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!