Back On Track
Cities across Europe are building trams (streetcars) at a rate not seen in nearly a century. Places that had torn up their tram tracks in the 1950s have realized they had made a mistake. Twenty-one French cities have built a tramway system this century. Sixty German cities now have trams.
Further afield, China has built 35 tramlines since 2010, with ten more currently under construction. Even the United States, land of the automobile, has been investing in new trams and light rail. America now has 27 light rail systems, the most in the world, and 15 tram systems.
But Canada is falling behind. Only Toronto has retained their tram (streetcar) system and only Edmonton, Calagary, Ottawa, Kitchener and Hamilton have built light rail systems, though not true tram or streetcar systems. there are too many large Canadian cities and towns that lack reliable transportation and resort to “rubber on asphalt” transit solutions.
In “Back on Track” we look at why we struggle to build much-needed trams and how to fix it.
The following back on track report is for the UK audience but has many lessons for Canada and especially BC. In Metro Vancouver, we are following an extremely dated ‘Light-Metro” and “Hub & Spoke” transportation philosophy. Unfortunately what was thought good in the 1980, has little revelance for today’s transit issues.
Flexibility is the keyword in today’s transit world and the tram is one of the most flexible transit modes on the market. The tram or streetcar can:
- Operate as a tram or streetcar on a city street.
- Can operate as light rail on a dedicated Rights-of-Ways.
- Operate as a light-metro on a grade separated Rights-of-Ways.
- Operate as a Metro, either in a subway, or on viaduct or at grade.
- Operate as a passenger train on the mainline railway.
- And it can do all this on one transit route, without the need of a transfer!
https://www.britainremade.co.uk/backontrack
The first paragraphs of this study contains two ‘zingers”:
Trams have a higher capacity, lower emissions, and better ride quality than either cars or buses. A single lane of a city street could carry 1,500 people per hour in cars, 8,000 people in buses, or up to 22,000 people if it was used as a tramway. With more doors, longer carriages, larger stops, and signal priority, trams can easily move thousands of people along a busy corridor in Britain’s cities. Trams can combine the capacity advantages of trains with the immediacy and lower cost of buses.
First zinger; “A single lane of a city street could carry……….., 8,000 people in buses………..”. Thus, Broadway currently has a peak hour customer flow of around 4,000 pphpd (all bus services), yet the city wanted a subway on a route that could handle up to 8,000 pphpd using buses and when the city got its wish, Vancouver is getting a $4 billion, 5.7 km subway which maximum capacity, according to Thales who is resignalling the route, have a maximum capacity of 7,500 pphpd.
One just cannot make up such utter stupidity and gullibility of building a subway!
The second zinger is that trams can carry up to 22,000 pphpd, which is something to consider when the maximum capacity of the Expo Line, after resignalling, will be 17,500 pphpd.
https://www.britainremade.co.uk/backontrack
I saw this article about the BC NDP party election promise to provide BRT to the North Shore communities. So much for rail of any kind!
https://vancouversun.com/news/bc-election-2024-ndp-promise-500m-to-provide-bus-rapid-transit-to-north-shore
I guess the rail rapid transit plan to provide Skytrain service to those communities is dead for the time being. I can’t remember, was a BRT line to the North Shore part of Translink’s BRT plan?
What’s really interesting is that I have seen nobody propose a budget fix to Translink, other than your Conservative Party plan to provide stopgap funding and some small operations reform. Which I don’t see ever happening considering most Conservative Party voters and potential MLA’s. So much for any sane rail planning. Typically weak election promises.
A promise of $500 Million for any BRT that plans to use the existing bridge locations, forces a very long distance BRT line over very crowded downtown streets (as I remembered it), considering the potential distance a BRT vehicle will have to travel, is a pretty financially slim and bare bones BRT line. Not a great idea, can’t they just buy another ferry for the same cost?
Zwei replies: The NDP are lost in their own transit hubris. TransLink does not recognize that operating a 1970’s style transit system does not work in the 2020’s. The hierarchy for Translink is management, union member’s, with the customer coming last. currently they are short of about $3 billion to complete the Expo Line expansion and absolutely no money for a connection to the North Shore. Most do not understand BRT and treat it as some sort of miracle system, when all TransLink is offering is a tarted up express bus.
I would think a North Shore to Jericho Beach (Kitsilano) Ferry (to UBC) would do more to reduce congestion than TransLink’s half baked BRT.
What I know from the BRT plant is:
Bus canopy like Viva.
Unique BRT buses from New Flyer
XE60 or Škoda 18 or 21 M
No Articulated Nova Bus
Fully dedicated lanes and Traffic signals.
No bus lanes on the bridge.
Discontinue bus R1, R2, 222, 321 and 595.
Burnaby residents and council undecided, what routing for the BRT.
Interim Service.
Extension of the R1 and R2
Introduce the R8 Haney place to Langley center via carvolth exchange.
Supposed to happen 2024 fall service change. but articulated bus shortage.
With construction starting summer 2025-2026. BRT service starting 2026-2027. Phase 1 of a 3 phase plan.
Route cost an average of 400 million.
Does not include buying new bus.
Phase 2 is mainly East and West like:
Hasting street upgrade R5
Lougheed highway Upgrade of the R3
Canada line Marine Drive station to 22nd street station on EXPO line.
Lowest priority BRT
Lonsdale quay seabus to Lynn valley. Because lowest friendship.
R7 Metrotown to somewhere in Richmond.(It was Bridgeport Station) Because Difficult to work with City council.
R6 Scott Road Upgrade Because of marginal improvement for same relationship.
Transport Canada will not allow an Automated seabus or speed improvements across the harbor. Sometime after 2028 Converting the beaver and Sea breeze electric. 270 watts per crossing or 90 watts per minute. And in 2030 maybe an additional vessel.
Oh, the green party to provide additional funding and Free transit (no farebox revenue)
NDP no more relief funding.
Con Temporary Stupidity Funding and Audited on translink and operating companies. Then a back on track plan!!!
All parties are in agreement of expansion of translink.
Route 7 km seabus or hullo ferry Service.
A custom terminal and 2 vessels minimum. there’s a speed restriction of 15 knots or 17 minute travel time. And the additional time 3 to 10 minute, turn around time. What would be at Jericho or kitsilano beach that would be important? No connecting to the M line.
All of the new transit planning is speeding up connections from hub to hub. Investment on bus priority and active transportation for a short distances.
Translink upgrade:
shuttle 24-360 pphpd
40’ bus 85-1,275 pphpd
60’ bus 125-2,000 pphpd
BRT light 1,000-2,800 pphpd
BRT full 2,000-6,000 pphpd
Skytrain 6,000-26,000 pphpd
Zwei replies: Were you not the guy chastising me at my cost estimated for the Expo Line extension to Langley, which I was a $1 billion less than what has been now announced? Were you not the guy who used TransLink’s numbers to give me the raspberry?
Sorry, your cred is shot.
Wow, european buses, oh boy, here we go again, they just won’t work in North America. Many agencies over the years including York Region Transit, have tried it. YRT bought their first Viva vehicles from Van Hool (Belgium based) buses for their original Rapidway project. The spare parts are just too expensive for North American transit agencies. As well as the training packages. European vehicles are maintenance heavy and generally preform poorly in our climate. Skoda, although I really like their LRV’s (Toronto nearly bought them for their CLRV and ALRV fleet replacement), their bus quality is somewhat lacking, their spares are very expensive and somewhat unreliable in delivery.
Case in point, Nova Bus of Quebec is actually 51% owned by Volvo. Most of Nova’s bus designs are Volvo based however, all the parts are GM parts. It was cheaper, easier, produced a better product and in the long run, more cost effective for the company, than using actual Volvo bus parts, here in North America.
Van Hool, a Belgian manufacturer of buses is bankrupt and has been taken over by the dutch group VDL.
It is my belief that many production models will be terminated including the exotic three section artic buses.
From our perspective, bus solutions are more expensive, in the long term than trams and our more financially conservative politcans are looking for the future and the likes of BRT have been relegated to niche solutions where trams do not fit the puzzle.
I think it comes down to this, our politcans and bureaucrats believe the global warming issue is real and politicians and bureaucrats in the UK and North America don’t. Actions speak louder than words.
Vancouver replaced its trams with trolly busses. The trolly busses have been replaced several times. Translink has plan to replace them again soon. Vancouver wants to restore some of the trams but funding is lacking or they need help from higher government.
Writing this from England. England has its own problems with its old railways. London underground is over 150 years old and has breakfowns every day. A good system will have a mix of trains and buses.
Now the BC election is talking about a railways to Whistler. Just bring back BC Rail with new trains. Like the new trains VIA and Amtrak are buying from Siemens.
Zwei replies: Not well known, Campbell’s sale of BC Rail was to stop the passenger service so a good politcal ally could operate hotel trains on the route. CN is not interested in passenger services and VIA is financially strapped and not interested. Sadly our mainstream media have their collective heads in the sand on this issue.
European buses work in Vancouver and Victoria. Alexander Denis sold a bunch of double decker buses used by Translink and BC Transit. Bus route 351 from Bridgeport to Whiterock is a double decker bus made in England.
Zwei replies: After some brief research and a few Emails, those Double Decker uses were designed for the export, particularly for the North American market. They are too heavy for the UK market. The reason why they are used is that they have cheaper maintenance costs and slightly more capacity than the articulated buses.
Just a note: Translink is not planning to restore any trams and the ones restored or are being restored is done by small preservation groups. In the 21st centruy the modern tram has become the backbone for a user-friendly, efficient public transport system. Like Vancouver, in the UK, trams take up road space and the auto lobby fight tooth and nail to prevent this.