transportation Agency, which then spend a year or more monitoring Skytrain and it’s repairs as well as Translink’s operating procedures. They make observations, requests and change orders for TransLink to implement. After they are implemented, they do on site inspections, conduct tests and drills. If all is good, they recommend changes to Skytrain’s Operating Certificate, a large set of legal documents that take up multiple shelves actually, it’s signed by the minister, given a rubber stamp by BC’s Ministry of Transportation and only then will TransLink be able to operate more trains then they do now!
To recap, over $3 billion in unbudgeted costs need to be done in order to extend SkyTrain to Surrey!
When a heritage streetcar route is upgraded to light rail standards, simply by giving it priority over autos, reliability increases dramatically as does ridership.
The lesson to be learned is indeed very simple.
One need not segregate transit in a subway or on a viaduct, to increase ridership, one only needs to operate portions of the route with priority over autos, either by reserved rights-of-ways and/or priority signalling.
This simple lesson is well understood in Europe, but not so in Canada, where expensive infrastructure is the norm, with the belief that massive investments in infrastructure alone will guarantee new ridership.
A simple HOV Lane with rails can offer a service on par with a $600 million/km subway. A lesson TransLink and the City of Vancouver ignore.
The Globe and Mail newspaper on its website reports that the latest data shows that the King Street pilot project to speed streetcar travel has increased ridership and imporved service reliability:
King Street pilot project: Latest data shows increase in ridership, streetcar reliability
By Nick WestollDigital Broadcast Journalist Global News
August 15, 2018
The City of Toronto says the King Street pilot project, which gives streetcars priority on a portion of the busy downtown corridor, has resulted in increased ridership and improved reliability.
The pilot project area, which runs along King Street between Bathurst and Jarvis streets, launched in November. According to data from May and June that was released by officials Wednesday evening, there has been an 11 per cent increase in all-day weekday ridership. During the morning weekday commute, there has been an increase of 35 per cent, while the evening commute has seen a ridership increase of 27 per cent.
READ MORE: Toronto police face ‘unique challenge’ when it comes to issuing tickets on King Street.
Officials also said there has been a sharp increase in transit reliability with vehicles arriving within four minutes 85 per cent of the time during the morning weekday commute. Of the slowest streetcar time during the afternoon commute, city staff said there has been a four- to five-minute improvement in travel times.
However, during May and June, officials said there was a small increase of plus or minus one minute in westbound vehicle travel times compared to data collected before the pilot project began. City staff said the increase counters data collected since the launch of the project, adding it may coincide with emergency sewer and utility work in May on Richmond Street and in June on Queen Street.
The King Street pilot project prioritizes transit by making a designated section of the street local traffic access only. Vehicles are restricted from turning left and only right-turn “loops” are allowed. East-west through traffic isn’t allowed at key intersections.
The City of Toronto says the King Street pilot project, which gives streetcars priority on a portion of the busy downtown corridor, has resulted in increased ridership and improved reliability.
The pilot project area, which runs along King Street between Bathurst and Jarvis streets, launched in November. According to data from May and June that was released by officials Wednesday evening, there has been an 11 per cent increase in all-day weekday ridership. During the morning weekday commute, there has been an increase of 35 per cent, while the evening commute has seen a ridership increase of 27 per cent.
READ MORE: Toronto police face ‘unique challenge’ when it comes to issuing tickets on King Street
Officials also said there has been a sharp increase in transit reliability with vehicles arriving within four minutes 85 per cent of the time during the morning weekday commute. Of the slowest streetcar time during the afternoon commute, city staff said there has been a four- to five-minute improvement in travel times.
However, during May and June, officials said there was a small increase of plus or minus one minute in westbound vehicle travel times compared to data collected before the pilot project began. City staff said the increase counters data collected since the launch of the project, adding it may coincide with emergency sewer and utility work in May on Richmond Street and in June on Queen Street.
The King Street pilot project prioritizes transit by making a designated section of the street local traffic access only. Vehicles are restricted from turning left and only right-turn “loops” are allowed. East-west through traffic isn’t allowed at key intersections.
READ MORE: Toronto’s King St. pilot project data shows improvement of afternoon streetcar travel times
The data comes amid complaints from part of the business community along the pilot project route about a decline in customer spending due to vehicle restrictions. According to the report, there was a 0.3 per cent increase in spending in May and June compared to the same months in 2017.
Mayor John Tory praised the pilot project on Twitter Wednesday night, saying it shows that the City of Toronto “can move a larger number of people on the City’s busiest surface route, quickly and reliably.” He said city staff will continue to monitor ridership and traffic impacts as the project continues.
€300 converts to CAD $455 million for 24km of tram line or about CAD $18.2km per km to build.
This of course does not include vehicles or a maintenance depot, but does give a good indication of the cost for an economy light rail line to be built in Metro Vancouver.
Even if the total cost, including stops, trams and maintenance/storage yards is double this cost, it still offers far more transit to the region, serving many more destinations, that what is being planned for today.
This poses many questions, including why is new LRT being planned in Surrey so expensive?
Or…..
Is TransLink vastly gold plating new light rail planning to drive up the price so as not to show how expensive SkyTrain is?
It is interesting to note that a BCIT to UBC/Stanley Park LRT is also about 25 km and the $455 price tag for 25km of line looks very good when compared to a $3.5 billion, 5.5 km subway under Broadway.
I guess the politicians want $3.5 billion of ribbon cutting.
July 31, 2018
Contract awarded for Germany’s longest new tram line
Written by Keith Fender
The proposed line will be an extension to the current Nuremberg tram network.
A detailed planning contract for the proposed 25km Stadt-Umland-Bahn Nuremberg tram line, the longest light rail route currently planned anywhere in Germany, was agreed in late June.
The special purpose planning organisation Zweckverband Stadt-Umland-Bahn, formed in March 2016 to bring together the local authorities in Erlangen, Herzogenaurach and Nuremberg, awarded the contract to a consortium of specialist consultancies: Gauff Rail Engineering, Rambøll and Obermeyer Planen & Beraten.The contract covers the planning of the Erlangen and Herzogenaurach sections to the level required to enable final planning permission to be awarded in 2021.The proposed light rail line will form a western extension of the existing Nuremberg tram network starting at the current ‘Am Wegfeld’ terminus of Line 4 serving the towns of Erlangen and Herzogenaurach northwest of Nuremberg.
If the project, currently estimated to cost €300m, gains planning permission in 2021, construction could begin in 2023 with services starting by 2027. It is envisaged services will be operated by Nuremberg tram operator VAG.
Tram-train or heavy rail operations were considered by using part of the Nuremberg S-Bahn system on part of the Fürth to Bamberg line south of Erlangen and re-opening of the former branch line from Erlangen-Bruck to Herzogenaurach. However, the idea was discounted earlier this year due to the number of conflicting movements this would impose on other trains south of Erlangen.
The planned light rail route will instead serve the area around the old station in Herzogenaurach but will use an entirely new alignment to the north of the old railway route from Erlangen city centre via Erlangen-Büchenbach.
A planned eastern branch of the new network was dropped earlier in the planning phase after local residents in one area to be served by it voted against funding its construction in a local referendum in 2015.
The Canada Line morning rush hour fiasco, last Friday was and is completely unacceptable and demonstrates TransLink completely inane policy of forcing as many bus riders as they can onto the light-metro system.
What happened Friday, demonstrates the Achilles heel of TransLink’s lack of management and the photo-op CEO’s disdain of the traveling public.
Maybe in the USA, such operation is tolerated, but not in Canada, where many more people per capita depend on public transport for their personal mobility.
The bus bridge was all but non existent and the fiasco at Bridgeport station was intolerable; lack of any direction by official, was akin to the captain and crew taking to the lifeboats and letting the passengers of a sinking ship fend for themselves.
Unacceptable!
User friendliness is the number one reason people take transit and TransLink, despite its “Seth Rogan” PR stunt, is definitely not user friendly. What’s more, TransLink does not give a damn about the traveling public.
Wholesale changes are needed at TransLink, but I am afraid that Premier John Horgan and the Minister in charge of public transit, don’t have the stomach for it and let the shambling TransLink lurch from one fiasco to another without any public accountability.
Unacceptable!
Track issue resolved on Vancouver’s Canada Line SkyTrain, still some delays
A train moves along the Canada Line at No. 3 Road and Capstan Way in Richmond. Gerry Kahrmann / PNG
A track issue that caused lengthy delays on the Canada Line SkyTrain in Vancouver this morning has been resolved.
Shortly after 9 a.m., TransLink said the Canada Line had resumed full service but that it will take some tie to return to normal spacing and frequency.
Earlier Friday, TransLink said there was significantly reduced service between Langara-49th and Broadway-City Hall stations. A bus bridge carried passengers between Marine and Broadway stations.
#SkyTrain Canada Line track issue has been resolved. Trains resuming normal service with delays. Please allow extra time as trains return to normal spacing and frequency. ^AR
The old fogies of politics are now driving the change from LRT to SkyTrain in Surrey.
The same old lies.
The same old deceit.
The same old ignorance is now gaining control of regional transit south of the Fraser, as it has done in the rest of Metro Vancouver.
The SkyTrain Lobby doesn’t care about facts, hell no, they just invent their own facts to suit the occasion.
Oh they love to link; accident here, a death there and woe to those who want light rail.
TransLink, on the other hand, hides the facts and they certainly know how to spin the truth to suit their needs.
The following statement from the Daily Hive, an electronic news paper, demonstrates how the SkyTrain delusion has gotten hold of Langley City Council.
“Langley City Council concludes that the SkyTrain technology for Stage 2 – Fraser Highway Corridor between King George Station and Langley is superior to Light Rapid Transit (LRT) based on the perspective of safety, travel time, reliability and potential for future extensions,” reads the December 2017 resolution, which was released publicly for the first time this week.
Here is some news for Langley Council:
Actually, LRT is more safe than SkyTrain, when a one on one comparison is made between ALRT/ART and LRT.
Travel time is mostly dependent on the number of stations or stops per route km. Quality of rights-of-ways is also important but LRT’s reserved rights-of-ways, are of the same quality of R-o-W as SkyTrain’s elevated R-o-W. Both modes will have almost equal travel times. As well, SkyTrain performs poorly in the snow and it snows in Langley!
As SkyTrain is a proprietary railway and Vancouver and Kuala Lumpor are the only two cities in the world that operates SkyTrain as an urban railway, it seems quite probable that Bombardier will abandon production of SkyTrain in the very near future, maybe even before the funding is in place for a SkyTrain extension to Langley. Only seven sold in 40 years tells the tale.
Then of course, there is no mention of the around $3 billion upgrade to the present ALR/ART Innovia SkyTrain system before any extension to Langley can be made!
Yes delusion is driving transit transit south of the Fraser and delusion is the only real currency of the SkyTrain Lobby.
What this story does not mention is that Portland has an extensive LRT/streetcar network, a transit network designed to meet the needs of the transit customer.
Unlike Metro Vancouver where transit is built to meet the needs of land developers and land speculators, Bombardier and SNC Lavalin, all political friends with sitting councils.
Building with LRT enabled Portland’s suburbs to survive, unlike Metro Vancouver where the city is being torn apart by massive land development and almost eternal gridlock because of a definitely non-userfreindly public transit system. It seems many who move into those $1,000,000 or more condos prefer to drive, rather tan takeAi?? bus, then rapid transit and a bus again to go where they want to go.
SkyTrain has now given a new word to an ever expanding transit lexicon: “Demoviction“.
Both Vancouver and Portland started investing in rail transit about the same time, but Portland built LRT to meet the needs of transit customers, while Vancouver built proprietary light-metro to meet the needs of various political agendas, both civic and provincial.
Net result: Portland is a livable city where Vancouver has become a playground for the wealthy.
Premier Horgan please take note.
The initial LRT line in Portland cost less than a quarter to build than Vancouver’s SkyTrain, enabling the transit authority to build more lines, reaching more customers.
Portland, Ore., has a well-deserved reputation among urbanists for its sound design sensibilities, from pedestrian-friendly sidewalks to tasteful public squares to a downtown waterfront park that was once an overpass. One less-reported aspect of this aesthetic is its charming retail hubs.
Rather than concentrating all of its retail into a few corridors, as most cities do via strip malls, Portland has allowed it throughout its residential areas, particularly in its Eastside neighborhoods across the Willamette River from downtown. Some hubs are just a few blocks long and offer niche retail, while others are longer and include more practical features like grocery stores.
Take Sellwood-Moreland, where I lived recently. The neighborhood, at under two square miles, has about 12,000 residents and a half-dozen of these retail hubs, most just a few blocks apart from each other. The strip that I lived near, at the corner of 13th Avenue and Bidwell Street, was so diverse that I forewent countless car trips. It had a library, a bar, a convenience store, a coffee shop, various restaurants and even several food carts, which are common citywide.
These hubs reflect Portlandai??i??s history, says Tom Armstrong, a staffer for the cityai??i??s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. Sellwood-Moreland and other Eastside neighborhoods, such as Irvington and Mt. Tabor, began as streetcar suburbs, later to be annexed by the city. This meant they each developed their own Main Street-style, pre-automobile retail centers, featuring narrow streets and apartments above storefronts.
The hubs remain thanks to what the city did — and did not — do. While Portland has its own ugly urban renewal history, many of these historic areas were spared in the post-World War II decades. Portland also did not insist as much as other cities did on separating its uses into residential and commercial. Starting in the 1980s, there were conscious efforts to protect and bolster these hubs in the cityai??i??s comprehensive plan. There are 23 of these so-called neighborhood centers mentioned in the current plan, along with a formal strategy to allow housing and amenities around them. Meanwhile, the zoning map also allows for dozens of additional autonomous retail spots that are either within or near these centers.
The result is that Portland, despite still being largely single-family residential in nature, has a much stronger retail presence than most U.S. cities with similar designs and histories. Walkability scores for its Eastside neighborhoods are generally in the 80s and 90s. At street level, this gives the city a spontaneous quality. One can meander through a quiet residential area and suddenly stumble upon a bakery or a micropub.
Perhaps more important, it has paid off for the city, showing the value of mixed uses. In other places, this kind of retail-residential mix has been hard to implement — often because itai??i??s a target of NIMBY resistance. But these urban-style amenties have made median home listing prices in Portlandai??i??s Eastside neighborhoods some of the highest metrowide. ai???Theyai??i??re very popular places,ai??? says Armstrong, ai???and we keep seeing redevelopment and new investment in those places.ai???
As I discovered, theyai??i??re convenient, placing Portlandians near charming, historic retail streets that provide whatever they could want.
One must plan on this scale as being done in the City of Surrey.
Let us just add a Vancouver to Chilliwack TramTrain, instead of LRT to Langley and one would now have 270km of rail transit in the Fraser Valley.
This is called “Vision”; this called planning for the future.
Too bad the City of Vancouver; TransLink; Metro Vancouver and the province lack this sort of vision.
I guess one can win more votes with “rubber on asphalt” and SkyTrain to everywhere, election promises than with sensible and affordable “light-rail” election promises.
City of Surrey envisions 140 kms of light rail transit on its streets
Light rail transit lines running the streets, everywhere.
That is the vision of Surrey’s city planners. It will be presented to City Council for consideration early next week. And they are certainly dreaming big.
It is part of the municipal government’s planned submission to influence TransLink when the public transit authority updates its Regional Transportation Strategy (RTS) beyond the current 10-year plan – after the Surrey Newton-Guildford and Fraser Highway light rail transit (LRT) lines are completed. This update to the RTS is expected to occur next year.
According to a City staff report, the municipal government wants between 140 km and 150 km of rapid transit, which includes the existing segment of the Expo Line terminating at King George Station. The rest of this rapid transit length, serving every district and neighbourhood of Surrey, is imagined as LRT, with a preference for building as much of the network as a street-level system.
“A LRT system is an effective way of facilitating connections between services because transfers are made at-grade without the need for escalators or elevators,” reads the report. “Cities also have an important role to play in ensuring multi-modal facilities are in place for walking and cycling, in and around stops, so people have easy access to the rapid transit network.”
Stops are spaced an average of 800 metres apart to maximize the population’s accessibility to the transit service, and the lines running along the streets would create a grid network.
“Grid networks provide service to a high number of people and have the ability to attract many new riders because they are simple, direct, easy to understand and useful to a broad range of people making a wide variety of trips,” continues the report.
“A grid network works best in a city that has many places of origin and destination (sometimes called polycentric) and a grid-based arterial road network. The City of Surrey has both a polycentric development pattern and a strong arterial grid-based road network. This makes a grid-based rapid transit network the right choice for the City of Surrey to serve existing development and help shape future development.”
The report includes maps of the proposed LRT lines under both the “Medium-Range” and “Long-Range” timelines of implementation.
Medium-Range Vision
City of Surrey’s draft concept of a medium-term vision for light rail transit expansion. (City of Surrey)
Long-Range Vision
City of Surrey’s draft concept of a long-term vision for light rail transit expansion. (City of Surrey)
By the end of the “Long Range” timeline, the City wants to see an extension of the Surrey Newton-Guildford LRT beyond the current planned terminuses at Newton Exchange and Guildford Exchange to White Rock and 160 Street, respectively. It also envisions new LRT lines running along 24 Avenue, 64 Avenue, 72 Avenue, 88 Avenue, 96 Avenue, 120 Street, 152 Street, and 192 Street.
No SkyTrain extensions are currently desired by the City of Surrey.
This is a potential LRT concept for Surrey when the city has a population of one million people and 500,000 jobs. Surrey has 520,000 residents today, and its population is expected to rise to 840,000 by 2046.
Rapid bus services such as the B-Line are expected to continue to be precursors to rail rapid transit.
Surrey’s first LRT line, the Surrey Newton-Guildford LRT, is expected to cost $1.65 billion for 10.5 kms of track and 11 stations. Construction is anticipated to begin in 2020 for an opening in 2024, with ridership levels estimated at 42,000 to 46,000 per day over the first year of operations. It will be operated privately initially.
Municipal governments across the region are expected to submit their own ‘wish list’ to TransLink ahead of the creation of the updated RTS.
There is a growing number of politicians who want to build with SkyTrain instead of LRT in Surrey. What they ignore at their own peril is that SkyTrain will not cost $1 billion more than LRT to build, but it will cost over $6 billion!
Why?
TransLink has neglected to add the $3 billion or so on refurbishments needed for SkyTrain before it can be extended to Langley.
Two questions:
“Why, after being on the market for almost 40 years, only 7 SkyTrain proprietary railways have been built and only three (soon to be 2) are seriously used for urban transport?”
“If LRT is so bad, why, during the same period, have now over 200 such systems been built, bringing the total to almost 600 LRT type systems in operation around the world?”
Transport Canada’s Operating Certificate for SkyTrain limits capacity at 15,000 pphpd. To increase capacity, the following must be done:
All stations must have platforms extended to 120 metres to allow for longer trains and have more entrances and exits added to cater to higher volumes of traffic.
The electrical supply must be renewed and upgraded, to handle capacities beyond 15,000 pphpd.
The automatic train control system must be upgraded to allow shorter headway’s with about 10,000 km of cable to be replaced, just on the Expo line.
All switches on the Expo line must be replaced with faster switches, in order to meet the new closer headway’s.
Sections of guideway on the old Expo Line may need to be repaired or replaced.
A new source for vehicles must be planned for as Bombardier may shut down the ART production line at any time.
The cost of refurbishment is now said to exceed $3 billion and no money is budgeted for this.
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If the $3 billion Broadway SkyTrain subway is built, it will push back any thought of extending SkyTrain until the mid 2030’s, as the $3 billion refurbishment of the ALRT/ART lines must be done before any thought of extending SkyTrain in Surrey/Langley.
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This also gives insight to why LRT is being built in Surrey, transit customers and taxpayers will get a far bigger bang for their transit buck with light rail.
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So, politicians and taxpayers in Langley and Surrey must face a Hobson’s Choice: take LRT now or no transit improvements until the mid 2030’s at the earliest!
When TransLink CEO Kevin Desmond finally released the new, inflated costs for the Broadway subway and Surrey-Newton-Guildford light rail projects at the end of April, he refused to reveal the latest estimate for the delayed Surrey-Langley line.
Even though Desmond and his team at TransLink’s Sapperton headquarters had in their possession a July 2017 report by veteran SkyTrain cost estimator Anthony Steadman.
“At this time we haven’t done any business case, so like with these other projects until we really have a very detailed business case, it’s a number, it’s a ballpark figure,” Desmond said on April 30 when theBreaker pressed for the numbers. “We have to do a considerable amount of additional work, so there is a number back there but it’s not what I would consider particularly accurate.”
Sany Zein (left) and Kevin Desmond on April 30, when they refused to disclose the new Surrey-Langley cost estimates. (Mackin)
TransLink changed its tune this week and released a report to theBreaker under the freedom of information law that includes separate estimates for an LRT line and SkyTrain line to connect Surrey and Langley.
Steadman estimated the cost of an LRT project beginning work in 2022 would be $1,949,248,444 — $700 million more than the $1.22 billion figure put in front of voters before they rejected funding TransLink’s expansion in the 2015 plebiscite.
If the project goes ahead in 2022 with SkyTrain technology, it would be another billion at $2,914,798,721.
The LRT scenario contemplates 13.264 km of in-street guideway and 2.967 km of elevated guideway, using 19 articulated low floor LRT vehicles, each 40 metres long with a capacity for 250 passengers. The report identifies nine stations at King George, 140th St., .152nd St., 160th St., 166th St., 68th Ave., 64th Ave., 192nd St. (Willowbrook Exchange) and Langley Terminus.
A long list of 15 costs are excluded from the LRT scenario, such as: financing costs beyond the construction period; re-routing of existing transit services, either temporarily or permanently; street works beyond the transit routes; physical barriers at LRT street crossings; park and ride facilities; bus loops (other than street facilities at Willowbrook Mall and the Langley Terminus); work to the existing Serpentine River Bridge; operating costs; and GST.
A SkyTrain line from King George Station to Langley Centre would have eight elevated stations and a 15.737 km guideway. The report said it would require 55 vehicles, equivalent to fourth generation SkyTrain vehicles slated for the Expo and Millennium lines.
On April 30, Desmond and vice-president Sany Zein unveiled new cost estimates for the Broadway subway and Surrey-Newtown-Guildford LRT. They are now $2.83 billion and $1.65 billion, respectively — up from the 2015 estimates of $1.98 billion and $920 million. Desmond and Zein cited the rising costs of real estate, labour, materials and equipment for the huge increases.
For more than two years, theBreaker had sought the cost estimate updates, yet TransLink and the provincial government consistently denied FOI requests or censored the costs from documents that were released. Likewise, none of the officials would comment, even though the TransLink Mayors’ Council had been briefed on the numbers behind closed doors.
On June 28, the Mayors’ Council and TransLink board of directors approved a plan to build the Broadway and Surrey-Newton-Guildford projects. TransLink has $2.01 billion in federal commitments and $2.55 billion from Victoria. The remaining $2.71 billion for phase two of TransLink expansion is coming from fare increases and higher taxes on property, fuel, parking and condo development.
All of this, after the NDP government stepped-in and took over the $1.3 billion Pattullo Bridge replacement project from TransLink.
It is par for the course, according to the research of a prominent academic.
Bent Flyvberg, a business professor at Oxford University, has analyzed megaprojects around the world. “Overruns up to 50% in real terms are common, and over 50% overruns are not uncommon,” his research has found.
In his Iron Law of Megaprojects, Flyvberg says they are “over budget, over time, under benefits, over and over again.”
Why? Because architects want visually pleasing products and engineers are excited by building the longest-fastest-tallest. Politicians have a tendency to want monuments that benefit themselves and their cause. Business people and trade unions want revenue and jobs.
This what LRT is supposed to do – traffic calm, by providing a quality public transit alternative.
In Vancouver, light metro is built to increase density, thus increasing auto use.
The modern tram, provides transit, on the pavement, easy to use, just what the transit customer wants.
Maybe trams on Broadway will bring a Renaissance to that area?
No, not going to happen as the land speculators have come and will soon sell up to land developers, who will build high rise condos, adding more traffic onto Broadway.
As Toronto enters the Light Rail era, Vancouver descends into 1960’s style L.A. traffic hell.
St. Clair right-of-way draining cars from the neighbourhood, report says
Local Councillor hails an area ‘renaissance’ thanks to increased transit use, cyclists
Michael Smee · CBC News · Posted: Jul 18, 2018 6:00 AM ET
A new report seems to support what fans of the controversial St. Clair streetcar right-of-way have claimed all along: It’s been a boon for transit riders, cyclists and pedestrians.
But the report also notes a 10 per cent drop in the number of cars using the corridor during rush hours — a detail some local shop owners say is hurting business.
The dedicated, raised streetcar line runs from Yonge to Weston Road, and reduces traffic to one lane in each direction. It was completed in 2010 but some businesses say they continue to suffer because fewer drivers use the street.
“I’ve noticed a big difference in my bottom line,” Winston Hosang, the owner of Ellington’s Music & Cafe, told CBC Toronto.
“I really feel for the new businesses coming in on St. Clair, because if you haven’t been here for over 10 years, your chance of survival I would say is pretty slim.”
But Coun. Joe Mihevc, who represents a large swath of the territory the line passes through, called it a boon to the local economy.
“St. Clair has been part of a renaissance in the past 10 years,” he said.
“Fifteen years ago you would see businesses on month-to-month leases. Now you see two, three, five-year leases. By and large the street as a whole has undergone quite a dramatic transformation and made it a very hip and hopping street.”
The interim report, from an outside consultant, was released to the TTC board last week.
Mihevc, who’s been vocal in his support for the line from the start, called for the report to settle the debate over whether the right-of-way was good or bad for the community.
The report says public transit use has risen by about seven per cent since the line was completed in 2010. It also notes a three per cent increase in cyclists. The number of pedestrians is up too, the report found, by about four per cent.
But it doesn’t indicate whether drivers have switched to transit, or simply abandoned St. Clair for other streets like nearby Dupont Street and Davenport Road. It also doesn’t measure the economic impact on local businesses
These issues will be addressed in the final report, due out early next year, Mihevc said.
Local butcher Antonio Mazza, who’s owned the Macellaria Atlas for 50 years, said the line has hurt his business because of the reduced number of parking spaces on St. Clair.
But when asked about solutions, he shrugs.
‘We complained but nobody cares,’ butcher says
“We complained but nobody cares,” he said. “What are you going to do?”
Up the street, at The Wailer, a reggae bar, manager Gregory Taylor maintains that in addition to discouraging traffic, the raised streetcar line has effectively split the community.
“Now, this is north St. Clair and that’s south St. Clair,” he said. “It’s been more of a disruption. It’s taken away a lot from the businesses and it’s never come back.”
‘I think it’s better than before’
But there is some support for the line from local businesspeople.
“When they established this track, it closed down many businesses, but eventually it improved,” said Ali Babaei, the owner of ABR Rug Gallery for the past 20 years.
“We are getting more people coming into the store. I think it’s better than before.”
Although he has no evidence that the line is sparking a local economic renaissance, Mihevc said he’s convinced it will serve as an example to other developing neighbourhoods.
“You have nothing to fear on Finch Avenue, on Sheppard, on Eglinton East, on Eglinton West, streets that will have at-grade LRT,” he said.
“These projects will revitalize their communities. There’s nothing to fear in them,” Mihevc added.
After rereading the Greer Report, I see TransLink making the same unsubstantiated claims about SkyTrain.
Another decade has passed and TransLink is still the autocratic organization, as it was twenty years ago!
Who is not afraid to “Bell the Cat?”
The Greer Report – Review of Rapid Transit Project Claims. We didn’t need an American consultant to tell us TransLink is ‘off the rails’.
First posted by zweisystem on Thursday, September 17, 2009
Over twenty years ago the Greer Report, done by Greer Consulting Services, issued a scathing report on the Broadway/Lougheed Rapid Transit Projects, later to be know as the SkyTrain Millennium Line. The report found:
cost comparisons appear to have been contrived to favour SkyTrain over LRT
no ridership (demand) analysis was reported to justify the high capacity system
air quality and transportation benefits are unsubstantiated
accelerated construction advantages of SkyTrain were clearly unrealistic
risks associated with the SkyTrain car manufacture have not been assessed.
Fast forward to today, has anything changed?
Nada, nope, not a chance!
How can TransLink be trusted with any honest transit planning, especially when they want hundreds of millions more in taxpayers money to pay for ‘pie-in-the-sky’ light-metro planning based on contrived planning and phony studies? The RAV/Canada line is just a symptom of a major problem: TransLink refuses to plan for affordable light-rail and instead invents statistics to suit their in-house light-metro planning. The 100,000 passengers a day, quoted by RAV officials and Liberal politicians, needed so the RAV/Canada line will operate subsidy free is ‘stuff-and-nonsense’ as TransLink has absolutely no mechanism in place to apportion fares between SkyTrain, RAV/Canada line, Seabus, and the regular buses. TransLink doesn’t know what percentage of fares are full fares, concession fares, and the deeply discounted U-Pass, nor do they have a formula for allocating fares between bus, Seabus and metro.
Clearly TransLink hasn’t a clue about apportioned fares or even how the RAV/Canada line will determine what percentage will be paid to the metro and buses. What may happen is that TransLink will count all ridership on RAV as full adult cash fares and ‘fiddle away’ monies that rightfully should go to the bus system’s coffers.
What is known for certain is that the 100,000 a day claim made by TransLink, Kevin Falcon and Gordon Campbell is completely bogus!
(2018 update: The Canada Line is said to have 110,000 boarding’s a day, which equates to about 50,000 actual people using the system. There is also an agreement with West Coast Mountain Bus that all South Fraser buses must terminate at Brighouse Station, thus effectively forcing a transfer on all South Fraser customers. The stations only have 40m long platforms and can only operate two car trains, effectively limiting capacity to a little more than half of the ART/ALRT Innovia Lines. Translink pays the SNC Lavalin lead consortium over $100 million annually to operate the line.)
Certainly nothing has changed much at TransLink as American transit expert, Gerald Fox, stated in a Feb.2008 letter regarding the Evergreen line:
“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.” And adding: ” 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.”
Metro politicians take note, TransLink is about to take you and your taxpayers on a wild ride, “around, around, TransLink goes; where it will stop nobody knows!”
The proposed line will be an extension to the current Nuremberg tram network.
Tiffany Crawford More from Tiffany Crawford 
The initial LRT line in Portland cost less than a quarter to build than Vancouver’s SkyTrain, enabling the transit authority to build more lines, reaching more customers.
Portland’s Sellwood-Moreland neighborhood (Wikipedia)By Scott Beyer Ai??|Ai?? Columnist
City of Surrey’s draft concept of a medium-term vision for light rail transit expansion. (City of Surrey)
City of Surrey’s draft concept of a long-term vision for light rail transit expansion. (City of Surrey)
Sany Zein (left) and Kevin Desmond on April 30, when they refused to disclose the new Surrey-Langley cost estimates. (Mackin)
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