A Memo For John Horgan
The Honourable John Horgan, Premier of BC
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Dear Premier Horgan,
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The Covid-19 pandemic has made absolutely clear, we cannot go back to normal, as it has forever changed how people behave. Covid-19 is a prelude for great change in BC.
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Last summer’s heat dome and subsequent wild fires shows we cannot go back to normal.
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The recent atmospheric rivers resulting in massive floods and land slides, demonstrates we cannot go back to Normal
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Metro Vancouver’s regional transit system has been greatly affected by the pandemic as thousands of of people stay home, with many either working or studying from home. This has put a massive finical strain on TransLink, which now claims a deficit of at least $75 million a month.
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From the onset of “social distancing” TransLink seemed OK operating empty buses, without any hint of a “plan B” for operation during times of emergency. TransLink is now asking the provincial and federal governments for more money to keep empty buses operating and to keep huge executive salaries being paid.
TransLink and the Mayor’s Council on Transit are still pretending to proceed with their pet $2.83 billion, 5.6 km Broadway subway and their $3.95 billion 16 km extensions to the Expo and Millennium Lines, despite clear evidence that both projects are nothing more than “gold-plated” prestige projects, designed to further the profits of land speculators and land developers who support many of the mayors at election time. Both projects will only improve transit on paper and nothing more.
The proposed Broadway subway is being built on a route without enough ridership to justify its construction and the flip flop from LRT to light-metro in Surrey, will be again be built on a route where the ridership will not justify construction costs. TransLink has not offered an estimate of the increased operating costs or increased annual subsidies for both projects.
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Questionable ridership projections are based on future condo tower development, based on foreign investment and this is not guaranteed! The already huge cost does not include the proprietary Movia Automatic Light Metro (erroneously called SkyTrain) cars, nor the inflationary cost increases for cement and specialty steel, needed for subway and viaduct construction.
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It is no secret that the often renamed and now called Movia Automatic Light Metro (MALM), as used on the Expo and Millennium Lines is obsolete, as it has been obsolete since the late 1980’s, being more expensive to build, maintain and operate than its chief competitor, light rail.
Only seven such systems have been built in the past 40 years and only three are seriously used for urban transit, despite the system being rebranded six times!
Today, modern light-metro systems such as Ottawa and Seattle use light rail vehicles, because of their cost effectiveness and their ability to operate on lesser rights-of-ways, yet because MALM uses Linear Induction Motors, it is impossible to use LRV’s on the proprietary MALM system.
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MALM cannot be built cheaply, nor can it be operated and maintained cheaply. The taxpayer pays a first class cost for a second class system and this cannot continue, post Covid-19.
The recent sale of Bombardier to Alstom puts into question the future availability of MALM cars and spare parts! With Covid-19 and a major economic downturn, production of niche transit systems like the proprietary MALM light metro, maybe discontinued. Alstom has already shown that it has little use for proprietary transit systems by discontinuing production of the TVR guided bus used in several European cities, leaving operators scrambling for spare parts.
Vancouver is now the only customer for MALM, as the systems built in Korea and Malaysia have mired Bombardier and SNC Lavalin (the patent holders of the proprietary railway) in legal misadventure, due in part, to healthy “success fees” paid to lobbyists and politicians, to ensure MALM was to be built!
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The Broadway subway and the Expo Line extension to Langley extensions to the SkyTrain light-metro system are grossly overpriced for what they will do as light ridership on both extensions will greatly increase operating costs. Broadway, current peak hour transit customer flows are under 4,000 persons per hour per direction (pphpd). The North American standard for building a subway is a transit route with customer flows of at least 15,000 pphpd and operational subsidies increase dramatically with smaller customer flows.
Despite deliberate and misleading statements by TransLink and the City of Vancouver, Broadway is not the busiest transit corridor in Canada, as a representative of TransLink stated in a letter, Broadway was “our region’s most over crowded bus route“
TransLink and the Mayor’s Council on Transit have never been honest with the long term costs of the project, which over a fifty year period, will have grave implications for the metro Vancouver and BC taxpayers.
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According to the Toronto Transit Commission, who have a long experience operating subways, the Broadway subway to Arbutus, alone, will add $40 million annually to TransLink’s operating costs.
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The fifty year costs for subways and grade separated transit are staggering, estimated more than $1 billion per km for the subway portion and just under $600 million per km for the elevated sections of the light metro system. Already the original Expo Line desperately needs a minimum $2 billion to rehab (full rehab about $3 billion) the system and increase capacity beyond Transport Canada’s Operating Certificate maximum of 15,000 pphpd.
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TransLink has ignored these costs, for fear of pointed questions about the massive future costs including tax increases.
The following is the 50 year costs of various transit modes, by Ontario’s MetroLinx.
Spending $7 billion for 16 km of light-metro pales, when one could instead invest $1,3 billion on both, the proposed Fraser Valley Rail project reinstating a 130km Vancouver to Chilliwack passenger service and $1.5 billion rehabbing the E&N, reinstating a Victoria to Courtney 183 km passenger service and still have $4 billion left over to invest in regional transit projects in Metro Vancouver.
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Going into three years of the Covid-19 emergency has created long term financial hardships for taxpayers, not just TransLink. Even though there are generous government support, each month of lock down generates more and more fiscal instability for the taxpayer as future tax increases to pay for the emergency are certain.
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The taxpayer will very soon, be in no mood, to fund Vancouver’s and Surrey’s $7 billion gold-plated, prestige transit projects, nor will the taxpayer and the transit user be willing to pay higher fares and other taxes for transit that about 85% of the population will not use.
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As Premier, you must step in and say “enough” as TransLink and the Mayor’s Council on Transit have isolated themselves from public oversight and ignore public debate.
In 2015, 62% percent of the people voted against TransLink’s demands for money, yet they have done nothing but play the taxpayer and voter for fools by offering virtually the same plan with no real public input. TransLink’s public oversight is nothing but a charade; a smokescreen to carry on with their hugely expensive rapid transit agenda.
In the post Covid world TransLink must plan for affordable transit projects; build user friendly transit projects and refrain from doing the same expensive thing over and over again hoping for different results.
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2022 and beyond will be an age of higher taxes, to pay for today’s emergency funding and rebuilding the provinces road infrastructure from the results of atmospheric rivers; more people will work at home, thus fewer people will use public transit; social spacing will see different travel routines, again reducing the need for gold-plated transit options.
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Then the reality of unintended consequences of today’s reality will come into play and those could prove very expensive.
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TransLink needs to rethink its planning; the Mayor’s Council on Transit needs to rethink how transit is provided and funded; and the provincial government must rethink its rubber stamping Metro Vancouver’s questionable transit planning.
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The taxpayer and the transit customer deserve far better than the current sham planning, complete lack of oversight and failure to correct the current mess maybe felt at the polls in the next election three years hence.
After 23 years the taxpayer is still held hostage to expensive and myopic light-metro planning.
The SkyTrain roller coaster ride is continuing.
Malcolm Johnston
It is too late to stop the Broadway Subway. However it is not too late to stop the Langley Line, please concentrate on that.
Zwei replies: The Expo Line extension to Langley is underfunded by over $1 billion. The Broadway subway is funded to $2.83 billion, yet may go much over budget, $3 billion+. Thus to fund the subway to Arbutus means bus services will be cannibalized to fund it.
I was recently reminded of the main point of what you are really talking about here, There is a very high Opportunity Cost to the Skytrain. Look, any rail based rapid transit system will be expensive compared to a bus running in mixed traffic, not only to build but also operate. However, the relative high cost of the Skytrain technology vs. any LRT based rapid transit system, surface LRT or grade separated LRT, is the real issue here.
Zwei, has said may times that, Skytrain is an overly expensive way of operating a train from point A to point B and I agree. 3 decades ago when I graduated from planning school, a professor of mine pointed out that the Linear Induction Motors (LIM) on both the Scarborough RT (an earlier version of the Mk1 Skytrain that uses operators and automatic train control) and Vancouver’s Skytrain require not only specialized, non standard railway maintenance equipment used only with this type of rail vehicle. It also requires extra track infrastructure just to move, a 4th rail or induction rail is needed. This 4th rail must be a specific distance from the electromagnets in the train or else, nothing happens. A little, only a little, snow or ice build up on the induction rail and the Scarborough RT stops dead. The same is true for the Skytrain.
Over the next 30 years, standard electric motors for trains have become so efficient, long lasting and relatively cheap that any advantage LIM might have had disappeared years ago. Working for Bombardier, illuminated the point, when potential customers were offered LIM propulsion over standard electric motors (Bombardier offered LIM propulsion options on many rail vehicle models not just the Skytrain), the extra complexity of a 4th rail with its built in extra costs always produced the same answer, “no thanks, we will stay with the cheaper standard electric motors”. Customers also didn’t like that many specialty add on track devices that customers wanted couldn’t be added because the position of the induction rail, mounted on the centreline between the two running rails made it impossible to use many of them. This simple fact of where the LIM propulsion units were forced to be mounted on the trucks (bogies) made maintenance more expensive and time consuming.
Lastly, I go back to my point, the high capital cost of the Skytrain and the high Opportunity Cost associated with it. York Region Transit (York Region is the upper tier municipal or regional government just north of the city of Toronto) and its 1.2 million residents decided, due to their very low early transit ridership that bus rapid transit (BRT) was the way to go instead of LRT to help improve transit and passenger numbers. Their VIVA BRT Rapidways (Busways) are built on the surface of major arterial roads mainly in the centre or median lanes. Something that could have been easily done on Broadway or many Vancouver Area main streets. These BRT facilities are easily convertible to LRT when needed.
This is what they look like: https://www.vivanext.com/images/Corp/FAQ_2013_08_26_Hwy7Rapidway.jpg
For roughly $1.7 Billion York Region was able to build 35 km of BRT Rapidways, this includes the buses and the bus garages. This first phase was fully completed in early 2021. Construction started in late 2009, early 2010. According to their latest plan, in their next phase, York Region plans on spending $5.4 Billion for 75 km of Rapidways. That means, for $2.83 Billion, the price of the first stage of the 5.7 km Broadway Millennium Line Extension (just the tunnel and stations the cost doesn’t include the trains and rail yards), you could build 39.3 km of VIVA Rapidways in Vancouver (including the buses and the bus garages).
Now, 1 km of Skytrain tunnel moves a lot more than 1 km of basic VIVA Rapidway (busway) however, 39.3 km of busway doesn’t have to be just on Broadway but multiple streets all leading to UBC. Producing a massive network effect that a single rail line just can’t do. Add in the cost of somewhere between $4.1 to $5 Billion for the next Skytrain Broadway extension from Arbutus to UBC and for somewhere between $6.9 to $7.8 Billion you get 12.9 km of Skytrain or 95.8 to 108.3 km of like VIVA Rapidways (Busways). That is the high opportunity cost of Skytrain.
VIVA Next Map and Information
https://www.vivanext.com/images/Corp/PhaseThree_Projects_Portrait_Format_2021-11-08.jpg
A note on the Movia automatic Light metro Linear Induction Motors or LIM’s.
The late Des Turner had a long correspondence with Professor Laithwaite (UK) who did much work on LIM’s. Laitwaite who one a gold medal for his work on LIM’s stated categorically, that the attractive LIM’s used on the Expo Line;”were the wrong sort of LIMs.” Attractive LIM’s needed a critical 1 cm air-gap, between the LIM and reaction rail and the reaction rail had to lowered as the train wheels wore and the rail wore down with use. I was told 20 years ago that it was cheaper to replace rails on curves (excessive wear) than to continually adjust the reaction rail.
If the LIM’s ground with the reaction rail it scores the LIM rendering it damaged and in need of repair. If the air-gap is higher than 1 cm, power consumption increases dramatically.
You write :
“Vancouver is now the only customer for MALM, as the systems built in Korea and Malaysia have mired Bombardier and SNC Lavalin (the patent holders of the proprietary railway) in legal misadventure, due in part, to healthy “success fees” paid to lobbyists and politicians, to ensure MALM was to be built!”
SNC staff involved in corruption in the past have been fired over a decade ago. Your statement is as inappropriate as referencing the internment of 21,000 Japanese Canadians during WW2 would be.
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/japanese-internment-banished-and-beyond-tears-feature
Zwei Replies: In fact you are wrong and the court cases continue.
http://www.railforthevalley.com/latest-news/zweisystem/the-ever-line-skytrain-revisited-the-legacy/
http://www.railforthevalley.com/latest-news/zweisystem/kuala-lumpor-skytrain-revisted-the-legacy-of-coruption-continues/
Thank you for the references but none of them references SNC Lavalin except the Feb 15 edition of the WSJ on the Libyan scandal that happened over 15 years ago. For reference, the husband of the Canadian ambassador was an executive at SNC in Libya. With all due respect, you are referencing events that happened over a decade ago.
Zwei replies: SNC Lavalin hold the engineering patents for the MALM system, then called ART. SNC is involved with the Malaysian criminal case.
Both news stories come from the Globe and Mail.
Why doesn’t Tranlink adjust their schedules to match demand? Less demand for transit should mean less busses and trains operating. Translink could eliminate the deficit just by reducing the number of bus and trains in service. No need to beg for more money. Translink should operated like BC Ferries as an independent government owned organization.
Zwei replies: The reason is politcal as transit routing tend to be a politcal exercise and not a transit exercise.