Canada Is 40 Years Behind The Times With Public Transit
Being a member of the Light rail transit Association for 45 years, one has just more than a passing knowledge of transit.
I find that Canadian politcans must be dragged kicking and screaming to provide a modern and user-friendly (oh that damned phrase again) public transit service for the public. Yes, Vancouver’s SkyTrain seems modern, but also is a dated proprietary light-metro system, based largely on 1960’s transit philosophy and trends – News Flash: It’s 2026 and travel tastes and demands have changed, yet the transit that has been provided, has not and cannot due to the massive investments made for the guideways and subways.
Result: Ridership is in decline as the transit system is deemed user unfriendly by potential customers.
The following is an excerpt from a North American transit group I belong to, regarding transit priority.
One comment: The Light Rail Transit Association’s 1990 video, Light Rail, Today’s Way Forward, shows several examples of signal priority in action, simple and effective, yet in Canada one would think it was like designing a moon rocket!
TTC has no Priority for all bus routes. TTC does have Priority for St Clair, Spadina streetcars routes and a few other locations close to 2 decades, but the City, mainly Transportation and Works (TW) has refused to turn them on until the Finch mess. The mayor has order TW to deal with all transit priority issues and report back to council by 2027 how to improve service. The only change so far, TW has move left turn singles from first to last.
As far I know and seen, there are no systems in NA and Europe using a true transit priority signal system all the time. It is only use when vehicles are behind schedule.
Finch Ave was a 5 lane road before construction started to 7 lanes now that require major rebuilt of everything including bridges and new retraining walls. I never knew this until construction took place that the Islington/Finch intersection is a bridge on a 45 degree angle that was widen for better water flow.
Finch like a number of Toronto roads that could easily support an elevated line but it had an CPKC bridge to go over as well a 12 lane Hwy 400.
Since Finch, Eglinton and Hurontario lines are own by Metrolinx, they call the shot how the line was to be built and the technology under the P3 process to reduce the cost to build the lines. Operations was to be under the control of the P3 group and awarded that way. Near the completion of the Eglinton Line, TTC and the City started to call for TTC to operate the line. The Province decided to change the operation contract to allow TTC to operate both Eglinton and Finch lines under a 5 year contract will a renewal 5 year extension and this is where the lines went off the rails.
TTC demanded various changes to the lines as well bring in out dated operation policy that down graded operations. They require speed reduction for all intersections that can handle full speed in the first place for both lines, but chose to reduced the speed like they have done for all the streetcar lines. The original operators of all Metrolinx lines were to be outside sources who operate systems worldwide.
Sadly, I do not see any appetite for change and doing the same thing over and over again, ever hoping for different results, is the Canadian way forward.
The website is 40 years behind the time. Street cars are outdated for big cities. They are slow. Just look at the new lrt in Toronto that takes 1 hour to go 10 km. A subway would do it 5 minutes. Skytrain is fast. Travel time to Langley will be reduced to 1 hour. Currently, Skytrain and bus takes almost 2 hours from downtown to Langley.
Zwei replies: This is a SPAM posting, where the author uses the Rail for the Valley as an Email.
Also, this post shows a profound ignorance of transit and what transit is for. The author does not know the difference between a streetcar, light rail or a light metro and the costs associated with each mode. In most castes, the author does not include access time to the Skytrain stations, which, if by bus, will add another 20 to 30 minutes easily.
In fact this post is easily shredded and it demonstrates to me how sensitive both the Expo Line Langley extension and the Broadway subway is to Translink.
I have been told that the total cost, guideway/subway cost, signalling, electrical upgrades, cars, track adjustments (needed to obtain a max. capacity of 17,500 pphpd for the Expo line), station upgrades and OMC#5 has now passed $18 billion! Please note, the government only quotes the guideway costs, with the federal government is paying 40%.
Translink’s ridership is in decline and combined with rising costs is creating major panic with Translink and the NDP government.
Evidently there is now an unofficial moratorium on all future SkyTrain projects as there is zero funding.
This is sewing the seeds of panic within TransLink’s ossified bureaucracy and the Premier’s office. More to come with this later.
From our point of view on our side of the pond, the cost of the Expo Line and Millennium Line extensions, given by the government are just for the guideway/subway, which the federal government pays 40%.
From what I have been told this cost does not include signalling or the much needed electrical rehab of the Expo Line, which has now past 40 years in operatioi, but ages much faster due to the close headway’s needed.
The cost of new vehicles needed to operate the extensions and the cost of the new operating systems needed (this has been an industry joke for some time). As well the upgrading of the Expo Line points, which were designed for the smaller MK.1 cars and not the Mk.2’s and so forth, which includes very expensive adjustments to the guideway; station adjustments. Then there is the cost of the Operations and Maintenance Centre needed for the MK.5 cars being delivered.
The 21.7 km extensions to the Expo and Millennium Lines is may cost a massive $830 million/km or put another way for every 1 km of the E&M lines built, one could build up to 16 km of a modern tram line which could offer a capacity higher than both the SkyTrain Line.
Think about that for a moment!
Imagine 21, 16 km classic light rail lines in Metro Vancouver area for the cost of the 21.7 km of SkyTrain.
It is this cost which your planners and politcans seem to ignore.
I hope your provincial government has lots of cash because the days of joint federal/provincial funding has died. The military is now requiring 5% GDP by 2029, High Speed Rail is under planning right now and the first phase is $30 Billion plus several mind numbingly expensive industrial infrastructure projects. What this means is there is very little funding left for subway, skytrain, LRT and BRT lines. So it’s almost entirely up to your province. Traditionally B.C. can afford one big public transit infrastructure project per decade. The next one is probably the U.B.C. extension and that will be it for a long time!
You may not like LRT or BRT but that is what you can afford for the next 2 decades!
Zwei replies: I agree 100%.