Buddy, Can You Spare $25 Billion…………
It has been brought to Zwei’s attention than another group is wanting to build more SkyTrain, this time calling itself Crosstown SkyTrain , a 38km light-metro line from Downtown Vancouver to Surrey.
Well, that sounds good doesn’t it, how about the cost?
A bare minimum cost for an elevated SkyTrain would be $19 billion, based on the cost of today’s cost of the Expo Line extension to UBC, including cars and other costs not included with the Langley extension program.
But it will not be elevated in Vancouver, oh no, the ‘creme de la creme’ will not have it.
So if 50% of the line is in a subway (in Vancouver of course), the cost would top $29 billion!
But of course there is more, the line would need Operations and Maintenance Centre number 6, costing around $1 billion and a new bridge crossing the Fraser River, $3 billion ( I am being extremely generous here) and the total cost for this line would top $33 billion.
The Rail for the Valley Marpole (Vancouver) to Chilliwack, Leewood Study proposal would cost under $2 billion and extending the line to Vancouver, via the Arbutus corridor would be around $300 million.
As BC is cash strapped at the moment and the $8 billion Broadway subway to UBC would be the next line to be built, then the North Shore transit has to be dealt with; I would say that the Crosstown SkyTrain Line to Surrey is nothing more than a pipe-dream.
Contrary to the hype and hoopla about SkyTrain, modern light rail is the only transit mode that can affordably deal with today’s traffic and transit woes, but we can’t have that, can we, as the politcans and bureaucrats who support SkyTrain would be extremely embarrassed at how modern light rail out performs SkyTrain at every level.
40 years of telling SkyTrain porkies would be embarrassing!
Gerald Fox’s 2008 shredding of the BC’s Auditor Generals Business Case for the Evergreen Line deserves a reread .
He leaves this little gem:
But, eventually, Vancouver will need to adopt lower-cost LRT in its lesser corridors, or else limit the extent of its rail system. And that seems to make some TransLink people very nervous.
Telling the truth about SkyTrain in Metro Vancouver is a revolutionary act!
Given that Eby explicitly promised to build Skytrain ‘from Langley to UBC’ on 12 OCT 2024 at an election campaign stop, I wonder if we are going to hear about the UBC extension on a snap-election campaign stop some time very soon??
Yes, it will mire BC in debt. But that’s just what governments do with fiat capital in the post-Breton Woods era.
As far as building another ‘Canada Line’ from Surrey to Vancouver?? I’d make this observation… The line appears to head down 41st avenue.
Of course, that like a proposal to create an intersection at Oakridge, now a ‘regional town center, fuelled by off-shore capital. Would not surprise me if that is a driver behind the proposal. Oakridge-Vancouver end is wagging this dog, not Surrey.
Marine Drive (Marpole) seems like a better alignment. Less disruption, more ROW. I also question the wisdom of using just ⅔ of the Arbutus ROW. Why not use it all?
Of course we all know the better route. Granville still has the loop in place to move trains from 4th Ave up on the Granville Street Bridge which can carry LRT. Tram would then provide service from UBC—Granville Island—Granville Mall—Hastings—SFU. Call it the Universities Line.
One significant outcome of using the Arbutus ROW to add a third line downtown is that is would give the Millennium Line a third line for east-west transfers. Today, with the Expo and Canada lines full at peak, the Millennium just can’t attract fares because there is no room for transfers on the downtown services.
As Zwei is known to say, “Everything West of Commercial must be in a tunnel according to the George Puil-Translink agreement.”
Thus, the proposal would be sending Skytrain (in a tunnel): under Denman; under the Arbutus ROW; and under 41st to Victoria or so; then on guideways to Surrey.
On top of the cost differential (ION Tram in Kitchener-Waterloo was built 9-times cheaper than Skytrain tunnels; and 5-times cheaper than guideways) there is the revitalization advantage provided by Tram, but not Skytrain.
I see Doug Mccallum who is running as Mayor again in Surrey is promising SkyTrain to Newton lol lol It is on the safe surrey coalition web page.
Zwei replies: Well Eby has promised SkyTrain to UBC as well, that’s $8 billion (an 7.5 km extension to 64th would be $3 billion+)! Problem is, there is zero funding. The Federal money pot is fast drying up and the province has little resources to fund the any new SkyTrain projects.
McCallum’s utterly stupidity, replacing light rail with SkyTrain has literally condemned Surrey to generational gridlock.