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.
It is to be expected, TransLink wants more of your money so out rolls the propaganda machine claimingAi?? increased ridership, Howrah!
Translation; “We want to bamboozle the NDP to give us more money for our two vanity projects, the Broadway subway and the Surrey LRT.
The late Carl Sagan had something to say about being bamboozled:
ai???One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If weai??i??ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. Weai??i??re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. Itai??i??s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that weai??i??ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.ai???
The problem for TransLink is that their claims do not match the operation of the transit system.
The new Compass Card is very good in calculating ridership because it collects money, thus TransLink knows exactly how many people are using transit, down to the last nickle (pennies are now obsolete), thus TransLink knows daily the number of unique transactions on the Compass Card and the number of unique transit actions would tell TransLink the actual number of people entering the transit system! TransLink would also know the exact amount of transfers a Compass Card customer would make. But TransLink doesn’t use that data, TransLink uses the easily toAi?? manipulate boarding’s and percentages.
Hint #1: Most people who use SkyTrain first transfer from a bus, are they counted twice?
Hint #2: The U-Pass, with over 130,000 issued allows unlimited daily travel and can be used upwards of 8 times per day per person.
The ALRT/ART light-metro system’s MoT operating certificate allows a maximum hourly capacity of 15,000 pphpd and in the past, according to TransLink, the system was carrying near this number; but wait it really wasn’t because ridership on SkyTrain has grown by almost 12% – really? That would mean SkyTrain would be carrying at least 1,000 pphpd more than it was legally entitled to.
So in reality SkyTrain has been carrying far less than TransLink would have us believe. Tsk, tsk!
In the future the public must demand:
TransLink give daily ridership stats from unique use of the Compass Card.
TransLink give the number of transfers, recorded by the Compass Card.
Ai??TransLink give the actual number of U-passes being used and the total numbers of times the U-Pass is used each day.
By having the actual hard numbers via the Compass Card, the public will be given a far clear picture of TransLink’s operation. But this news item was never about the transit system, rather it is a bamboozle to create the the myth that TransLink needs a massive infusion of money to keep operating, from the new NDP government.
TransLinkai??i??s latest numbers show increase in ridership
TransLink is out with its ridership numbers for the first half of 2017 and the transit authority is painting a rosy picture.
It says ridership across all their services for the first half of 2017 year is up 5.7 per cent compared to last year, which was also a record breaking year.
The more than 200 million boardings would put them on track for an unprecedented 400 million trips.
SkyTrain led the jump in ridership numbers, with 74 million boardings, up a whopping 11.9 per cent over 2016.
SeaBus also saw a steep climb, with 2.7 million trips, up 5.7 per cent year over year.
But the numbers revealed most transit riders are still taking the bus, with 122.5 million boardings in the first half of the year, up a more modest 2.5 per cent.
As for what continues to drive the growth, TransLink is citing a strong economy and increase in service hours and the Compass system.
External factors like increased gas prices are also believed to be playing a role.
But while there is a reason to celebrate now, TransLink says itai??i??s monitoring to see if recent fare increases will put the brakes on soaring ridership.
Congratulations on your recent electoral success and now fresh winds will sweeps across British Columbia.
My name is Malcolm Johnston and I have been an advocate for better public transit in the Metro Vancouver region for over 30 years.
Transit in Metro Vancouver is in a precarious position and funding is not the real issue, rather transit has been designed to suit political needs and not transit customer’s needs. TransLink is held in high odor by the public, as it continues building extremely expensive transit projects, that will do little in alleviating endemic congestion in the region.
As TransLink continues to blunder ahead with 1960’s transit solutions, like the $3 billion Broadway subway, 21st century transit solutions are ignored like the Leewood/Rail for the Valley TramTrain concept, connecting Vancouver to Chilliwack for as little as $750 million.
We cannot spend our way to better transit, we must have a viable plan that puts the the transit customer first, because a user friendly transit system is the number one reason for attracting people to transit!
A historical background leading to today’s transit ills in the metro Vancouver region.
In the late 1970s, instead of the originally planned-for light rail transit (LRT) from downtown Vancouver to Whalley, in Surrey; Lougheed Mall in East Burnaby and Richmond Centre, the then Social Credit provincial government forced the propriety SkyTrain mini-metro system onto the region.
Later that turned out to be a shady deal between the BC government and the Province of Ontario. The owners of the proprietary mini-metro system, the Urban Development Transportation Corporation was an Ontario Crown corporation that had great problems selling its ICTS/ALRT product, which we call SkyTrain. No one wanted it, including the Toronto Transit Commission.
Despite the hype and hoopla about ICTS/ALRT a 1982 TTC study found; “ICTS cost up ten times more to install than light rail, for about the same capacity…….“
For the cost of the proposed 1970’s LRT network to Surrey,Richmond and Lougheed Mall, taxpayers received a SkyTrain from downtown Vancouver to new Westminster!
The1982 study showed that, although modern LRT was then still in its infancy, had made ICTS/ALRT SkyTrain obsolete! This fact has been well covered up by both the media and by various governments who spent a lot of editorial and political credibility supporting ICTS/ALRT.
Later the UDTC was sold to Lavalin, which went bankrupt, in part, trying to sell the proprietary mini-metro, now called Advanced Light Metro or ALM, to Bangkok, Thailand. Then Bombardier purchased the rights to ICTS/ALRT/ALM at Lavalin’s bankruptcy sale, but the newly-formed SNC Lavalin retained the engineering patents.
The mini-metro was again renamed Advanced Rapid Transit or ART, with Bombardier designing a larger new car, commonly known as the Mk.2.
Back in Vancouver, the shortfalls of the original ALRT/SkyTrain Line had become apparent and great work was done to ensure the next major transit project, the Broadway-Lougheed Transit project would use modern light rail. Alas, that was not to be. Instead, the governing NDP, in a private deal with Bombardier, again forced SkyTrain onto the region in what as now known as the Millennium Line. So expensive was ART/SkyTrain, that the planned route to Port Moody had to be abandoned and the Millennium Line eventually petered out at a station between Glen and Clark Drives in Vancouver.
The recently completed Evergreen Line is but the originally abandoned portion of the original Broadway-Lougheed LRT project to Coquitlam.
The BC Liberals, wanting their own vanity transit project, forced through the Canada Line, which uses conventional electrical multiple units, operating either on elevated guideways or in a subway in Vancouver. The cost of building the subway portion greatly escalated from the original cost of the project at $1.3 billion to about $2.4 billion. To reduce costs the scope of the project was significantly reduced. That was achieved by employing cut-and-cover construction on Cambie St. (with devastating results for local merchants) and by reducing station sizes with platforms lengths that vary between 40 metres to 50 metres, which can only accommodate two-car trains, 41 metres long.
ai??i?? The Canada Line station platforms are half as long as the Expo and Millennium Line stations, effectively giving the $2.4 billion Canada Line half the capacity! Embarrassingly, the Canada line is the only heavy rail metro in the world that was built as a light metro, having less capacity than a simple streetcar line costing a fraction to build! For added insult, the Canada Line, not being ALRT/ART SkyTrain is incompatible in operation with the the Bombardier proprietary mini-metro system.
ai??i?? The above graphic illustrates Ottawa’s LRT line (presently under construction)Ai?? with longer station platforms, will have a greater capacity than our current SkyTrain system. It is worth noting that two modern light rail vehicles (approx. $5 million each) can carry more customers than 5 Mk.2 vehicles (MK.1’s are no longer in production) costing over $3 million each. Also please note, it is currently illegal to operate 5-car trains on the ALRT/ART SkyTrain lines, as shown in the above graphic.
To date, only seven ICTS/ALRT/ALM/ART systems have been built. Toronto will be tearing down their life-expired ICTS system in the near future. During the same period that ICTS/ALRT/ALM/ART has been on the market, over 200 new LRT systems have either been built; are nearing completion; or are in advanced stages of planning.
Metro Vancouver’s much troubled TransLink operation wants to build two more transit lines; a Broadway SkyTrain subway to Arbutus and Surrey’s ill-designed LRT. The problem with both projects is that they are being built on routes that do not have the customer flows to justify construction. If built, they will suck-up much needed funding from regions that desperately need improved transit in order to to fund overbuilt vanity projects that satisfy the whims of the mayors in both Vancouver and Surrey.
The Broadway subway is really the unfinished Western portion of the originally-planned for Broadway-Lougheed light rail project. The Arbutus and Broadway terminus and the creation of TransLink was an NDP inducement for then GVRD Chair and Vancouver Councillor George Puil to agree to fund the NDP’s switch from LRT to ART, with the added sweetener that the province would pay two thirds of the cost of SkyTrain only construction west of Commercial Drive.
Today, even with the B-line buses, peak hour traffic flows along Broadway are less than 4,000 persons per hour per direction (pphpd), which is about two thirds less than the bare minimum of 15,000 pphpd that would justify subway construction. You can build a subway, but expect to pay huge subsidies to keep it in operation; subsidies that will erode transit operations elsewhere in Metro Vancouver.
One of the unintended consequences of subways is that they tend to deter people from using transit. Claustrophobic underground stations and lack of convenience with widely spaced stations, make subways very user unfriendly and statements that the Broadway subway will reduce congestion are based on wishful thinking.
ai??i??
Modern LRT can easily handle such traffic at one half to one third the cost to build and costing about half to operate than the current buses on that route. Modern LRT can handle traffic flows in excess of 20,000pphpd, which compares favorably with the maximum capacity of 15,000 pphpd the current ALRT/ART SkyTrain can handle. An unpleasant fact is, a Broadway subway would have potentially less capacity than surface light rail, unless about $3 billion is spent to upgrade the current ALRT/ART system. New electrical and upgraded electrical installations would be required to handle more trains and major station upgrades, like extending platform lengths on the entire system, to accommodate longer trains needed for increased capacity!
The Surrey LRT is just more bad planning.
TransLink has not planned the Surrey LRT as a stand-alone light rail operation, rather, as a poor man’s SkyTrain, feeding the already at capacity Expo Line! Operating on routes that do not have the customer flows to justify LRT construction, it seems it is being for political reasons only.
Two more badly planned and expensive transit projects will only drive up the cost of transit, which already has made the cost per revenue passenger one third higher in metro Vancouver than Edmonton, Calgary and Toronto.
There is another way.
In September 2010, Rail for the Valley released their privately-commissioned study,prepared by Leewood Projects of the UK, which saw that a TramTrain service between Vancouver and Chilliwack, using the existing former BC Electric interurban route was viable and could be built, depending on the amount of money one wished to invest, between $500 million to $1 billion dollars for the 136 km. route.
TramTrain is a variation of LRT which has trams or streetcars, operating on both trams/streetcar tracks and main line railway tracks. First operated in Karlsruhe Germany in 1993, TramTrain has proven very successful, where ridership increased over 475% after opening of the initial TramTrain service to Bretten in 1993. Today, TramTrain service has greatly increased in Karlsruhe (eight TramTrain lines) over 25 TramTrain services are now operating in Europe and North America and many more are being planned.
Using TramTrain on existing railway tracks greatly reduces costs, while providing quality transit services to areas which otherwise would go without.
TransLink and the provincial government have remained blind deaf and mute to The RftV/Leewood TramTrain and instead want to see a hugely expensive subway built under Broadway, which will not reduce congestion plus an equally expensive LRT in Surrey, which again will do little to reduce congestion.
Why are subways and light rail built?
In the real world, LRT is built on heavily used bus routes because one tram (1 tram driver) is as efficient as up to six buses (6 bus drivers) and because for every bus or tram used, one needs to hire a minimum of three people to manage, maintain and operate them. LRT becomes the better investment over a standard business cycle on heavily used transit routes which see traffic flows in excess of 2,000 persons per hour per direction.
ai??i?? Though somewhat dated the preceding graphic shows the costs of new build LRT and the VAL and SkyTrain proprietary mini-metro systems. Today, both VAL and SkyTrain have become niche transit modes, with no sales in the past decade.
Subways are only built when ridership demands long trains needing large stations accommodating long station platforms, that at-grade would be problematic. The threshold for subway construction are traffic flows in excess of 15,000 persons per hour per direction. In many European cities peak hour ridership on sections of tram routes exceed 25,000 pphpd!
ai??i??
One can build subways on lesser routes, but the huge operating and maintenance costs means monies for other transit operation must be diverted to pay for the subway.
Solutions are needed for today’s transit needs.
I am hoping your new NDP/Green coalition will be open to fresh ideas as it provides much-needed funds to regional transit and transportation projects in Metro Vancouver, Vancouver Island and the rest of BC. Taxpayers need you to ensure that monies are spent on viable projects instead of stale vanity projects.
May I offer these five suggestions:
Implement an updated version of the Leewood/Rail for the Valley Vancouver to Chilliwack regional rail project. The cost today could range from $750 million for a basic service to $1.5 billion for a deluxe service.
Implement a Victoria to Nanaimo regional rail service, cloning much from the Leewood Study as possible. The cost today would also match the that of the Fraser Valley regional rail project.
Stop TransLink’s Broadway SkyTrain subway and instead plan for an European style BCIT to UBC/Stanley Park LRT. This would provide transit at three major destinations, guaranteeing high ridership at a cost of just over $1 billion, with operation cost much lower than with using buses.
Investigate a regional rail service on the abandoned Vernon to Kelowna rail route.
Abandon the mega bridge replacing the Massey Tunnel and invest in a road/rail bridge replacing the decayed Pattulo Bridge and the downright decrepit Fraser river Rail Bridge. A six lane bridge, with a three track lift span, would do more alleviating congestion than the proposed $3 billion Broadway subway and the ill planned Surrey LRT, by providing quality public transport free access across a notorious choke point.
These five suggestions would greatly help with transportation issues in their locality and they are also very affordable when compared to cost estimates for short subway lines and ill planned LRT in Surrey.
It is my hope and wish that transit planning is again done for the benefit of the transit customer and not for political or academic vanity. Metro Vancouver politicians love to boast about Vancouver and its transit system, but no one has copied Vancouver’s transit planning or its use of light metro. Transit planners and politicians come to Vancouver; they see SkyTrain; and they go home and build with light rail!
December 2021 ai??i?? The UBCLiner: Chilliwack to UBC ai??i?? the 6 am through service.
First posted by zweisystem on Monday, October 12, 2009 Ai?? Updated July 17, 2017
The following is a short tome on a studentai??i??s Monday morning commute from Chilliwack to UBC, via the interurban and the Broadway streetcar line and illustrates what can be realistically achieved with light-rail and the variant TramTrain, for a fraction of the cost of a SkyTrain subway to UBC. The longest tramtrain route on Karlsruheai??i??s famous Zweisystem is 210km. long where triple articulated cars, including ai???Bistroai??i?? cars offer a 30 minute service from Karlsruhe, to the outskirts of Stuttgart, including on-street operation through towns including Heilbronn.
Zwei’s note 2017: The story is even more relevant today as Hwy. 1 was closed all day Saturday due to a major incident, there was no “transit” option available to Valley residents. Only political ennui and MoT hubris is stopping the TramTrain project and hopefully with a change of government, will bring fresh thinking about regional transit.
The time: 6am
The date: December 2, 2021
The 6 am diesel LRT service from Chilliwack to Vancouver, whichAi?? now terminates at the University of BC on the newly opened Broadway light rail line, is locally called the UBCLiner. The UBCliner consists of a two car diesel LRT and diesel/electric hybrid LRT train-set; the hybrid diesel ai??i?? electric LRV is designed to operate both on electrified and non-electrified rail lines.
Every morning the UBCliner departs the Chilliwack loop precisely at 6 am and very shortly traverses the ai???flatai??i?? crossing with the Canadian National Railway on its mainline. As one passes, one can see the foundations for the new rail overpass that will shortly replace the level crossing, which will be needed with the recently opened Fraser River Rail Bridge which will soon allow an increase of the Interurban service to the Fraser Valley and Chilliwack.
There is light snow falling and local roads are very slippery, but all is unnoticed as the UBCliner speeds on to Vancouver. In the freak blizzard in 2019, the valley interurban was never stopped by ice and snow and provided a timely transit service throughout the emergency, with trains running 24 hours a day.
The UBCliner is an express service which stops only at Huntington, Abbotsford, Langley, King George Highway, Scott Road, Pacific Central Station, and UBC; not only carries passengers but express mails and courier parcels. The triple articulated diesel ai??i?? electric light rail vehicle, also has a small parcels compartment and a self serve ai???Bistroai??i??, serving coffee, tea and snacks and is complete having a chemical toilet.
The two car train-set quickly speeds up to 90 kph and sets off through Sardis and Yarrow, which station platforms already occupied by customers waiting for the the 6:10 local service to Vancouver. In just 25 minutes, the UBCLiner stops at Huntington, where a small contingent of passengers board and more mail is loaded. In two minutes the train leaves and shortly passes the uncompleted junction to the Abbotsford airport, which in a few month provide a direct Vancouver to YXX service and minutes later stops at the Abbotsford station, where more passengers embark.
At Clayburn, the train crosses the flat crossing with the Canadian pacific Railway and one can see the nearly completed two track flyover which will replace the old level crossing. In two years time, Abbotsford will see a 15 minute through service to Vancouver, which is needed with the ever increasing passenger loads on the present 30 minute interurban service.
Maintaining a speed of 80 kph to 90 kph, the express train travels through largely rural areas and in a short time joins the the double tracked section shared with the Delta Supper Port coal and container trains. At Glover Road and the Number 10 Hwy. by-pass, is the beginning of construction of a tram line which will run along the median of the Hwy. 10 to the Serpentine Bridge in Surrey, reconnecting with the old interurban route to Vancouver. Express trains will still continue to track-share along the existing rail route, but local trains will take the Hwy 10 route as it more directly serves businesses, Willow Brook Mall and the proposed 200th street LRT.
After a quick stop in Langley, the UBCliner continues through Surrey, making stops at King George Highway and Scott Road, before descending to the new Fraser River Rail Bridge, which is three track lift span, replacing the rickety swing span, which now will provide ample accommodation for freight trains, theAi?? four return AMTRAK passenger trains services to Portland and the new diesel LRT service to North Delta and White Rock. Speeding up to 90 kph, the UBCliner heads to Pacific Central Station, passing several new overpasses being built to counter increased rail traffic along the Grandview Cut route.
At Pacific Central Station, the UBC Liner uncouples with the second diesel LRT unit, releasing the pantograph to connect with overhead wires and once the mails and courier parcels are unloaded by 8 am, proceeds to Main Street, acting as a streetcar, powered from electricity and continues along Main St.Ai?? to the Broadway light rail line. Connecting to the new Broadway Line, which route operates mostly on lawned rights-of-way, complete with shrubbery, making a median of Broadway a long linear park. The journey is slower as the UBCliner is operating on tram or streetcar tracks and there are stops every 500 metres or so.
The aroma of coffee pervades the crowded interior of the car as passengers drink coffee and/or work on their laptops for the last leg of their journey. This is still an express service and no passengers are picked up at stops, except for the very busy stop for the Vancouver General Hospital. It is morning rush hour and the UBCliner now is following a local service to UBC. With full priority signaling the UBCliner continues to its destinationAi?? going up 10th Ave. from Alma, but as soon University Blvd. is reached the train accelerates to 80 kph to ends its journey at the mall loop at 8:35am.
The UBCliner returns to Pacific Central Station for regular operation valley operation, Vancouver to Chilliwack, but will return to UBC for the 6pm express to Chilliwack, for those who want to take advantage of a direct service to Surrey, Langley, Abbotsford and Chilliwack.
A comment about land development along the proposed $3 billion Broadway Subway?
No, it is a comment about over densification from high rise flats in Melbourne, Australia.
So how is Melbourne going to cope, transit wise? Build a subway?
No subway for Melbourne, as lawned tram track will do.
The hoary old density question, where in Vancouver the developer controlled Vision Vancouver are wantonly approving one tower after another, ignore serious transit and transportation issues, in favour of their land speculator friends make huge profits.
The comment; “The idea of creating a livable city at this density is crazy.”, makes one pause and say Hmmmm.
One question TransLink and the city of Vancouver fail to answer; “How is a pygmy sized $3 billion subway going to cure congestion on Broadway?”
The answer sadly is that it is not and will instead become a rather expensive White Elephant, like the Canada Line, consuming transit dollars better spent elsewhere in the Metro Vancouver area.
Melbourne City Council plans to spend $35 million greening up one of the city’s most densely populated suburbs, Southbank, with space for farmers markets, music festivals, bike lanes and green tram tracks.
The draft concept plan would create a critical neighbourhood space for the inner-city suburb which has grown in population from 15,603 in 2013 to almost 20,000 this year.
During three stages of construction the revamp will include more than one kilometre of dedicated bike lanes and upgraded tram and bus stops.
There will be extensive planting of a new trees and the potential for “green” tram tracks.
“The new public open spaces and neighbourhood parks we’re creating in Southbank will improve public amenity for the 20,000 residents and 50,000 office workers in the city’s most densely populated suburb,” Melbourne Lord Mayor Robert Doyle said in a statement.
The area is also home the National Gallery of Victoria, Victorian College of the Arts, Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne Recital Centre and the ABC’s Melbourne office.
Mr Doyle said the planned works would create 2.5 hectares of new public space and revitalise an area of the city.
“The new public space planned for the front of the ABC alone would be roughly the same size as the City Square,” he said.
“Dodds Street will be remade into a public space that can cater for everything from street performances to farmers markets and medium-scale music festivals at the doorstep of the Victorian College of the Arts.”
The plan will see the number of traffic lanes reduced in the area.
Chair of the council’s environment portfolio, Councillor Cathy Oke, said the project was part of an ongoing plan to turn asphalt in Melbourne into environmentally friendly gardens and open spaces.
“Green spaces reduce stormwater volumes, reduce the impact of development on ecosystems, increase biodiversity, provide habitats for wildlife, keep our soil moist and reduce the urban heat island effect,” she said.
A community meeting will be held on July 18 to consider the concept plans.
The council hopes the overall project will be completed by 2020.
Zwei has studied “Road Pricing” and “Congestion Charging” for over 20 years and the very first rule for a successful road pricing scheme is that the region have a user friendly and affordable public transit alternative. With TransLink we don’t…….. not even close and TransLink is so incompetent at what it does, will insure the public’s wholesale rejection of the scheme, the politicians who supported it, and even the political parties that endorse it.
You do not need a committee to look at “Road pricing” , it’s not going to work….oh sorry; for many, it is the last slurp at the “pork barrel” for a while.
Remember the NDP rump, with 2 seats in opposition after their switch from LRT to SkyTrain for the Broadway Lougheed R/T Project?
Remember (King) George Puil former head of TransLink?
Remember the 2015 plebiscite?
Remember Fassbender, the Minister rsponcible for TransLink?
All footnotes in Wikipedia.
The 2015 plebiscite had it right, the public do not like TransLink, its planning, its operation, nor the people who work there and TransLink and the regional mayors has done nothing to improve this, but to punish the taxpayer and transit customer with more incompetence.
TransLink is spending $2.31 million for a committee to exploreAi??spending hundreds of millions of dollars to tax motorists who drive in downtown Vancouver and cross the regionai??i??s bridges.
So-called mobility pricing is how the Mayorsai??i?? Council wants to fund the regional share of the 10-year plan for roads, bridges and the Broadway subway and Surrey light rail. The latter two megaprojects will costAi??more than $4.6 billion combined, but the 2017 cost estimates are a tightly held TransLink secret, for fear of sparking sticker shock among taxpayers.
TransLinkai??i??s 2015 interim CEO Doug Allen (Mackin)
When interim CEO Doug Allenai??i??s $35,000-a-month contract expired in August 2015, his exit report said TransLink should strike a committee and study the tax measure for two years, then take until 2025 to design and implement the measure. But this new committee is supposed to report and dissolve by the end of April 2018.
Almost three years ago, Allen warned that it would be a political minefield.
ai???Road usage charging can only be used to increase transit ridership [not fund roads and bridges] if it ever gets implemented in the first place,ai??? Allen wrote in his advice to his successor. ai???Risks and challenges to implementation are numerous on both the technical and the public acceptability fronts ai??i?? several orders of magnitude more complex than the Compass Card project.ai???
The Compass Card faregates and smart card project took an extra three years and doubled in budget to $200 million by the time it was launched in 2016. The road tax would require installation of networked surveillance cameras and sensors throughout the city, like in Milan, San Diego, Singapore, Stockholm and London. It cost the British capital $831 million to start-up and operate its congestion pricing system over the first decade, in order to net $1.3 billion net revenue.
Will anyone on the 14-member committee travel to see how it works, first hand?
ai???At present there are no plans for the commission to travel outside of the region as part of their work,ai??? said TransLink spokeswoman Jill Drews.
ai???At presentai??? could be the operative phrase. TransLink is notorious for junkets. Back in November 1999, chair George Puil led a 10-person, $70,000 delegation to London to explore the turnstiles on the tube. Puilai??i??s travel buddies included: NDP MLA Jenny Kwan and her aide Ian McConnell, Millennium Line president Lecia Stewart, TransLink vice-president Sherri Plewes, ex-BC Transit boss Larry Miller, and transit consultant Jane Bird.
They enjoyed business class airfare and stayed in a $300 hotel room in the posh Mayfair district.
Mobility pricing committee chair Allan Seckel, who was Premier Gordon Campbellai??i??s deputy minister during the 2010 Winter Olympics, and vice-chair Joy MacPhail, the former NDP leader, are being paid $2,500 and $1,666 respectively, per month. All members of the board ai??i?? including directors like ex-NPA Coun. Jennifer Clarke, ex-B.C. trucking industry lobbyist Paul Landry, and United Way CEO Michael McKnight ai??i?? will be paid a $550-per meeting stipend.
The board reads like a reunion of the Better Transit and Transportation Coalition, which lost the 2015 TransLink tax plebiscite: Greater Vancouver Board of Tradeai??i??s Iain Black, UNIFORai??i??s Gavin McGarrigle, Surrey Business Improvement Associationai??i??s Elizabeth Model and Counterpoint Communicationsai??i?? Bruce Rozenhart. Rozenhart was in the backroom for Liberal incumbent John Yapai??i??s re-election in Richmond-Steveston.
First posted by zweisystem on Thursday, October 11, 2012
Subways & metros cost a lot of money to build and operate.
The proposed new mega bridge that will replace the George Massey Tunnel is back in the news, as there is a good chance that incoming Premier John Horgan will cancel the the hugely expensive vanity project.
Replacing the tunnel with a larger structure, bridge or tunnel will only send the gridlock to the next choke point, Steveston Highway and ultimately the Oak Street & Knight Street bridges, which will see massive congestion if traffic through the tunnelroute were to be expanded.
What is needed is a a rail transit solution the works and can be readily and affordably extended to meet the needs of the ever growing population South of the Fraser River.
The proprietary SkyTrain light metro system and the light metro philosophy of operation has done very little in attracting the motorist from the car and its high ridership can be attributed mostly to recycling of bus customers and over 130.000 $1.00 a day U-Passes issued to post secondary students in the region. SkyTrain has done little to ease congestion in the METRO Vancouver area.
The proprietary SkyTrain light-metro system is just too expensive to build and it just cannot be extended affordably into the outer suburbs to attract new customers. The extremely high cost to construct SkyTrain light-metro has made the blacktop option the cheaper option in improving regional transportation, as evidenced by the many highway expansion projects underway in the Metro Vancouver region. As new highways are built, auto use increases, with the only barrier against increased auto use being road capacity.
What we see is extremely myopic regional planning and shows Metro Vancouver’s complete ineptitude when it comes to regional transportation as the region’s transportation clock has been merely turned back some 50 years when light-metro and subway construction was all the rage.
Sadly, this short sighted and extremely dated planning, which fits in well with BC politics practiced by both the BC Liberal Party and the NDP, will only lead to more gridlock and traffic chaos.
The Canada Line is in reality a heavy-rail metro, operating ROTEM’s heavy-rail electrical multiple Units (EMU’s), built as a light metro. The Canada Line’s automatic (driverless) operation and small stations, with 40 metre long platforms has roughly half the capacity of the ALRT/ART lines and much less than a quarter that was carried on the main tram (streetcar) line through Karlsruhe, Germany, before a subway was proposed. It now seems that automatic light-metro has hamstrung light metro capacity, making it somewhat obsolete for tomorrow’s transit demands.
To both increase capacity on the Canada Line (an estimated $1.5 billion alone) and to increase its reach into Richmond in an effort to attract more ridership, would cost about an additional $1 billion for a total of about $2.5 billion. By comparison, $2 billion would buy you about 80 km. (at about $25 mil/km.) of modern LRT!
That $2 billion would be put to better use by:
Converting the Canada Line hybrid heavy/light metro to light rail.
With the money saved by much cheaper LRT construction, extend the the new Canada line LRT across the Fraser river into Delta and beyond.
This is not fanciful musings, rather it very well may be a transit solution that TransLink or a future operating authority may seriously consider.
The Canada line is in a heavy-rail metro and most modern light rail vehicles would easily operate within the Rotem EMU’s Kinematic Envelope (Kinematic Envelope: the space that a rail vehicle could potentially occupy as it moves laterally and vertically on its suspension.), including the subway tunnels.
The expensive and complicated automatic signalling system should beAi??replaced with much simpler and more robust signalling system, doing away with the higher operating costs due to automatic signalling.
Retain third rail power pick on the elevated and underground portions of the line by equipping, as done before on other transit lines, the trams with retractable shoes to collect power from the third rail and using standard pantographs on non-guideway portions of the line. Simply, the first station the tram stops at on the guideway portion of the line the driver drops the pantograph and deploys the power collection shoes. Several tram varieties on the market today have dual pantograph/shoe for power pick up on APS ground level contact-less power supply.
By converting the Canada Line to LRT would make the cost of extending the Canada Line, first to Steveston and Ironwood Mall an affordable option. It would also be much cheaper to build with LRT for a new crossing of the Fraser River to serve both Ladner and South Delta; then onwards to South Surrey. As well, it would also be a viable option to extend the Canada Line, via at-grade operation to UBC a much cheaper option than bored subway tunnel.
The cost to extend the Canada line to Steveston and Ironwood Mall (about 11 .3 km.), should cost no more than $300 million and the CN rail line bisecting Richmond is up for sale for a reported $65 million, probably much cheaper if it was used for transit. It is conceivable that for the cost of the Canada Line extending to Steveston and the Ironwood Mall, we could build LRT to both Steveston and the Ironwood Mall, then through a tunnel under the Fraser River to Ladner and the Tsawwassen ferry terminal!
It is time for TransLink to start planning for light rail transit for the region and not just for a small cluster of municipalities that surround Vancouver. SkyTrain, with construction costs exceeding $130 million/km. just cannot be built economically into the burbs, but modern LRT, with construction costs as low as $6 million/km. (TramTrain) can. It is time for regional politicians declare that building with SkyTrain and/or light-metro has been a mistake and that we must plan future transit on the light rail model. The regional politicians who make up METRO Vancouver should tell TransLink either change their transit planning direction and for a start, seriously look at converting the Canada Line to LRT and extend it across the Fraser River to Delta and beyond.
Et tu Brute is a Latin phrase meaning “and you, Brutus?“, “even you, Brutus?” or “you too, Brutus?“, purportedly the last words of the Roman dictator Julius Caesar to his friend Marcus Brutus at the moment of his assassination. The quotation is widely used to signify the utmost unexpected betrayal by a person, such as a friend.
The choice to have Vancouver Vision Councillor Geoff Meggs to be incoming Premier Horgan’s chief of staff is a massive mistake and will cause an election by fall.
Geoff Meggs has played fast and lose with the truth concerning LRT and the proposed $3 billion Broadway SkyTrain Subway and he is unsuitable for any post within the NDP.
It is sad to see that the NDP have learned nothing about transit and remembered nothing about transit and still see it as a massive pork barrel for which to play.
The NDP are now firmly in the pocket of land developers, speculators AND SNC Lavalin, who happen to own the engineering patents for the proprietary ART railway (SkyTrain), with Meggs appointment.
The next election, spring of 2018, with the NDP losing badly, mainly by Megg’s questionable ethics!
Could it not get worse for BC taxpayers and transit customers.
Memo for Carole James: Meggs knows very little about Metro Vancouver, except how to enrich land speculators and land developers. You should have retired.
Vancouver Councillor Geoff Meggs to be John Horganai??i??s chief of staff
Geoff Meggs is a three-term Vancouver city councillor.
Three-term Vancouver City Councillor Geoff Meggs has resigned in order to take a job as Premier-designate John Horganai??i??s chief of staff.
Meggs was first elected to city council in 2008.
ai???WhenAi?? the [premier-designate] calls you and says Iai??i??d like you to work on the agenda that I ran on which included making B.C. more affordable, improving the province in so many ways ai??i?? itai??i??s very hard to say no,ai??? Meggs said of the transition.
MLA Carol James, who speaks for the transition team, said the former councillorai??i??s intimate knowledge of Metro Vancouver was a key asset.
ai???Having that mix is critical, no question.ai???
In the wake of the announcement, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson issued a statement, thanking Meggs for his time on council.
ai???We have been fortunate to have Geoff Meggs on City Council over the last nine years, where he has been an effective and thoughtful City Councillor, demonstrating strong leadership on issues like affordable housing and transit,ai??? Robertson wrote, calling Meggs ai???immensely qualifiedai??? to serve as Horganai??i??s chief of staff.
It wonai??i??t be Meggsai??i?? first time inside the premierai??i??s office. He previously served as communications director in the office of former NDP Premier Glen Clark.
He has also served as executive director to the BC Federation of Labour.
The BC NDP made the announcement Tuesday, also revealing to other hires to key positions in Horganai??i??s inner circle.
NDP campaign director Bob Dewar, who had served as Horganai??i??s chief of staff in opposition, will stay on as special advisor to the premier.
And Don Wright willAi??serve as Deputy Minister of Executive Council, Cabinet Secretary, and Head of the Public Service, replacing Kim Henderson who has been let go.
Wright was BCIT president until he left to be Deputy Minister to Adrian Dix in 2013. When the NDP lost that election, he moved on to become CEO of Central One Credit union, a position he will resign on Friday.
Byelection imminent
A spokesperson for the Vancouver Mayorsai??i?? office said Meggsai??i?? exit will trigger a byelection for his council seat.
His departure will also leave big shoes to fill on council, said city hall watcher Mike Klassen, who notedAi??Meggs was often the spokesperson for Vision Vancouver when the mayor wasnai??i??t available.
ai???You know, the joke about Geoff was that he was the guy who would always do the media when there was bad news.ai???
Klassen added that Meggs was also the person who started the discussion about the removal of the viaducts.
ai???I think we remember Mayor Robertson asking for funding for that and it seems to me quite possible that the province will kick in for some of the removing of those viaducts that will cost a lot of money.ai???
But NPA Councillor and former colleague George Affleck says he doesnai??i??t expect having Meggs in the premierai??i??s office will change the cityai??i??s relationship with Victoria.
ai???Iai??i??m not sure if he would be allowed to have preferential treatment given to Vancouver, heai??i??s going to have a lot of things on his plate,ai??? Affleck said.
Despite Meggsai??i?? departure, Vision Vancouver will retain its majority on Vancouverai??i??s city council.
-With files from Liza Yuzda and Janet Brown
Ai??Ai??2017Ai??Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
There is a plan in place, which has received international recognition, that could once again see an affordable passenger rail service from Vancouver, through the Fraser Valley to Chilliwack..
The Leewood Study has been ignored by most politicians, but not all and the time is right to put shovel to ground as regional traffic congestion in the Fraser Valley has become endemic and relief is needed.
Do not listen to the SkyTrain Lobby, as the aging gadgetbahnen is becoming extremely expensive to operate and maintain. No one has bought an ALRT/ART transit system in over a decade as it is too expensive not only to build, but to operate and maintain.
Do not listen to the light-metro lobby, as huge construction costs ($130 mil/km) make it unsustainable. Also, being elevated has not proven to be an advantage over at-grade LRT, in fact the opposite is true as at-grade transit is easier and cheaper to maintain and operate.
Do not listen to the subway lobby, as they live in a land of sparkle ponies and pixie dust. Subways are hugely expensive to build and hugely expensive to maintain, costing the operating authorities huge sums of tax money to operate. Due to their nature, subways do not attract ridership, in fact subways tend to deter ridership!
The former BC Liberal Government had absolutely no care for regional transit, except for building multi billion bridges and highways and has left good transportation planningAi?? to rot.
The Leewood Study even though seven years old, gives the region an affordable 21st century solution for transportation from downtown Vancouver to Chilliwack, connecting the population centres of Vancouver/Burnaby; North and South Surrey/Cloverdale; Langley; Abbotsford; and Chilliwack/Sardis.
Do not be left at the station with the baggage of unworkable or unaffordable solutions and board the train with a ticket for success!
The concept of freight trams has been around for a while, in fact the concept is quite old.
The success of Dresden’s freight tram was based on moving car components, via container, from one factory to another across the city. In St. Etienne, it’s the concept of moving smaller loads from one central distribution point outside the city centre to smaller ones inside the city, taking delivery trucks off congested roads.
Certainly in metro Vancouver, the concept of freight trams could find many good uses, from deliveries along Broadway to a fast “parcels” service from Chilliwack to Vancouver.
The ability for LRT to adapt to new situations, sadly, goes completely unrecognized by TransLink, regional politicians and the provincial government.
Thinking out of the box is just not comprehended by TransLink.
A French project to develop a concept for freight operations on light rail networks reached a milestone on the morning of June 13, when a tram was used to deliver merchandise to a retailer in St Etienne.
The trial delivery to the Casino store in Place Carnot was organized as part of the TramFret project, an initiative led by research and development institute Efficacity, which is being supported by St Etienne public transport operator Stas.
Special authorization was granted for the trial by STRMTG, the national agency responsible for tramway safety.
TramFret says the trial will enable it to optimize the system, begin industrial development of the concept, and study its sustainability.
If the first phase of the trial is successful further testing will be carried out in St Etienne in the coming weeks.
TransLinkai??i??s 2015 interim CEO Doug Allen (Mackin)
Portland’s Sellwood-Moreland neighborhood (Wikipedia)By Scott Beyer Ai??|Ai?? Columnist
By Matt Lee News Anchor/Reporter Ai??CKNW
Subways & metros cost a lot of money to build and operate.
route were to be expanded.
power collection shoes. Several tram varieties on the market today have dual pantograph/shoe for power pick up on APS ground level contact-less power supply.
By Simon Little Digital Reporter Ai??CKNW
A TramTrain being tested in Sheffield, UK.
TramFret
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