Are You A Transit Expert? 15 Questions.

Here are ten questions to test the knowledge of political candidates about LRT & public transit for this coming provincial election. Passing grade is 70%.
- What is light rail transit?
- What Makes a tram or streetcar Light Rail
- What is a metro?
- What is capacity?
- What grade maximum is now industry standard for light rail?
- What is the maximum grade that LRT/tram climbs (by adhesion) in revenue service today?
- What is the capacity of the Broadway B-Line Express Bus?
- Approximately what percentage of operating costs of a transit system can be attributed to wages?
- Approximately how much ridership is lost per transfer?
- Are automated transit systems cheaper to operate than non automated transit systems?
- What is the maximum capacity of the largest light rail vehicle today, calculated at all seats filled and standing passengers at four persons per square metre?
- How many names has the SkyTrain, as used on the Millennium and Expo Lines, been marketed under?
- Before the first subway was built in Toronto, what was the maximum capacity obtained by using trams on the streetcar system?
- What is the maximum legal Capacity of the SkyTrain system?
- What is considered the maximum capacity obtained by a streetcar or tram route?
Answers:
1) LRT is a transit mode, generally electrically powered, able to operate in mixed traffic, that can economically carry between 2,000 and 20,000 persons per hour per direction. (Light Rail Transit Association)
2) The dedicated or “reserved” rights-of-way, enables a modern tram to have an operation, superior to light metro and almost on par with a heavy rail metro.
3) Metro is a grade separated transit mode, electrically powered, built for average hourly ridership loads in excess of 10,000 pphpd. (Bombardier were compelled to recommend that MALM (SkyTrain) should not be built on routes with average ridership less than 8,000 pphpd. LRT can be operated as a metro, though a metro can’t operate as light rail!
4) Capacity is a function of headway and car capacity.
5) 8%
6) 13.8% (Lisbon, Portugal) – (Correct if one answers 13% or 14%)
7) Based on TransLink’s schedule of peak hour 3 minute headway’s (20 trips per hour per direction) and bus capacity of around 100 persons, the hourly capacity of the Broadway B-line Express bus is around 2,000 per hour per direction.
8 ) 70 to 80%
9) 70% (Hass-Klau Study)
10) No, studies have found that LRT is cheaper to operate, when comparing equal systems on equal right of ways.
11) 350 passengers; the 54 metre long ‘Caterpillar’ modular light rail cars used in Budapest, Hungary. (By comparison, four Mk.1 SkyTrain cars have a capacity of 300 persons!)
12) At least six: Intermediate Capacity Transit system (ICTS); Advanced Light Rail Transit (ALRT); Advanced Light metro (ALM); Advanced Rapid Transit (ART); Innovia Light Metro (ILM) ; Movia Automatic Light Metro (MALM).
13) The old Danforth Boor streetcar route, operating coupled sets of PCC cars obtained a peak hour capacity in excess of 12,500 pphpd.
14) The maximum legal capacity of the Expo Line, according to Transport Canada’s Operating Certificate is 15,000 pphpd, but will be upgraded to 17,500 pphpd after resignalling. The Millennium Line is another story, According to Thales, who won the $1.47 billion resigalling contract; “the Millennium Line will be able to handle 7500 passengers per hour per direction, a 96% increase.“
15) Over 30,000 pphpd on Kaiserstrasse in Karlsruhe Germany. Due to the success of its regional TramTrain network, Kaiserstrasse saw peak hour headways of 40 seconds with coupled sets of trams and TramTrains. So congested was the route it was nicknamed the “gelbe wand” or yellow wall by locals (yellow being the predominate colour of the trams). Soon a new subway will replace the route.
The answer to questions 1 through 15, whatever Zwei says they are. Just a joke, how’s it going?
As we are hving a provincial election, a NDP MLA let slip that provincial studies for rail are too expensive to consider using the #1 highway!?!
using the former BCE route is to long and slow and doesn’t connect towns!?!
lets see now a Marpole to Chilliwack regional railway, using exclusively former inter urban routes, would connect Vancouver (Marpole – 15 minutes to YVR via the Canada Line) to central New Westminster, North Delta, Central Surrey, Cloverdale, Langley, Abbotsford, Vedder, Sardis and Chilliwack. The interurban route would directly connect four post secondary institutions and a the Gloucester Business park.
Yup. the #1 route would be better …. NOT!
https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.2086082,-123.0215472,190147m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m2!6m1!1s1zQhUtq3ef_Y6lCNlGMUkYBGnAKNFPKQ?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI0MDkzMC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
FVX route on the map given. Highway 1 and other infrastructure. Can have a better alignment to existing
Interchanges and where people live Can 120 kmh Non-stop 52 min add 13 stations 1 hour and 10 minutes. Driving takes 1 hour and 20 minutes with no traffic.
Zwei replies: Get real man, you are talking tens of billions of dollars, not going to happen
Hellowzweisystem,
You haven’t commented on the Tyee in so long I was worried something had happened to you. I remember attending some sort of presentation somewhere on the Westside (I live in Dunbar area) 6 or so years ago. Perhaps when Patrick Condon or Kirk LaPointe were running for mayor. You were sitting behind me and when you stood to make a comment I knew it was you by what you said, so I did turn to speak to you. My friend Larry Benge (coalition of Vancouver Neighbourhoods) said you were Malcolm Johnson.
It should be clear that the Skytrain system takes way too long to complete (harms businesses in the path), stops too far apart to be conducive to small businesses in between AND costs way too much. Yet NDP says now they are committed to subway to UBC. Bette Murphy is right, it’s all about forced development. Developers smirking with glee, speculators driving up land costs — it’s all horrible.
I’ve come to ‘hate’ David Eby, he seems so earnest, about to cry over the plight of people who can’t find a place to live, everything he does is for all British Columbians. Seems too sincere to be sincere. And the mandates to municipalities for hell-bent development! Don’t much like Conservatives, but David Eby (and Ken Sim) have to go — they are stifling democracy.
Thanks for still raising concerns, speaking out. Found you because I checked a link on CityWatch.
Alison Bealy.
Zwei replies: I was banned from the Tyee because of my statement that; “the cycle lobby has done more long term damage to urban transit planning, than good” and it seems the cycle lobby has the power and clout to ban people, I rest my case.
The comment was to stir debate more than anything, but I do look at the bike infrastructure in Metro Vancouver and it is clear that cycling really has not increased. Sadly, Vancouver is not Vienna or Amsterdam or other major European cities which do have a lot of cyclists, but those cities do have trams. This is lost by everyone, but because “SkyTrain” is perceived to be a vote winner and “light rail” is thought of as a vote loser, we keep doing the same thing over and over again ever hoping (and ever more expensive) for different results.
As for premier Eby, I share your views and for transit, it is all about development, nothing more and the sad thing is, SkyTrain and the subway will, in the end, sink TransLink financially.
Let’s add some cost information.
(1) Final cost of construction for the Bombardier Kitchener-Waterloo Ion line, including construction overruns: $45,7 million per km.
(2) Contract price for the Broadway tunnel: $600 million per km.
(3) Most recent estimate for the Langley extension: $400 million per km. However, the extension will not go to Langley (16 km). In order to save costs the new proposal is to build an 8 km line.
Thus, Skytrain in a tunnel costs 12-times more to build than Streetcar|LRT on the surface. Skytrain on guideways or viaducts 9-times more costly.
In practical terms, we can build MORE Streetcar|LRT for the SAME cost as Skytrain. How much more?
If built as Streetcar|LRT, the Skytrain network (80 km) would be 362 km long.
That is a whopping 4.5 times more route! Now, modern tram was not yet available in 1980, so the comparison is made to illustrate the difference.
Building transit at levels of service 4.5-times higher for the same cost will slow the housing crisis enough that we may be able to put a bullet through its heart, returning normalcy to our community in perpetuity.
Actually the modern LRV was already available in 1980, Edmonton started the North American Light Rail Revolution in 1978, followed by Calgary and San Diego in 1981. Edmonton’s, Calgary’s and San Diego’s LRV technology was an off the shelf West German system that was available in the early 1970’s. Buffalo using Japanese LRV’s almost beat Edmonton but was held back by State (New York State) politics and politicians and didn’t get their line opened until 1984. Buffalo was followed by Portland in 1985/6 and Sacramento in 1987.
Zwei replies: Actually the Duwag U-2’s where originally known as “Stadtbahn” cars as they were devoted before the term light rail vehicle was termed. Edmonton is considered the world’s first light rail system but was planned after the successful “Stadtbahn” which was a mixture of tram and metro, combining the best of each, while rectifying the negatives of each mode. The U-2’s can trace their ancestry back to 1965, operating on the Franfurt U-Bahn system.
Actually Zwei, I concede to your point about the U2 design, I just didn’t want to get too detailed about the point. You see when the term LRT was applied for the first time by an American engineer in a 1972 report (hence why I said early 1970’s) to the then Mass Traneit Administration monthly meeting, he actually included 4 designs, the U2 by Deuwag was just 1 of 4. My point was to show that yes, there were multiple LRV designs available and not just German ones, but Japanese, Italian and Austrian, by 1980, which was contrary to Lewis’s belief that there weren’t any Light Rail Vehicle designs available. It’s the unfortunately common North American conceit (mostly American actually) that if there is no commonly known American model available that, know other alternative exists.
Zwei replies: Oh, I am on a few American transit blog sites and I can tell you, the great god of transit is the PCC car and trolley poles! If an articulated PCC car was produced for the American market ,makes me wonder if it would have changed the course of systems like in LA New York and Washington DC or even Vancouver?