The question Edmonton transit planners are being asked; “Does transit need to be user friendly or auto friendly ?” In Edmonton to be auto friendly means adding at least $220 million to the cost of the project.
What this article illustrates is the cost difference between LRT and a light-metro and I think that the planners are under valuing the cost of building an elevated light-metro.
A fully elevated LRT light-metro would cost at least double of that of an at-grade/on-street LRT. A fully elevated line would also ill serve low-floor cars and a one minute shorter journey time is hardly worth $220 million.
There are hidden costs with elevated construction, including extra maintenance costs toAi?? and fewer stations, thus making an elevated light-metro less user-friendly and user friendliness is the top reason why transit customers take transit.
Is $220 million for a minute faster trip a worth while expense?
For Edmonton, it is the $220 million question.
Edmonton is weaning itself from German style S-Bahn to classic Style of European LRT, complete with low-floor trams
The Valley Line LRT could be elevated from the 83rd Street and 82nd Avenue intersection to 85th Street and 90th Avenue through the Bonnie Doon area. (City of Edmonton)
Plans for a neighbourhood-friendly commuter train running at street level through Bonnie Doon could be at risk if Edmonton city councillors entertain a new proposal to change the Valley Line LRT design.
A report released Thursday presents the option of elevating the track alongAi??83rdAi??Street, east of BonnieAi??DoonAi??mall,Ai??from north ofAi??90thAi??Avenue to south ofAi??WhyteAi??Ai??Avenue at a potential cost of $125 million toAi??$220Ai??million.
Neighbouring communities that would be affected the most by an elevated train include Idylwylde, Holyrood and Strathearn.
The current plan is to build a 27-kilometre low-floor tram-style train running at street level from Mill Woods in the southeast to Lewis Farms inAi??the west.
Dave Sutherland with the Holyrood Community League, pictured on a train in London, England, says a metro-style LRT would be a visual and psychological barrier. (Supplied)
“One of the goals is to have it integrated with the neighbourhoods where you can just walk up to the station and catch the train,” Dave Sutherland, civics director with the Holyrood community league, said Friday.
“Elevating it changes that perception to a metro system where it’s fairly disconnected from the community,” Sutherland argues.
A raised track would look similar to Vancouver’s SkyTrain and create a visual and psychological barrier, Sutherland said.
“It wouldn’t feel like it’s a neighbourhood streetcar anymore, it would feel like you’re getting on to a major metro system.”
The raised track would speed up LRT trips by about one minute and shorten wait times for vehicles at intersections, according to the report.
“The wait times they’re looking at would only vary by 20 seconds or 30 seconds,” Coun. Ben Henderson said.
‘What they’re proposing right nowAi??seems like overkill to me.’ – Coun. Ben Henderson“For that we would be spending up to $220 million.”
Henderson recognizes the ongoing headache of heavy congestion at intersections such as Whyte AvenueAi??and 83rd Street.
“I don’t think we can make that go away by raising the LRT,” he suggested. “I think that’s in the nature of the amount of traffic that tries to goAi??through there at rush hour.”
A big reason to build the LRT, he pointed out, is to give people an easier way to get around the city and reduce the number of vehicles on Edmonton streets.
He suggested only a portion of the track should be raised around the heaviest intersection at Whyte Avenue, not for seven or eight blocks.
“What they’re proposing right now seems like overkill to me.”
Learn from past mistakes, avoid delays
It’s safe to say nobody wants delays and technical problems similar to those that beset the Metro Line, which opened two years after theAi??initial deadline.
Henderson said he wants the city to get the Valley LineAi??right.
“I suspect they’re being extra cautious after the Metro Line decision was made, which was made without good information,” Henderson said of the recent report.
Building the $1.8-billion southeast portion of the Valley Line between Mill Woods and downtown is expected to take another two years.
Adding an elevated track would drag out construction for at least another six months,Ai??Sutherland pointed out.
“Plus it would be much more intensive construction, with building piers and overhead stations and things like that,” he said.
The option to raise the track alongsideAi??Bonnie DoonAi??mall is not in the original budget for the project.
The company building the line, TransEd, said if the city decides to go ahead with the grade separation at Bonnie Doon, the company could finance it and increase monthly payments on the 30-year period.
City councillorsAi??are scheduled toAi??discuss the report at a committee meeting Tuesday.
The Mayors Council on Transit is doing the same thing here, the huge costs of the poorly designed Surrey LRT and the insane and politically prestigious Broadway subway, which will burden the taxpayer with huge tax increases.
The only difference is that the Toronto Star newspaper is actually doing good reporting on the transit issue, unlike our mainstream media which has never offered an honest story on transit and the transportation scene for almost fourty years!
Sadly, our local media would rather support SkyTrain light metro to curry political favour than report the truth.
The taxpayer has been misinformed on transit and ill served by the mainstream media, where a little honesty in reporting transit issues is sorely wanting.
Questions for Postmedia, the Black Press, Glacier, CORUS, CBC, GLOBAL, etc.:
“Why has only seven of the proprietary and often renamedAi?? transit systems have been built in fourty years?
Why has ALRT/ART have been rebranded (ICTS, ALRT, ALM, ART)Ai?? four times in fourty years?
Why has, what the region calls SkyTrain, never been allowed to compete against LRT?
Why has no other transit authority copied Metro Vancouver’s exclusive use of light-metro?
Why has there been no serious public consultation on building with light-metro?
Is everyone in the mainstream media afraid to ask tough questions?
The very government closest to the people has proven to be the one most corrupted by the politics of transit planning. The Scarborough subway is the latest example.
Transit decisions of all kinds, including this weekai??i??s city council vote to push ahead with the Bloor-Danforth line extension to the Scarborough Town Centre, provide further evidence that you canai??i??t fight city hall.
The very government closest to the people and most susceptible to pressure from the masses has proven to be the one most corrupted by the politics of transit planning.
The political apparatus, once ramped up and placed in the hands of a mayor, becomes a marauding force capable of delivering the vilest conclusions in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Instead of going where the evidence takes him or her, our mayors declare a position on the campaign trail, get elected, claim the mandate of the electorate, marshal the cityai??i??s compliant bureaucrats, commission studies that support the prevailing position, ignore evidence to the contrary, trumpet every smidgen of supporting document and bury conflicting findings, repeat the campaign dogma ad nauseam until the very falsities become ingrained as fake truths ai??i?? and before long the very citizens believe the lies and clamor for the very solution that is destined to destroy the very enjoyment of their city.
Such is the case of transit planning in Toronto. Itai??i??s been trending this way for decades. It is particularly galling now, in 2017, because the region is on the cusp of a grand transit expansion and massive expenditure. And we are deliberately making critical and costly ai???mistakesai??? that will bedevil commuters for generations.
In a sense, we get what we deserve. But itai??i??s almost as if we are all stuck in this vortex, unable to disentangle, destined to self-destruction. Civic suicide.
Deliverance normally rests with politicians. Or civil society, including opinion leaders and the media ai??i?? dismissed by demagogues as the elite. Or the masses. Or a combination, in desperate times. It will be a while before we fully realize how our guardians spectacularly failed the city region in this critical era of transit building. The extent of the damage depends on how much Torontonians care to learn about their real needs and insist on getting transit right.
The base principles that should guide transit planning are readily available.
Good transit provides a network of options that moves masses of commuters effectively where they need to go. Most jurisdictions canai??i??t afford a subway to everywhere so the wise course is to provide movement along the essential corridors where citizens connect.
In a tight economy, decision makers do cost-benefit analyses and deliver the best bang for the buck.
And they use universal, tried-and-tested measurements to evaluate options, striving to remove partisan and parochial and political influence from polluting the outcome.
Unfortunately, most of our transit debates start and end with technology. Streetcars and bus bad, subways good. This prevailing view forgets a key element of successful transit systems: they provide the appropriate transit mode for the appropriate needs, always looking to future demands and growth. So, for example, at some point in the future, Highway 7 will have a rapid transit system running there ai??i?? either a subway, or the subway equivalent of the year 2095. But, for now, a BRT is the appropriate choice.
To patiently wait for the evolution from bus to rail requires much civic maturity. This is especially difficult, given our history of largesse, political back-scratching, immoral decision-making and brutal choices that force the aggrieved to say, ai???If they can get a subway, what about us. What are we chopped liver?ai???
Sheppard jumped the queue. The line is nowhere near capacity and the promised jobs and densities far from realized.
The University-Spadina extension to Vaughan corporate centre was greased by political patronage and private deal-making, admitted former Ontario deputy premier Greg Sorbara in his memoirs.
Next, watch for this: Richmond Hill and York Region will find a political white knight to propel the Yonge subway extension north of Steeles, ahead of essential fixes downstream that are to alleviate overcrowding on Line 1.
So, what to do?
The agencies (Metrolinx and TTC) and their boards, hired to provide uncontaminated reports, too often succumb to political pressure. And media is too often distracted and prone to reflect public impatience to the point of adopting the attitude of ai???just build something.ai???
Is there a better system? Are there democratic jurisdictions that have managed to plan transit according to real needs, not political exigencies? We need to learn from these.
Driverless trams are coming much sooner than one thinks.
A recent article in Tramways & Urban Transit, illustrates the strides taken with automatic operation of trams and light rail.
For several years tram manufactures have been experimenting with forward, side and rear scanning radar to prevent accidents, in fact most of the modern safety features on today’s automobiles have come from these experiments.
Trams, which are guided by rails would be much safer than an autonomous bus because if something goes wrong with a tram, it stays on its tracks, not so with a bus which can skew and cause an accident.
What may beAi?? of local interest, the autonomous tram will be cheaper to operate than the driverless SkyTrain!
A project sponsored by Alstom to designed a future autonomous tram for Stockholm City, 2025 saw three designers- Vanessa Sattele, Patrik Pettersson & Fredrik Nilsson came up with this double decker tram that designed in a Scandinavian way, being clean, simple and bright at the same time as it is timeless, open and user friendly.
The new double-decker the tram carries about 170 passengers, but on a smaller footprint than standard trams, hence it creates less of a blockade in traffic. It also gives an opportunity to have less seats on the street level floor, creating a more spacious and accessible area for wheelchairs, prams or lots of luggage. Having doors on the second floor opens up new possibilities, not only to speed up the flow of exiting and entering the tram, but also offers instant access to big shopping centers directly from the second floor.
Writer says SkyTrain is obsolete. Ai??Ai??Photograph By file
Editor:
Re: Qualtrough on board with Delta’s call for light rail, March 29
It always amuses me when politicians talk about transit when they know absolutely nothing on the subject. Both Delta MP Carla Qualtrough and Mayor Lois Jackson know almost nothing about transit, except for the politically acceptable catch phrases.
Here is a quick primer: Light rail is a steel wheel on steel rail transit system that has the ability to operate in mixed traffic (streetcar) if need be.
Rapid transit, the Canada Line and the Expo/Millennium lines are not light rail at all, rather they are part of the “heavy” rail family called lightmetro. Both of Metro Vancouver’s lightmetro lines are driverless, thus unable to operate in mixed traffic.
LRT made light metro obsolete in the late 1980s because it is cheaper to build, maintain and operate and has the added benefit of higher capacity.
The Canada Line is really a heavy-rail metro, built as a light metro, and because costs were escalating, the scope of the project was greatly reduced. The Canada Line was built on the cheap and as a result, its truncated stations have platforms only 40 metres long, half the length of the SkyTrain stations.
This means the Canada Line has about half the capacity of the SkyTrain lines and why the Canada Line seems full.
The cost today to increase the capacity of the Canada Line is about $1.5 billion and must be done before any expansion takes place.
The proposed bridge replacing the perfectly good George Massey Tunnel is not being designed for rapid transit at all, for if it were, it must be able to accommodate 300-ton trains and unless tracks are laid, when constructed, rapid transit will never cross the bridge.
Qualtrough and Jackson are the epitome of the problem with regional transit: they know little or nothing about it and instead of admitting to this, they oversee the spending of billions of taxpayers’ dollars on grossly overpriced vanity projects.
TramTrain operation is expanding at a good pace in Europe, where the economy and customer friendliness of the mode is now established.
Is it not time our politicians, planners and especially BC Transit and TransLink have a look at the mode?
I find it disturbing that TransLink is so ready to foist an European road pricing scheme on the lower mainland, but rejects any look and a very successful and affordable European transit mode, such as TramTrain, to improve regional transit.
It seems TransLink is only interested in new taxing scheme to fund their program of grossly incompetent and negligent transit planning.
UK: Non-passenger-carrying tests of the Class 399 tram-train vehicles have started on the Supertram network in Sheffield. Driver training is due to begin shortly, with passenger services on the existing tram network now expected to begin in mid-2017. Testing on the national rail network is currently expected to start next year, with tram-train services between Sheffield and Rotherham now planned for 2018.
Stadler Rail Valencia has delivered seven Citylink tram-trains since late 2015, under a contract awarded in 2013. The eventual service pattern would see three services per hour run from Parkgate Retail Park in Rotherham to Rotherham Central station, before joining the existing Supertram network via a new connection at Meadowhall South and then running to Sheffield city centre.
The tram-train pilot is being led by South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive in partnership with the Department for Transport, Network Rail, tram operator Stagecoach Supertram and franchised train operator Arriva Rail North. As well as new rolling stock, it includes infrastructure work to enable the proposed service.
The notion that a subway is best way to solve congestion, emanates from the USA where it is considered the biggest is the best. The more expensive a transit project is, the better it is.
This is simply childish.
Subways are built on transit routes which have the ridership that demands long trains, traveling at close headway’s which in turn demand grade separation and subways are aesthetically more pleasing than elevated construction, even though they may cost three or four times more to build.
Subways are also extremely expensive to operate as each station must have elevators and escalators, lighting, ventilation, fire suppression equipment, etc.
What is missing is the key ingredient of providing good transit and that is user-friendliness, which subways just do not provide, thus they are poor in attracting new ridership.
Then there are ongoingAi?? maintenance issues which subways tend to become money-pits always sucking money from the rest of the transit operation.
The Broadway subway neither has the ridership nor the capacity to sustain itself and will be a financial black hole further driving up TransLinks costs.
The Broadway subway is only being built for one reason and one reason only: To ensure profits for Liberal/Vision Vancouver’s political friends, the Condo Kings and land speculators who will make windfall profits on assembled lands where subways stations are planned, all at the expense of taxpayers.
Cut and cover subway construction, a la Cambie St., coming to Broadway very soon.
A subway is not the way to prosperity for Scarborough or Toronto: James
There are much better projects council could spend taxpayersai??i?? money on. But our city politicians have put us on a path to transit bankruptcy.
There are so many misconceptions and alternate facts circulating around how pampered, or not, Toronto taxpayers have become that the subject begs another column or two.
But there is also this.
Nobody is helped ai??i?? and all taxpayers are angered and harmed ai??i?? when valuable and tight tax dollars are spent on projects that have no chance of fulfilling the stated goal.
Such is the case of the extension of the Bloor-Danforth subway up to the Scarborough Town Centre.
The project would add one new station. An aggrieved constituency of Scarborough residents who feel they get no respect will be temporarily satiated. The corridor now served by an aging RT will get the highest order of transit, even if that is an overbuild. Politicians who have peddled trumped-up claims of benefits that will never be realized in our lifetime will get re-elected.
But will the subway deliver transit benefits to Scarborough residents in keeping with its bulging price tag? No. Will it deliver what transit projects in this city are supposed to deliver? No.
The transit corridor where the Scarborough RT, above, now runs is set to get a subway.Ai??Ai??(Marcus Oleniuk / Toronto Star) | Order this photoAi??Ai??
Will it enhance the growth and viability of downtown Toronto? No. Does it improve access to work and school for the largest number of Scarborough residents? No.
And does it deliver growth and development in the corridor as promised? History says no ai??i?? though developers will make lots of money while the residents who purchase the condos have only slightly improved access to the jobs because the jobs are spread out across the region and not where the subway runs.
Are there better transit modes and better routes and better ways to spend the $2 billion, that has risen to $3.35 billion, with alerts from the same estimators that it could jump to $5.2 billion, and a near certainty it will hit $6 billion?
Yes, yes, yes.
None of that will matter next week and next month and whenever city council debates this project. This is a runaway train that cannot be stopped. And it is a sorry tale of how dangerous and useless transit planning is in our city and the GTA.
I think I am right in there with the subway lovers. And Iai??i??ve written in this space that if the city wanted $500, $1,000 from me and all its citizens to set in motion a plan to blanket the region with subways, Iai??i??d sign up.
Iai??i??d start with linking the Yonge and University lines along Sheppard. I know that area and see how stupid it is not to be able to link both ends of the city. Iai??i??d take Sheppard Subway out east to link with the above Bloor-Danforth extension at Markham Rd. or McCowan. Then Iai??i??d extend the Yonge line to Newmarket, for crying out loud. And take the Bloor-Danforth line west out to the airport. And then Iai??i??d do the downtown relief line.
Thatai??i??s the view of a regular guy who travels every now and then and gets subway envy from looking at transit maps in Paris and London and Barcelona and Washington.
But that view is so wrong. And so whack. And so uninformed. And so, so, so Toronto. It will bankrupt us, without achieving the goal of transit expansion: give commuters a better option to the car; make transit more competitive with driving; deliver new riders to transit and, by so doing, free up congested road space.
Everything else is hubris and political palaver and a colossal waste of money ai??i?? which is where we are as a city region.
The transportation experts who have been studying our travel patterns for decades ai??i?? and are not encumbered by the re-election agenda of their political masters ai??i?? say this: Torontoai??i??s subway system ai??i?? and GO rail network ai??i?? exists to deliver commuters to the downtown core where the majority of our jobs reside. In fulfilling this role, the system is a huge success. But the projects being promoted now do not address congestions and deliver new riders and support economic growth.
Much of the improvements in the suburbs should come from express buses, bus rapid transit and light rail on their own corridors.
To say this is to be branded a suburban hater, or worse. It is to go against the tide which says if the wilds of Jane and Highway 7 deserves a subway, then Scarborough Town Centre certainly deserves one. Maybe neither does. Maybe neither delivers the benefits we imagine.
Consider that 60 per cent of Scarborough residents who get around by transit are not heading downtown where the subway goes. Where is the transit for them?
Three of every four Scarborough residents heading downtown are already on transit, leaving limited growth potential for those going where the subway goes, downtown. In fact, the transit percentage use, or modal split, is higher than for East York or Etobicoke commuters heading downtown.
Yet the narrative propagated by our city politicians and believed ardently by citizens is the way to prosperity and self-worth is via the highest order transit, even if it costs $1.45 million and counting for every potential new rider ai??i?? a performance thatai??i??s sure to bankrupt the system.
At first, I thought it was an April fools joke, but no, it’s not, rather it is a reporting farce.
A chap who is a mining shill, with no expertise in public transport is calling for a subway to be built to UBC.
All he is trying to do is secure $5 billion worth of work for his engineering buddies and that is all what a $5 billion SkyTrain subway under Broadway will do!
Subways not only cost a lot of money to build, they cost a lot of money to operate and maintain and unless there is sufficient demand for a subway, at least with traffic flows in excess of 15,000 pphpd, those maintenance and operational cost will come back to haunt the taxpayer.
Obviously the so called expert, when he cited the Canada line being “overwhelmed” by customers, was not expert enough to know that the Canada Line’s design, because of the massive costs of subway construction, was truncated to the point it only has 40 metre long station platforms and can only operate two car trains and has effectively one half the capacity of the Expo and Millennium/Evergreen Lines, which station shave 80 metre long station platforms.
The Canada Line could barely handle the bus customers who are forced to transfer to the mini-metro, when it opened.
As for the CBC, such BS reporting, an utter disgrace.
Critics calling for a subway line extension to theAi??University of British Columbia’s Vancouver campus say a recent infusion of government cash for transit in B.C. ignores an overall lack of vision resulting from a dearth of planning.
“No subway was ever justified on the here and now,” said Mauro Chiesa, a transit development expert who has organized the financing of tunnel projects world-wide.
He says that even with the B.C. LiberalsAi??promisingAi??to match Ottawa’s $2.2 billion for projects such as the SkyTrain link along the Broadway corridor, TransLinkAi??still remains “woefully underfunded.”
“It’s a 30 to 50 year game,” said Chiesa, sayingAi??trains and tunnels sometimes need to be builtAi??ai??i??Ai??even if they’re underusedAi??at first.
30-100 year plans
A 10-year plan like TransLink’s is not enough, he said, adding that Paris plans 100 years ahead for its transit.
Many cities turn to private financing before appealing for public funding, and the arrangements are often made well in advance.
But not in B.C.
Transit projects here tend to arrive at the the station just in time, and are quickly overloaded by users.
That’s what happened on the Canada Line as it became overwhelmed at key points by the influx of Evergreen Line passengers after it opened late last year.
Zwei always is amused when photo-op divas talk transit, especially LRT and like most politicians, they now nothing what they are talking about.
The Canada Line is not LRT; rapid transit is not LRT and SkyTrain is not LRT.
What the politicos are doing is mouthing “Trump” style talking points and sound bytes to look favourably in the media and that is all.
Memo to Qualtrough and Jackson: The Canada Line and the ALRT/ART transit systems are not light rail, far from it, they are a form of “heavy” rail transit called light metro, made obsolete by LRT. The Canada Line was also built on the cheap, with 40 metre long station platforms and only able to operate two car trains. The Canada Line needs about $1.5 billion to increase its capacity to match that of the Expo and Millennium/Evergreen Lines before any thought of expansion can occur.
There is no money for this now or in the foreseeable future.
Is the proposed bridge being designed to accommodate 600 ton trains? Unless rails are laid during construction, the answer is no.
One just doesn’t add rails to the bridge at a later date.
When Diva’s talk transit, it is strictly for photo-ops and nothing more and by the way, there is no such thing called light rapid transit and only the most ignorant use that catch phrase.
The Canada Line has about one half the capacity of the Expo and the Millennium/Evergreen Lines.
Qualtrough on board with Delta’s call for light rail
Delta has an ally when it comes to promoting light rail.
That was a guarantee made by Delta Liberal MP Carla Qualtrough during her presentation to Delta council Monday afternoon as she highlighted a series of federal funding announcements and other initiatives that have benefited the riding since her party formed government.
“You have an ally in me, so I’m certainly happy to be a champion on that as well,” said Qualtrough.
Mayor Lois Jackson brought up the subject during discussion on the bridge to replace the George Massey Tunnel.
“I’m hoping it will happen one day. There’s talk of extending the lines to where the people are in Delta, in Tsawwassen, ferry terminal, White Rock was mentioned and, of course, Langley and out in the valley,” said Qualtrough. “It may be that during this next couple of years, while there’s still infrastructure money, it’s really something for us to look at in terms of light rail over the new bridge.
“I think we can get an awful lot of people out of their cars if they want to go to downtown or into Richmond, or side step to Burnaby,” she suggested.
The 10-lane bridge is to be built to accommodate rapid transit, although the province has not committed to any timeline for rapid transit coming to Delta, South Surrey and White Rock.
Qualtrough agreed having rapid transit extend to Delta and the valley one day should be a priority.
Later on Monday, during council’s evening session, Jackson reiterated her dream to see the Canada Line cross the river during her annual state of the municipality address.
“Maybe, one day,” she said.
When the budget was announced last week, Qualtrough said that while the bridge is not in the government’s infrastructure plans, the project could get assistance through Infrastructure Canada and Innovation with a new infrastructure bank, something she reiterated during her presentation this week.
Qualtrough also went over a few of the other infrastructure investments her government has made in Delta, including the Highway 91 and 72nd Avenue interchange, corridor improvements for highways 91 and 17 as well as a rush hour lane for the Alex Fraser Bridge.
– See more at: http://www.delta-optimist.com/news/qualtrough-on-board-with-delta-s-call-for-light-rail-1.13289227#sthash.JGTxYbXf.dpuf
New highways always bring the so called experts into the fray. The problem is; we don’t have any, rather the region has a hodge podge of academics, planners and engineers calling themselves experts and the result is what is happening now.
The real problem is this; the population is growing at a huge pace in the Fraser Valley and the roads are fifty years behind the times.
As the population increases more stress is placed on the Number 1 highway and it must be expanded to cater to the transportation needs.
Adding a third lane makes the highway, ‘European standard’.
As the government has rejected any sort of rail transit, including Rail for the Valley’s Leewood Study, thus expanding the highway is the only option.
The so-called expert mentioned in the following news item, has probably had more to exacerbate traffic congestion in the region, with his myopic views on regional transportation.
You can’t blacktop your way out of congestion, but you must have an affordable transit alternative in place to help solve the congestion issue.
The Rail for the Valley TramTrain will not solve congestion, but it could help alleviate congestion by providing a rail alternative. Unfortunately our so called transit experts seem to be more interested in extremely expensive prestige projects, like the proposed $3 billion Broadway SkyTrain subway and land development, than trying to formulateAi?? a practical transportation plan for the Fraser Valley.
Highway upgrade in Langley only moves the problem down the road: transportation expert
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) ai??i?? The plan to widen Highway 1 through Langley, unveiled yesterday by the province, may come as welcome news to drivers but not everyone is thrilled.
Gordon Price is the director of The City Program at Simon Fraser University and says the $225.5-million-dollar project only moves the traffic congestion down the road.
ai???Thereai??i??s a case where the metaphor and reality do overlap. If all you do is build roads and move the problem down the road, youai??i??re just going to create another congestion problem,ai??? says Price, adding the province sees it as fulfilling its mandate.
ai???You canai??i??t go wrong in BC politics by cutting a ribbon on a new or widened road, a big new bridge. We love that stuff and in a frontier province that kind of makes sense.ai???
ai???One doesnai??i??t have to be facetious about this. This is growth and this is change, and itai??i??s certainly associated with economic development. From the point of view of a lot of people, certainly in the Ministry of Transportation and Highways, thatai??i??s their job, they really do in fact see the future as solving one congestion problem after another even if itai??i??s their own creation. It keeps them in business, thatai??i??s what itai??i??s all about.ai???
The problem he says is that spending exclusively on road projects is only a temporary solution.
ai???We have enough experience to know that if thatai??i??s all you do, if you donai??i??t provide people with options, youai??i??re just going to create the transportation difficulty, the congestion, faster than you planned for,ai??? says Price.
He says any road expansion should be balanced by putting money into biking and walking infrastructure in addition to transit.
But he says thatai??i??s not as politically sexy as cutting the ribbon on a new bridge.
ai???You never get the sense from the Liberals that they are going to be the party of ai???yesai??i?? when it comes to transit in the city,ai??? says Price.
ai???You can really see the discrepancy now. Here we are still debating yet again over funding for transit and then just almost incidentally here comes an announcement that ai???ya weai??i??re prepared to spend a quarter-billion bucks to widen yes legitimately an important part of the transportation system.ai???
Ottawa is picking up half the cost of the Highway 1 project while BCai??i??s deputy premier Rich Coleman hopes to eventually expand the widening project to Whatcom Road in Abbotsford.
The appalling reporting on transit by the local media continues, all what is reported is sparkle ponies and fairy dust.
Here are the financial problems that TransLink faces:
Estimated cost of the Broadway subway – $3 billion+
Estimated cost to refurbish the Expo and Millennium Lines to allow higher capacity – $2 billion to $3 billion.
Ai??Estimated cost of Surrey’s LRT $2.5 billion (if SkyTrain used $4 billion to $6 billion)
Patullo bridge rebuild $1 billion+
Increased bus serviceAi?? – unknown.
Ai??Operating costs, including hidden and open subsidies – unknown. Current rapid transit subsidy in excess of $300 million annually (The Canada Line alone is $110 million).
Ai??Federal government subsidy – $220 million over 10 years ($2.2 billion)
I’m sorry, but I just do not see how the federal money will help pay for the subway.
Ai??Will TransLink’s quest for subways & light metro bankrupt TransLink and impoverish the taxpayer?
The federal government announced in its budget Wednesday that $2.2 billion will be spent on transit in the region, including partial funding for the construction of a subway along the congested Broadway corridor. Photo Dan Toulgoet
Mayor Gregor Robertson is calling the federal governmentai??i??s promise to provide $2.2 billion for transit investment in the region ai???a game changerai??? and a big step to getting a subway built along the Broadway corridor.
The mayorai??i??s comment came after the federal government revealed its 2017-2018 budget Wednesday and committed to spend $20.1 billion over 11 years on transit across the country. The spending hinges on bilateral agreements with provinces and territories. The regionai??i??s share is $2.2 billion, which builds on $370 million committed to local transit projects in 2016.
ai???Todayai??i??s historic federal investment in transit and transportation is a game changer for our region and the largest in Metro Vancouver in 20 years,ai??? said Robertson, the chairperson of the mayorsai??i?? council on regional transportation, in a statement Wednesday.
Robertson acknowledged mayors still had work to do to secure all the funding to get the subway and a light-rapid transit line built in Surrey. That work includes convincing the provincial government to match the federal governmentai??i??s $2.2 billion contribution to fund the projects, which combined will cost more than $4 billion. The $2.2 billion would also be used for other major upgrades to the region’s transit system.
If the province doesnai??i??t match the funding amount, the mayors will be forced to find ways to raise up to 27 per cent of the cost. Funding sources havenai??i??t been determined, but it could mean a hike in property taxes, road pricing, tolls or a combination.
The federal governmentai??i??s budget did not provide any details about funding the replacement of the Pattullo Bridge, which links New Westminster and Surrey. The replacement is estimated to cost $1 billion.
The mayorsai??i?? council issued a news release Wednesday saying the funding could come through the federal Infrastructure Bank or Trade Transportation Corridor Initiative. The provincial government has committed to provide one-third of the cost.
ai???The mayorsai??i?? council and TransLink are reviewing new details about these programs and will work immediately with the federal and provincial governments to finalize their investments in this project,ai??? the councilai??i??s release said.
Robertson said he was also encouraged by the Trudeau governmentai??i??s commitment to spend $11.2 billion over the next 11 years on housing across the country and maintain operating agreements for co-op housing complexes. The government said the money will be spent ai???on a range of initiatives designed to build, renew and repair Canadaai??i??s stock of affordable housing and help to ensure that Canadians have adequate and affordable housing that meets their needs.ai???
The Carnegie Community Action Project said in a release that the spending will not be enough to eradicate homelessness in the region, where more than 4,000 people are in need of housing. Vancouver alone counted 1,847 homeless people in March 2016.
ai???If you divide the $11.2 billion over 11 years, it boils down to only $1 billion a year to be spent across the whole country,ai??? the anti-poverty advocacy group said. ai???If the $1 billion were all spent on building new social housing, it would be enough to build about 5,000 social housing units across the country. B.C. alone needs 10,000 units a year.ai???
The Valley Line LRT could be elevated from the 83rd Street and 82nd Avenue intersection to 85th Street and 90th Avenue through the Bonnie Doon area. (City of Edmonton)
Dave Sutherland with the Holyrood Community League, pictured on a train in London, England, says a metro-style LRT would be a visual and psychological barrier. (Supplied)
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