The Massey Tunnel Bridge replacement project is again in the news, as the massively expensive replacement bridge for the Massey tunnel has been mothballed.
Now, the CBC has found hugely expensive financial irregularities with the new Port Mann Bridge, and the air of political corruption hangs heavily in the air.
Was the proposed mega bridge to replace he Massey Tunnel nothing more than Liberal corruption on steroids?
Real reason for span disappears but Delta continues campaign
Delta Optimist
August 30, 2017
Editor:
Delta’s propaganda campaign to garner support for the proposed mega bridge replacing the perfectly safe George Massey Tunnel is in full swing.
Delta’s Politics and Misinformation Must Not Stop. The Bridge campaign is repugnant due to its long list of Trump style fake news and alternative facts.
A proper study for replacing the tunnel with a bridge would take a year or more to do. Delta’s “back of an envelope” review took less than a month to do and is poorly done as a result.
The replacement bridge was never about traffic congestion, rather it was to allow Panama-max tankers and colliers up the Fraser to Surrey Fraser Docks and no plans were made to reduce traffic at the Oak Street Bridge and Knight Street Bridge choke points. If anything, the proposed new bridge would create massive gridlock in Richmond.
As the real reasons for the bridge evaporated, Mayor Lois Jackson doubled down with another “back of an envelope” plan by hijacking the Rail for the Valley’s Leewood Study, for a Vancouver/Richmond to Chilliwack TramTrain service, for her pro-bridge propaganda campaign.
The study released in 2010 took over a year to prepare by real transportation professionals, providing a cost effective Vancouver/Richmond to Chilliwack passenger rail, using TramTrain service for the Lower Mainland.
The study never planned for LRT service across the proposed bridge, nor would a meandering rail line using the proposed bridge be viable.
Unless there was direct service to Vancouver, any rail service using the bridge (which will not have rail built in) would fail miserably.
Instead of a ruinously expensive bridge, the mayor should concern herself with Surrey’s $2.5-billion LRT, where two-thirds of the cost is being spent on roads and utilities for favoured land developers and speculators along the LRT route and the now $3 billion Broadway SkyTrain subway, which the route today has a quarter of traffic flows, needed to justify subway construction. Both are financial time bombs.
The mayor should support practical and cost-effective transit and transportation solutions and not massively expensive vanity projects that will do little real good except pauper the taxpayer.
Due to their high construction and operating costs, subways are only built on the heaviest used transit routes, with traffic flows in excess of 15,000 pphpd. Broadway has transit traffic flows less than 4,000 pphpd!
The new NDP government must reassess TransLink’s grand transit schemes and the lack of any real regional transit planning, except for their two grossly expensive vanity projects.
The Broadway subway, a classic Vancouver “vanity project“, now rumored to cost around $4 billion, will offer no real advantage to transit customers, yet greatly increase the cost of providing transit in the region by sucking money from other transit operations. The Vancouver mayor is already on record saying “subway make world class city“.
Surrey’s LRT, is so badly planned that it has become a “poor man’s” SkyTrain, taking all of the light-metro’s bad points and none of LRT’s positive points. The rumoured cost of Surrey’s LRT is now well over $100 million/km, with two thirds of the cost paying for new road construction and putting utilities underground. Surrey’s LRT is nothing more than a major roads project with rails, built to subsidize land developers and land speculators who acquired properties adjacent to the road/tram project!
TransLink is also planning to reduce the scope of LRT construction by extending SkyTrain to Langley, as it costs only slightly more to build according to planners (but not experts), which will bring a host of new and expensive problems to the at capacity Expo Line.
The many problems facing regional transit, include:
Ai??The Expo Line is at or near its legal capacity of its Transport Canada operating certificate and needs about $3 billion in renovations, station enlargements, new electrical supply and guideway maintenance or replacements.
The bus system forces customers onto SkyTrain, forcing unwanted transfers, which makes the transit user unfriendly and deters ridership.
The Canada Line has effectively half the capacity of the Expo, Millennium/Evergreen Lines and needs a minimum of $1.5 billion investment to increase capacity to match the rest of the ALRT/ART transit system.
TransLink operates the transit system as if it were the 1950’s and ignores 21st century solutions.
The Patullo Bridge replacement only caters to New Westminster’s wishes and not the regions and will have only four lanes and no rail bridge. TransLink again, misses a golden opportunity to meaningfully change peoples commuting habits.
There is no redundancy in the system and as the light-metro system goes down, TransLink is very slow to respond, leaving customers stranded.
TransLink desperately wants to introduce mobility pricing for cars, yet continues to squander billions of dollars on very bad transit planning and dubious transit construction.
TransLink’s senior management remain isolated from the public and spend more time, inventing new fibs to hide their incompetence.
Transit planning is based on political diktat and not consumer based. The transit customer does not like what TransLink forces on them.
There has been no realistic modal shift from car to transit in the past thirty years. Over 80% of SkyTrain’s ridership is recycled bus riders and buses are extremely poor in attracting the motorist from the car.
The GVRD planned a road/rail/LRT bridge to replace the Patullo in the late 1970's. There is no such forward thinking today.
And the list goes on and it is no wonder that 65% of the regions taxpayers treat TransLink like a pustular sore.
There is no future for regional transit in Metro Vancouver until provincial and civic politicians, their planners and engineers plan transit to meet the needs of transit consumers and not political friends and insiders including land speculators and land developers.
There is no future for regional transit in Metro Vancouver, until the universities, most notably Simon Fraser University start teaching modern regional transportation and not largely disputed transit theories decades old. If European Universities offer degrees in Urban Transportation, why not UBC and SFU?
In the 21st Century, public transport is seen as a product and if the product is good, people will use it but if the product is bad, people will not; this credo is from one of the most popular and dynamic public transit systems in the world, in Karlsruhe Germany.
It is time the provincial government compels TransLink to do the same.
A "Bistro" TramTrain" in Karlsruhe Germany, meets the customer's demands for longer distant trips.
Most of us have forgotten that Richmond once supported an interurban service from Steveston to Vancouver and New Westminster and now the city of Richmond is investigating a heritage line to operate the interurban.
Rail for the Valley wishes everyone good luck with this endeavor.
With the then new Oak St. Bridge in the background, the Steveston interurban enters it last days of operation.
City councillors have agreed to spend $50,000 to study the possibility of Steveston tram route
September 8, 2017
Steveston Interurban Tram 1220 recently had its roof restored so it can be wheeled outside. File photo.
Ai??City councillors have agreed to spend $50,000 to study the possibility of running the historic Steveston Interurban Tram from its barn on Moncton Street and No. 1 Road to the Gulf of Georgia Cannery.
City planners will now investigate the feasibility of the tram running on one of two routes to the cannery: either along No.1 Road to Bayview Street, or more directly along Moncton Street.
The study will include a business case analysis, transportation and engineering analysis of the scope and costs to retrofit the tram to be operational, and the capital and operating costs required for the tram itself.
Itai??i??s not the first time the city has considered running the tram through Steveston. Between 2002 and 2005, city council mulled several route options in the village and costs were estimated.
In 2004, costs to lay track, provide stations, road crossings, crossing protections and power were estimated at $2.5 million from Moncton and No. 1 Road to the cannery ai??i?? the same route staff will investigate this time around.
A tram route from Britannia Shipyards to Moncton and No. 1 Road was estimated from $1.9 million to $2 million in 2004, and $2.9 million from the London Farm area to Britannia Shipyards.
The new study will also investigate traffic control, alteration of the roadways to permit laying of track, cost of laying the track, safety features of crossings and provision of stations.
In 2005, city council passed a resolution ai???that Council abandon any tram routing options in Steveston.ai???
Today, the tram is being restored and is on display in Steveston Park as a historical artifact in the cityai??i??s collection.
Bought in 1913, Tram 1220 was transferred to the Steveston Interurban Restoration Society from the Royal BC Museum in 1993.
ALRT/ART is what we call a proprietary railway and because Bombardier Inc. hold the technical patents for ART, they are the sole supplier of ART cars, as they can always undercut the competition, who must design a Linear Induction Motor powered car from scratch. Designing a specialty transit vehicle from scratch is a very expensive proposition and may add about $30 million to the cost of companies who bid for ART cars for Vancouver’s ALRT/ART proprietary light metro.
This, of course, gives Bombardier Inc. a great advantage and why the company loves to sell unconventionalAi?? proprietary railways because they have the operators in a”gotcha”situation, being the sole supplier.
It seems complacency is the order of the day at Bombardier Inc., where major trouble with Toronto’s tram procurement program and now Waterloo’s Bombardier built trams are being returned to sender, with the knowledge that the feds will always bail them out.
It is nice to be considered a favoured company by both the governments of Quebec and Canada with billions of dollars in loans, grants, subsidies, and deferments given, but when a producing a simple tram that works seems beyond their ken, it is really time to call it a day.
Funny that Ottawa’s French designed Alstom trams seem to be working fine, yet Bombardier’s trams seem to be duds.
Meanwhile, in Metro Vancouver, we are stuck with Bombardier Inc. and their aged product and that is something TransLink and the regional mayors remain ignorant of. If Bombardier Inc. goes bust, there is no other supplier for ART SkyTrain cars, which will greatly increase costs for an already overpriced proprietary transit system.
CTV Kitchener
Published Saturday, September 2, 2017 7:37PM EDT
Construction for the LRT is nearly complete but Waterloo Region doesnai??i??t have a train to test out the system.
Only one Bombardier train, ordered back in August 2013, has been delivered.
And it doesnai??i??t work.
Officials say the vehicle was sent to test the regionai??i??s storage facility and they knew it wasnai??i??t operational.
The train may now be sent back to Bombardier says regional councilor Tom Galloway.
ai???Theyai??i??ll have to either send it back to Kingston to bring it up to working standard or bring the staff down here.”
Bombardier says all the trains should be delivered by the end of the year, but some still worry that this latest setback may mean Ionai??i??s launch will have to be pushed back.
ai???We always have to be a little cautions about schedules coming from Bombardier because, of course, they are behind,ai??? says Galloway.
Bombardier said in a statement: ai???Manufacturing and assembly of the vehicles in Bombardierai??i??s Kingston [facility] is going very well, with high speed testing on our test track progressing accordingly. The question of the delivery schedule is under discussion between our team and the Regionai??i??s, and so we cannot comment further on this issue for the time being. We assure you that we will keep everyone informed as soon as we have developments.ai???
Officials say if they get a working train by the fall they can begin testing immediately.
Zwei, I am sending you a very telling photograph. Its near Blair Station and the Ottawa LRV is undergoing testing. Notice the complete lack of paint effects and graphics as well as the fact that, many of its portals and access panels are in the down position, so equipment can be accessed during testing. The point being, the size of the 18 meter long articulated bus compared to the 48.5 meter long LRV. Remember, each Ottawa train will have 2 of these LRV’s.
***
One Ottawa tram (1 tram driver) is as efficient as 4 to 5 articulated buses (4 to 5 bus drivers) and a coupled set of Ottawa trams are as efficient as ten to twelve articulated buses (8 to 10 drivers), operating on reserved rights-of-ways.
*
This singular lesson remains unlearned by TransLink, the City of Vancouver and Surrey planners and the Ministry of Transportation.
Ah yes, our honest and hard working and sole supplier of ART cars (SkyTrain) and ALRT/ART parts, Bombardier is back in the news.
One wonders why Metro Vancouver and TransLink keeps planning building with the obsolete proprietary ART mini-metro system, complete with steam roller planning and mock (possibly illegal) bidding?
One wonders why real public debate has never been allowed over the controversial proprietary ART system, by the province, metro Vancouver, and TransLink?
Premier Horgan, can you change the “SkyTrain” culture at TransLink?
Put another way, is your NDP government strong enough to change Metro Vancouver’s SkyTrain culture?
Maybe severing ties with Bombardier and ART would make a good start.
An aggravated bribery trial involving a Bombardier Inc. employee that began on Tuesday is not just about 37-year-old Evgeny Pavlov, but about the culture and behaviour of the company he worked for, Sweden’s top anti-corruption prosecutor says.
Mr. Pavlov pleaded innocent as the prosecution rolled out a case that alleges collusion with officials in Azerbaijan, and side payments to a mysterious company controlled by associates of former Russian Railways boss Vladimir Yakunin.
Mr. Pavlov’s lawyer, Peter Lindqvist, said his client “claims no responsibility” in the case, and asked why Sweden’s National Anti-Corruption Unit had not named Mr. Pavlov’s alleged co-conspirators in the alleged bribery scheme.
“Because there are so many of them,” replied Thomas Forsberg, the senior prosecutor at Sweden’s National Anti-Corruption Unit.
Although only Mr. Pavlov has been charged, the prosecution has named six employees of Bombardier Transportation Sweden as suspects, including Mr. Pavlov and his boss Peter Cedervall, the president of the company’s Stockholm-based Rail Control Solutions division.
Mr. Forsberg said Mr. Pavlov ai??i?? who faces up to six years in jail if found guilty ai??i?? had “offered and promised, and also given, bribes to an official of the Azerbaijan Railways authority” while helping a Bombardier-led consortium win a 2013 contract to install rail-signalling systems in the former Soviet Republic. Mr. Pavlov was head of business development at Bombardier’s Moscow office when the contract was signed. He later moved to Stockholm and the company’s Rail Control Solutions unit as head of sales for Region North.
The Azerbaijan contract was worth $340-million (U.S), 85 per cent of which was provided by the World Bank, which is conducting an audit into the awarding of the Azerbaijan deal.
That could lead to wider problems for one of Canada’s flagship companies.
If Bombardier is found to have won the contract via collusion or corruption, it would be banned from competing for future projects funded by the World Bank, which subsidizes much of the infrastructure construction in the developing world. On Friday, Bombardier rejected the National Anti-Corruption Unit’s allegations in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail.
“Bombardier denies any allegations that it acted improperly,” company spokesman Simon Letendre wrote. “We take these allegations very seriously as they assert conduct that does not reflect our values or the high standards we set for ourselves. We are carefully reviewing the legal filings and support a complete accounting of all the facts and circumstances surrounding this project. As the legal proceedings are ongoing, we cannot and will not comment any further at this stage.”………………….
Zwei knows that there are huge issues with TransLink’s mega-projects, but does this ponderous bureaucracy have a clue what it is doing?
I don’t think so.
Past comments from Mr. “haveacow” from Ottawa has the cost of the Broadway SkyTrain subway passing the $3 billion mark and two thirds of the Surrey’s $2.5 billion LRT’s costs are in a form of hidden subsidies for land developers and land speculators in the form for street and underground utility renewal, in short, the taxpayer is subsidizing Surrey’s favourite land developers!
All the Vancouver Sun and Province can do is write “puff stories”, but Bob Mackin, independent reporter and his breakernews.com is zeroing in on the TransLink mega-project story. A story that Rail for the Valley has been reporting on for years.
Mr. Horgan and Ms. Trevena will have some tough decision to make in the very near future and let us hope they break the mold and make the right decisions.
The mystery continues, even after the provincial election, ai???clone speechai???, fall of the BC Liberals and the swearing-in of the NDP government.
Surrey secrecy
What are the new cost estimates for TransLinkai??i??s Broadway subway and Surrey LRT megaprojects?
In early 2016, City of Surrey revised the cost of its project, from $2.14 billion to $2.6 billion. The Broadway subway estimate was $1.98 billion.
TransLink chief financial officer Cathy McLay admitted in spring 2016 that costs had risen for both. She blamed the price of real estate and the costs for equipment and materials that would be sourced from the United States. The organization is steadfastly refusing to come clean on the numbers.
Have the projects doubled in price? When government agencies are unreasonable and wonai??i??t be honest to the governed, then it becomes reasonable to pose such a question. Especially in British Columbia, where the phrase ai???on-time, on-budgetai??? isnai??i??t a rule or even an aspiration anymore, but a punchline. It is not entirely a B.C. phenomenon.
ai???Based on the available evidence, we conclude that rail promoters appear to be particularly prone to cost underestimation, followed by promoters of fixed linksai??i?? The average difference between actual and estimated costs for rail projects is substantially and significantly higher than that for roadsai??i?? The average inaccuracy for rail projects is more than twice that for roads, resulting in average cost escalations for rail more than double that for roads.ai???
On Aug. 8, TransLink released two heavily censored reports on the projects to theBreaker, plus its latest direct refusal to comment on the revised cost estimates.
TransLink infrastructure and engineering vice-president Sany Zein cites ai???commercially-sensitive information that should remain confidential in anticipation of commercial negotiationsai??? for refusing to offer an update on the dollars and cents of the megaprojects, which the ruling NDP, their allies in the Green Party and the opposition Liberals all support.
TransLinkai??i??s Sany Zein
Are Zeinai??i??s words just word salad to mask the fear of widespread public sticker shock?
TransLink is withholding more than 1,200 pages of documents about the Broadway subway, which is officially called the Millennium Line Broadway Extension. It disclosed a cover page for a May 5 2017 report called ai???Due Diligence Technical Response,ai??? but it didnai??i??t even show theBreaker a table of contents.
The Surrey project is officially known as South of Fraser Rapid Transit and TransLink gave theBreaker parts of two reports: the October 2016 Newton-Guildford Traffic Modelling Report by Steer Davies Gleave and Hatch and the Phase One: Surrey-Newtown-Guildford LRT project business case, dated Nov. 28, 2016.
The former says Newton-Guildford will be ai???an urban style LRT system, integrated into the existing streetscapes, using modern lower floor Light Rail vehicles.ai??? The second phase could be SkyTrain technology.
ai???Work is ongoing to determine the preferred rapid transit technology for the Surrey-Langley Line, but if LRT is selected as the preferred technology, then the two lines will run on a common section of track in the Surrey City Centre area between King George and 104 Ave.ai???
The latter report is a joint TransLink and PartnershipsBC business case that recommends the Surrey-Newton-Guildford LRT project. The estimated capital cost of the 11-stop, 10.4 kilometre LRT line is censored. The project schedule foresees construction from mid-2019 to the end of 2022, with LRT operations beginning in 2023.
Claire Trevena, the NDP Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, has not responded to theBreakerai??i??s request for comment. We will let you know if she does.
Stay tuned. theBreaker will not give up trying to get you the cost estimates for these projects. If youai??i??re a TransLink or government insider, theBreaker welcomes your tips, in confidence.Click this contact link.Ai??
Seems some serious corrosion problems are plaguing the TTC’s ICTS cars, which are the same as our SkyTrain Mk.1’s and I hope TransLink will take some time and investigate!
The Mk.1’s do have a history of corrosion, so I would think it would be expedient to check and see.
Ai??Scarborough RT vehicles need repairs to avoid ai???catastrophicai??i?? corrosion failures
TTC asking board’s permission to award $6.8-million sole-source repair contract to Bombardier.
An inspection of the TTC’s aging Scarborough RT vehicles uncovered a corrosion problem. The TTC plans to award Bombardier a sole-sourced $6.8-million contract to repair the decaying fleet.Ai??Ai??(Marcus Oleniuk / Toronto Star file photo)Ai??Ai??
The TTCai??i??s aging fleet of Scarborough RT vehicles has a corrosion problem that could cause ai???catastrophicai??? structural failures if not addressed soon, and the transit agency plans to award embattled rail manufacturer Bombardier a sole-sourced $6.8-million contract to conduct the urgent repairs.
The TTC uncovered the corrosion issue during an inspection of its fleet that it undertook after council voted to extend the life of Line 3 (Scarborough RT) until the Scarborough subway extension opens a decade from now.
ai???When we peeled the floors back, we found that some of the vehicles had holes the size of toonies, and a lot of wear,ai??? said Raffaele Trentadue, the TTCai??i??s head of rail cars and shop.
Trentadue said the problem was caused by decades of snow and salt accumulating near the doorsof the 32-year-old vehicles.
This photo shows corrosion in one of the Scarborough Rapid Transit cars. The TTC has discovered corrosion problems in the cars that need to be repaired, otherwise they could lead to catastrophic structural failures.
The corrosion has affected load-bearing joints of the door post and car-body frames. According to a report going to the TTC board on Thursday requesting funding for the repairs, if the decaying parts arenai??i??t fixed ai???as soon as possibleai??? the corrosion might compromise the vehiclesai??i?? structural integrity. That could ai???potentially lead to catastrophic vehicle failure and put the service plan of operating the system until 2026 at risk.ai???
TTC chief operating officer Mike Palmer said thereai??i??s ai???no questionai??? that the vehicles are safe but the TTC needs to take proactive measures to ensure they remain that way.
ai???From our point of view this is a good news story. This is us not ignoring a problem, and (instead) dealing with it in quality way and in a swift way which also will benefit customers for the next 10 years,ai??? he said.
The TTC first discovered the corrosion in 2015, but Palmer said it took until now to devise a fix for the problem.
So, are you reading this post because of the photo?
(no one was killed in the accident shown)
If you are, you were drawn in by a “headline grabber”, or a story or picture to ‘grab’ the reader to read further.
Sorry to disappoint , but we continue with so called transit report cards.
Zwei is not a transit or transportation professional and Councillor Pachall is not a transit or transportation professional, yet he pretend to be one by calling himself a “transit researcher”.
Everyone, especially civic politicians, think they are great transit experts, but the vast majority do not even have a basic grounding in transit and solving transit issues, let alone giving childish report card marks, based on questionable grading.
As I stated before, Zwei would never attempt such a stunt.
Mr. Haveacow is a transit professional and has an extremely good foundation in transit history, finances, construction technique and operations; the kind of person who should be CEO of TransLink!
His answer to the Sun’s “Puff Piece” is succinct and to the point; the so called ‘report card’ report is based on questionable data and poorly researched.
Over to you Mr. Cow.
Wow were to start! Always be wary of these types of ai???Transit Report Cardsai??? they are very poorly thought out and constructed.
1. Get the regions right! The Area of Greater Toronto and Hamilton isnai??i??t even the whole Toronto Area Commuting zone. If you are going to use GO Transit as this study does, as one of the areaai??i??s transit agencies it draws data from then,you should use the area it actually covers and all the local transit agencies it connects with. Luckily, the government of Ontario has already an official legally defined planning area FOR THIS EXACT PURPOSE, its called the Greater Golden Horseshoe Region. This region has 9.7 million people, GO Transit and 30 local and or single tier transit agencies, (soon to be reduced to around 24 because of the amalgamation of 6 local and one inter regional transit agency into one single tier Niagara Regional Transit Agency). This region is the basis for provincial funding boundaries and covers the an area of 11,000+sq km. which happens to be, the area currently and soon to be served by GO Transit and its connections to local transit agencies. It centers on Toronto but stretches from Kitchener-Waterloo in the west, Georgian Bay-Barrie area in the north,
Peterborough-Lindsay Area in the north-east and Northumberland County in the east, Brantford in the south-west and Niagara Region in the south. I have no idea why a good responsible researcher would not use this area, CUTA even has all the data for it, through the Ontario Urban Transit Fact Book, which is produced yearly.
The author also got Greater Montreal wrong by not using all the transit agencies inside the Greater Montreal Region. First there are 14 transit agencies inside it, not 4. It covers an area of over 3900 sq km and has an area population in 2015 (the date year of the data used in this report) of 4.14 million. One agency used, the AMT (Agencie Metroploitane deai??i??Transport) which was responsible for the Montreal area Commuter Rail system and regional transit planning coordination doesnai??i??t even exist anymore but did in 2015.
The covering of the National Capital Region might be improved if the 5 to 7 (iai??i??d have to check) suburban private transit agencies were also included that move people from the more rural areas of Ottawa (whoai??i??s total land area is actually 90% rural).
2. If an area is only represented by a single transit agency or a very small number of agencies dominated by a single very large transit agency, it is far more likely mathematically that, these regions will score higher given the very limited group of data points that were used, compared to larger regions with more varied array of transit agencies.
3. Data interpretation is tricky! The study uses fair box recovery of operating costs as a comparative metric, the higher the better. That is not always so! In Toronto the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) has had very high fair box recovery for a very long time. In fact, throughout individual years in the early 1970ai???s, the TTC was actually operating at a profit. For financial conservatives this is considered a positive result. But compared to other regions and transit agencies operating throughout North America this means that, Toronto receives actually far less support for its operating costs than most North American Transit Agencies. What financial conservatives consider positive, most senior transit officials at the TTC have nightmares about. This means that the TTC is far more sensitive to changes in ridership than most agencies elsewhere. So if ridership goes down because the economy is sluggish either the City of Toronto has to fork over more money or the TTC has to cut service. The TTC hasnai??i??t made an error. Something out of its control has severely effected its ridership, more than most agencies, the TTC now has some very hard choices to make.. But this report card considers this a positive result.
I could go on for many individual points about these types of reports but I trust my point is clear. These types of reports are designed to grab headlines and arenai??i??t really that useful, professionally speaking and just give ammunition for people in each of these areas to bash their local agencies, governments and provincial governments. But in the real sense are nearly meaningless and useless when trying to improve transit. So take the time, do it right, donai??i??t bother with useless regional comparisons which are overly superficial and have little depth to them.
The Vancouver Sun, as always, has embarrassedAi?? itself with another transit “Puff Piece”.
Nathan Pachall is not a transit expert, rather a politician and a seemingly TransLink apologist.
Zwei would never dare to do a report card on transit because there are so many variables involved. No one has copied Merto Vancouver’s TransLink, nor it’s use of the now obsolete proprietary ALRT/ART mini-metro, which by its operating certificate with Transport Canada, has a limited capacity of 15,000 pphpd.
Cost to increase capacity – $3 billion.
Real transit stories would be the grossly expensive, proposed $3 billion Broadway SkyTrain subway, planned a route with less than one third the ridership deemed necessary for subway construction. Or, the $2.5 billion Surrey LRT, where two thirds of the cost is subsidizing land developers and land speculators building along its route!
Nor even a mention of the capacity constipated Canada Line with its 40 metre long station platforms, effectively giving the line a little more than half the capacity of the other mini-metro lines.
Where is Pachal’s research on these important stories, which will cost the taxpayer at least $8.5 billion?
By the way, where is the Vancouver Sun on theses important $8.5 billion stories?
If this report card was done by the likes of Ron Stromberg, Gerald Fox or even Glen Leicester, I might take note, but Nathon who, I just laugh.
Metro Vancouver has the second bestAi??transit system in the nation, according to a transit report card that rates services in six major Canadian regions.
The report card gave Metro Vancouver an overall score of A+, tying the region with Greater Calgary for the second-best grade behind Montrealai??i??s A+++.
Nathan Pachal ai??i?? a transit researcher, founder of South Fraser OnTrax and Langley City councillor ai??i?? wrote the report card,Ai??which reviewed 23 transit authorities in Greater Calgary, Greater Edmonton, Greater Montreal, Toronto and Hamilton, Metro Vancouver and National Capital (Ottawa/Gatineau). It uses data from 2015, which is the most recent available. This is the third year Pachal has released a transit report card.
ai???It really brings visibility on how things actually are, because whether you think the service is fantastic or itai??i??s performing subpar itai??i??s good to have that real information that you can use to compare it to the rest of the nation and see how transit service in Canada and Vancouver is doing,ai??? said Pachal.
Metro Vancouver, which has TransLink as its transit authority, moved from an A to an A+ grade this year.
All metrics stayed the same except for operating cost per service hour, which improved from a C to a B. TransLink still has the highest operating cost per service hour ($186.29), but other regionai??i??s operating costs have increased at a faster rate than in Metro Vancouver, closing the gap.
The region continues to have the best revenue kilometres per service hour ai??i?? meaning transit service is slightly faster than in other regions ai??i?? though the metric has slowly declined over the past three years.
It also has the highest passenger trip intensity grade of all regions measured. Regions with a high score in this area have transit systems that align more closely with transit service demand, meaning they are more efficient.
ai???Interestingly, TransLink has the highest efficiency score in the nation,ai??? said Pachal.
Only Toronto and Hamilton region has better fare box recovery numbers. In Metro Vancouver, 53 per cent of direct operating expenses are covered by transit usersai??i?? fares, versus 64 per cent in Toronto and Hamilton.
Pachal said it will be interesting to see how the grades change when the information from 2016 is available. Thatai??i??s because the federal government, as well as many provincial governments, began investing last year in projects such as Metro Vancouverai??i??s 10-year plan for transit and transportation.
ai???This (2015) was sort of the last year of the TransLink-with-no-new-money metrics,ai??? Pachal said. ai???Next yearai??i??s data will show what itai??i??s like since they started to expand service with the approval of the 10 year plan.ai???
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