Editorial: Less parking, more transit a winning duo – The Van Sun’s Editors still do not get it!
Today’s editorial in the Vancouver Sun, may seem to many that the Editors support more transit, but I think not. What we see is the beginning of the soft sell for higher regionalAi??taxes to pay for a Broadway subway and other Vancouver oriented transit investment.
The war on the car and now the reduction of city parking underlines as a means to improve transit, may resound with the Vision Vancouver crowd, but in the long run will do little to improve transit and the war on the car may exacerbate the regional transit fiasco, by driving businesses out of ‘transit rich’ Vancouver to more car friendly, but less accessible realms outside the city.
There is a solution and the solution has proven itself over and over again and it is called light rail. Modern LRT provides both an environmentally sound and a financially affordable solution for our traffic woes in the city. Unlike the hugely expensive SkyTrain and Canada Line min-metros, modern LRT can provide the benefits of ‘rail’ transit, at a cost that the local taxpayer can afford. Being easy to use and providing a quality transit service, modern LRT naturally attracts the motorist from the car.
The problem of course is with the SkyTrain Lobby and Vancouver’s perverse politics, which subscribes to the notion that; “being the centre of the universe (well BC actually), regional taxpayers must be expected to pay for extremely expensive light-metro, operating in subways preferably, to make Vancouver a world class city.” That modern LRT has all but made light-metro obsolete many decades ago is not mentioned in Vancouver’s quest for more and more expensive subway construction.
The Vancouver Sun’s Editorial Board should entertain a mea culpa, with SkyTrain and light metro and offer an editorial something like this; “Modern Light Rail Is The Way to Go“, but like the City of Vancouver, failure to admit to past mistakes, means that the SkyTrain and TransLink shell game will continue, to the detriment of car drivers and the taxpayer.
Editorial: Less parking, more transit a winning duo
Cars are expensive. They are expensive to buy, expensive to drive and expensive to park, especially when land is scarce as it is in the heart of cities.
Increasingly, people who have access to good transit are deciding they can do without a car and all of its related costs.
In addition, cars are losing their status with young people.
A recent study in the U.S. found the percentage of 16-year-olds who have driverai??i??s licences fell by a third between 1983 and 2008, as what was once a near-universal rite of passage has lost some of its urgency.
We think itai??i??s too early to pronounce that what we are seeing is the end of the age of the car, as Vancouver councillor Geoff Meggs hopefully suggests.
But these trends can have significant benefits for Vancouver and the people who live in the Lower Mainland if they are incorporated into city planning.
A recent study conducted by Metro Vancouver found a significant amount ai??i?? 18 to 35 per cent ai??i?? of unused parking in apartment buildings.
Providing parking is expensive. According to the report, a single parking space costs $20,000 to $45,000. In a city with few options for lowering the cost of new housing, that represents a significant opportunity if condominiums can be built and sold without the assumption that every new owner will have a car.
In addition, the report found that renters often do not use available parking since fewer renters than owners have a personal vehicle, but they have to pay for it anyway since it is built into the costs. Thatai??i??s a waste.
The report suggests that developers should be allowed to reduce the amount of parking they are required to provide for a new development, especially in areas that are well served by transit.
That makes sense. Developers report that there is a strong market for units that do not have parking, particularly among young buyers. In a market as expensive as Vancouver, cutting costs at the entry level should be considered a priority.
In Toronto, city council recently approved a condominium tower that has no parking, other than for bicycles.
Weai??i??re not sure weai??i??re there yet. These projects should be looked at on an individual basis, taking into account the effect of available street parking in the neighbourhood and the access to transit.
At the same time changes to parking requirements are being considered, city planners should be looking at harvesting some of the savings that can be realized as a result to pay for the thing that makes them possible ai??i?? access to transit.
TransLink is struggling to come up with the money needed to service the growing demand on existing and new routes.
At the same time, the provision of transit creates value that can be realized by increasing allowable housing density along transit routes.
If the people attracted by the proximity to transit can then get the benefits of not having to pay for a parking stall that they donai??i??t need, that value is multiplied.
While care will be needed not to kill the golden goose, some of that increased value should then be able to be diverted to paying for transit in what can become a virtuous circle.
Better transit should lead to lower costs and higher values. That creates more revenue for transit.
Given the resistance to raising revenue through traditional means, higher fares, property and other taxes, civic politicians should be breaking down doors to get at what could be a winning formula.
Cars are piling up on top of each other in Vancouver and you can’t find parking. I’m almost 100% sure that TransLink fed the story (on how the frequent transit network or FTN is making cars and parking obsolete) to the Vancouver Sun.
The mayors are meeting soon to discuss funding options for TransLink. TransLink is trying to put a positive spin on the FTN spectacle propping up SkyTrain.
SkyTrain stations are spaced miles apart. Few people in the rush to get to work in the morning are willing to walk ~20 to 25 minutes to a SkyTrain station – even in good weather.
So, TransLink is forced to compensate with FTN to get passengers to the SkyTrain stations. Without FTN, passengers going to the SkyTrain would be waiting 20 minutes or longer for a bus to take them to the SkyTrain station – making the “fast SkyTrain” – not so fast.
The FTN is comprised of a large number of diesel buses synchronized to the frequency of the SkyTrain cars, every two to five minutes. This is terribly expensive and inefficient. Really, the FTN is a huge indirect cost for SkyTrain.
In Metro Vancouver, FTN would not be necessary if LRT, trolley buses or trams with closely spaced stops were used. With LRT, more people would have easy access to transit and would be able to “walk” to closely spaced stops to use transit. At the same time, for most transit users, the commute on LRT would be much faster than the commute on SkyTrain.
I don`t understand, there is an extremely strong correlation between parking costs and availability and transit use. Any transit planner can tell you that and hundreds of studies back this up. There is also a relationship between access to transit and transit use. What part of the article are you disagreeing with?
Zweisystem replies: Rico, you don’t get it and I’m afraid you will never get it. Forcing people onto transit maybe good, for a while, but when your transit is user unfriendly, people don’t use it. Except for Vancouver (where there is a plethora of U-Passes) off-peak transit service is little used and that is because the transit service has not provided a consumer friendly product.
More and more businesses are closing shop in Vancouver and moving to areas that are cafriendlyly and that is bad for everyone.
Except that they are not. Businesses are flocking to offices near transit while abandoning automobile-centric suburban office parks.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/property-report/transit-oriented-buildings-fetch-higher-rents/article4248615/
Zweisystem replies: Francis Bula, otherwise known as BS Bula is the the darling of the skyTrain lobby for her glad handing of Vancouver’s metro planning. A known anti-LRT journalist, Bula will alter the facts to suit her needs.
Have a look up the valley, major companies are moving out of Vancouver and relocating in the Abbotsford or Chilliwack areas to avoid the heavy rents and taxes in Vancouver. Oh they may keep a small office in the downtown, but the emphasis is to move out of Vancouver. The Vision Vancouver dominated council is driving business out of the city.
Parking and transit can be clarified as simply as Portland with cheap and available parking downtown as well as a good transit system = transit mode share 10% in the city (5% metro area) vs Vancouver (or Calgary if it makes you feel better) also with good transit but expensive parking (Calgary has some of the most expensive parking in North America and Vancouver is up there as well) = Transit mode share 16.5% in the metro area, higher in the city (lets not get into parking availability in downtown European or Asian cities).
Businesses closing is bad for everyone of course it seems to me that more are opening than closing in Vancouver and Canadian cities as a whole are growing and generally healthy (Canadian cities tend to have more expensive parking and better transit than comparable American cities). It should also be noted that the American cities that seem to be weathering the recession best are those with more robust downtowns and most of those have expensive parking and good transit. Most of the cties with cheap parking downtown have depressed downtown (I would say that high parking is actually a sign of a vibrant downtown (not a cause but a sign) because if there was not enough demand for the high priced parking the price would drop.
Zweisystem replies: comparing Vancouver with Portland is a fool’s game, as Portland has a different population demographics than Vancouver. As wee, the economy in the USA are much different than Canada’s. The MAX LRT is certainly credited with rejuvenating Portland’s once seedy downtown. but they I doubt the SkyTrain lobby would ever admit to it.
I would say that the three previous posts show the utter frustration and growing panic of the SkyTrain lobby that their beloved light metro will not be built in Vancouver. The SkyTrain lobby seem utterly ignorant of transit financing and will confuse everyone with misinterpeted statistics and great eexaggerations of transit operations to prove their point. But then no one buys with skyTrain and very few cities pursue light metro, I wonder why?
i just used Portland as an example of low parking prices downtown with good transit (it would not be fair to compare to a city with low parking prices and bad transit). Portlands streetcar and Max have helped Portlands downtown, not the point. The point is Portland (or almost every other city with low parking rates) has low transit usage compared to cities with high parking prices. The secondary point is high parking prices is not an economic disadvantage (although it seems like it) because the cities with good transit and high parking prices are generally doing better economically than cities with low parking prices. I am surprised that with your vast transit library and infinite knowledge you were unaware of all the studies showing the link between parking and transit? I am pretty sure the link is pretty much undisputed.
Zweisystem replies: Er no, in fact what really attracts customers to transit is a user friendly transit service, which TransLink is not. Forcing people onto transit that they hate using only ensures that they will drive when they can. What the parking issue really does is hurt local merchants, something that you seem not to care about. The parking issue is mainly a Vancouver issue, the transit issue in other cities is designing transit system that naturally attracts the motorist from the car. With SkyTrain and forcing transit customers to transfer from one more to another to complete a linear trip really deters ridership in the long run.
You see vacant parking spots in condos near SkyTrain stations due to the fact that 25% of the tenants in the condos don’t drive. So what? Vehicle use depends on where you work.
If you work downtown as many engineering employees do, you take transit to work and “drive more” when you get home to do all the errands that you could have done on the way home from work if you drove to work. So, you now not only have pollution from all the buses taking transit users to the SkyTrain but also pollution from cars after work, too.
SkyTrain by TransLink does not decrease gridlock on the roads – to do this it would have to be reducing the number of cars on the roads. It is not – vehicle use has increased since TransLink started expanding SkyTrain because the region is expanding and more people need cars, now, even if fewer people drive to work.
Your right. Major businesses like Telus are moving away from Vancouver. Oh wait, they are building a new office tower in downtown Vancouver. OK then, SNC Lavalin is moving out of there downtown office. I guess moving into a new office building downtown doesn’t count, does it?
There are several new office buildings being built in downtown Vancouver and near transit stations in Vancouver. Pretty obvious that many businesses want to be in Vancouver.
Zweisystem replies: Have you looked at Abbotsford lately? Guess not, as it isn’t the quiet farming community it once was. I work up the valley occasional and on the #1 highway at 5 am and I am gob-smacked at the number of cars and commercial vehicles on the road at that time. I have two close friends who have moved from Metro Vancouver to Chilliwack because the companies they worked for have relocated to that area. “Those are so blind, who will not see”, your Vancouver centric diatribes ignore the realities of what is happening.
I find this argument both fascinating and odd. I did a Google Earth view of the Vancouver and Abbotsford region and the outward flow of urban sprawl is very evident. Certainly SkyTrain is far too expensive to service the growing populations of the Fraser Valley.
Obviously there are scores of business parks and such springing up like weeds and like the UK equivalent, is playing havoc with regional transportation and the reliance on the car.
Large international corporations will always set up shop in major cities as management want the perks and prestige of being in the big city, but smaller companies will drift outward to where there are cheaper rents and municipal rates. I understand that petrol is cheaper in the Fraser Valley and this would prove attractive to companies that operate large fleets of commercial vehicles.
Forcing reluctant people onto transit due to higher parking fees or no parking being allowed may work for the short while, but if the transit provided is deemed by those forced onto the bus or metro, will soon avoid going to those areas. to succeed, transit must be a positive experience, if not, the public will not use it.
Surely there are planners who understand this concept of user friendly transit in Vancouver?
They may have moved to Abbotsford and Chilliwack because the rents are high due in Vancouver to proximity to SkyTrain. The bottom line is that if there were not demand for office space in Vancouver, the prices would not be going up.
Zweisystem replies: Actually a lot of older cheaper office space is being torn down and being replaced with new and more expensive office space.
@eric chris
Well, sure, if more people are moving to the region, there will be some more driving. However, in the areas with SkyTrain and good transit, the growth in transit commuting has been much greater than driving to work. Between 1996 and 2006, in Burnaby, 10,030 more people took transit to work while only 2,770 more drove to work. In Vancouver, 29,725 more, used transit, walked or cycled while 17,000 more went by car (as drivers or passengers).
Even in the whole region, including those areas without good transit, the increase in people driving to work was not much greater than those using transit walking and cycling; 87,890 to 83,860. 16,520 more were passengers in cars.
As density increases in the region, more people will be within walking distance of shopping, recreation, etc. Even if they drive, the distances will be shorter because there will be more stores closer to them.
@Richard, how about people who aren’t going to work? About one-third of the drivers don’t work. Since 1999, we have had an increase of 300,000 registered vehicles in Metro Vancouver and an increase of 100,000 transit users. As there aren’t any more roads, the gridlock has increased.
I’ll let you in on a little secret: transit by TransLink really does not pollute less than if everyone commuted in cars, instead. In the next few years, it will be much less polluting for people to drive than to take transit by TransLink. This is due to the frequent transit network (FTN) operated during off peak times to keep the SkyTrains by TransLink populated. Let me prove it to you.
While cars get about 30 mpg and carry 1.6 people on average – diesel buses get about 3 mpg and carry 10 people on average due to the large number of off peak buses used by TransLink to fill the SkyTrain cars. Because, SkyTrain and trolley buses carry 50% of the transit users, it is the same as piling 20 people into each diesel bus on average.
If the 20 people in the TransLink diesel bus drove, it would result in 12.5 cars on the roads (20 people / 1.6 people per car). Let’s consider a 100 mile trip by the 12.5 drivers. It would result in 42 gallons of gasoline consumed (100 miles * 12.5 cars / 30 miles per car = 42 gallons of gasoline).
Let’s look at the diesel bus fuel consumed and emissions, now. Because diesel fuel emits 10% more carbon than gasoline and because diesel buses are deadheading 10% of the time, one gallon of diesel fuel is the same as 1.21 gallons of gasoline in terms of pollution (110% * 110% = 1.21). The diesel bus carrying the 20 people would consume the equivalent of 40 gallons of gasoline (1.21 * 100 miles * 1 bus / 3 mpg = 40 gallons of gasoline equivalent). Really, this is no different than if all transit users were in cars as drivers or occupants.
Due to legislation in the USA, in the next few years, the average fuel mileage is going to be 55 mpg for cars. Taking transit by TransLink will be about twice as polluting as transit users driving cars, soon. If we were operating LRT here, there would be far fewer diesel buses on the roads and transit would not likely be more polluting in the next few years.
It is much less expensive to get people out of their cars and onto transit than to use the money collected to build roads – to build roads. This is the real reason for the brainwashing of the population to take transit which doubles the commuting time and makes travel much more of a hassle.
Transit during peak hours (6 am to 10 am and 3pm to 7 pm) to reduce gridlock is great. However, FTN during “off peak” hours to fill the SkyTrain cars is making fools of the fools who keep taxing drivers to pay for SkyTrains relying on diesel buses which are increasing cancer rates by 40%:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18415532
ec
Hi Eric
A few issues with the calculations.
For transit trips, the driver is never included as a passenger as the purpose of their trip is to drive other people around. In some portion of automobile trips, the driver is not going to the destination, they are only driving someone else their (and back). For example, a parents driving child around is essential operating like a bus with only 1 passenger. After dropping the child off and on the way to pick them up, they are an empty “bus”. That is four trips with only a passenger on two of the trips so that is only .5 passengers per trip.
It would also be safe to assume that transit will get more people who are driving by themselves off the road as the fare structure makes transit less cost effective when more than one person is travelling together.
Also, the people per motor vehicle is 1.24 at least in 2008, not 1.6.
http://www.translink.ca/en/About-Us/Media/2010/April/Metro-Vancouver-Travel-Profile-Getting-Greener.aspx
Technology is also improving the fuel efficiency and reducing pollution from buses. To compare the fuel efficiency of buses now with the potential fuel efficiency of cars several years down the road is not really fair. You should also assume that buses will be more efficient before making the comparison. With the cheap price of natural gas, it wouldn’t surprise me that buses are switched natural gas doing away with the diesel issue. Also be aware that diesel may be used more in automobiles to reach the efficiency targets. Diesel cars are quite popular in Europe.
Giving people, especially those who can’t or chose not to drive, high frequency transit service, should really not be characterizes as filling SkyTrain. What else would you propose? Using buses for the entire trip?
I agree that replacing diesel buses with electric transit is a great idea. SkyTrain has done this effectively in many situations including eliminating the costly to operate buses from Delta, South Surrey and White Rock into downtown and the 98-Bline to Richmond. Your friend zweisystem has argued against this and proposed an LRT line that would have not replaced long distance diesel bus trips from Delta, South Surrey and White Rock into downtown.
In general, posters this blog should be more careful in choosing their arguments. Many of the points brought up against SkyTrain are the same brought up by LRT and transit opponents in other cities.
Zweisystem replies: Quote:”I agree that replacing diesel buses with electric transit is a great idea. SkyTrain has done this effectively in many situations including eliminating the costly to operate buses from Delta, South Surrey and White Rock into downtown and the 98-Bline to Richmond.”
This is a rather silly comment as The Canada Line and SkyTrain has increased diesel bus usage. Cambie St lost its trolley buses due to the Canada line and though buses don’t go directly into Vancouver, they are short turned back to Delta or South Surrey. The problem is the philosophy behind light metro is extremely dated because it demands forced transfers and once transit users are forced to transfer, many opt for the car instead!
Traffic in and out of Vancouver is increasing, because the transit system does not cater to customers, but a dated transit philosophy as the regional transit system is mainly used by the elderly (who hate forced transfers), the poor (who have no choice), and students (who have deep discounted U-Passes). There is no evidence of modal shift, nor any evidence that SkyTrain has reduced auto use and this is why the SkyTrain Lobby are in panic mode – $8 billion+ spent on light metro has achieved very little.
@Richard, thanks for the thought put into your comment: if you are a student driving to UBC with two friends, you are taking three people off transit, in my mind.
On average, cars in 2008 carried 1.6 people including the driver and passenger according to Transport Canada and the link that you provided by TransLink is wrong or misleadingly referring to work trips, only:
http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/policy/report-aca-anre2009-2464.htm
I do like the idea of natural gas buses. Unfortunately, TransLink doesn’t. Fire the accountants and economists at TransLink and replace them with engineers, you might see LRT, trolley buses and natural gas buses, then.
SkyTrain with FTN has increased diesel bus use tremendously. Here is part of my letter being sent to lawyers this week (TransLink could be going to court soon for taxing drivers to increase carbon emissions and to damage the heath of residents with SkyTrain):
If transit users had to wait 20 to 30 minutes for a bus to take them to a 99 B-Line stop and then another 20 to 30 minutes for the express articulated 99 B-Line diesel bus to take them to the Canada Line at Cambie Street or SkyTrain station at Commercial Drive, there would be a very high degree of “dissatisfaction with SkyTrain and the architects of SkyTrain“.
This would not bode well for the architects of SkyTrain and it would likely lead to many forced retirements or dismissals at TransLink. To save their jobs, the architects of SkyTrain have devised the frequent transit network (FTN) – an elaborate and costly network of diesel buses shuttling passengers to the 99 B-Line every few minutes with the 99 B-Lines operating every few minutes, too, in order to take passengers to the SkyTrains.
Cost of FTN is of no consequence to the architects of SkyTrain. They simply tax drivers to pay for the incredible cost of FTN resulting in many empty or nearly empty buses. Ironically, all the buses on FTN increase carbon emissions and degrade the air quality more than if the transit users were in cars as passengers or drivers.
To the architects of SkyTrain and FTN, it does “not” matter that the 99 B-Lines have saturated the air with toxic particulate matter emissions to increase cancer rates by about 40% or that the FTN noise is horrendous for residents living along the 99 B-Line route. To the psychopaths at TransLink, FTN is justified if it means preserving their high paying salaries, $325,000 for Ian Jarvis, TransLink CEO.
http://www.rockantenne.de/webplayer/?playchannel=alternative
ec
@ Richard.
Why do you state?
`In general, posters this blog should be more careful in choosing their arguments’
because Translink is determined control propaganda & quash any criticism, maybe?
Many of the points brought up against SkyTrain are the same brought up by LRT and transit opponents in other cities’
and your point is?
Hi Eric
I suspect the Transport Canada numbers are heavy skewed upwards by the few in number but really long trips that people do on the weekends and vacations when there is likely to be a large number of people in the vehicle. These long trips are not going to be replaced by any form of regional transit. Just looking at traffic around the city, the large majority of cars only have one person in them so I’m inclined to go with the TransLink Trip Diary numbers which do include all types of regional trips.
The Trip Diary is done by the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure and TransLink.
TransLink has switched to higher quality diesel fuel, ultra low sulphur content that has much lower particulate emissions. Their new buses also have particulate trips. Make sure you are actually using what the buses are emitting and not just the general numbers for all diesel vehicles.
http://www.translink.ca/en/About-Us/Media/2012/April/TransLink-Sustainability-and-Earth-Day-2012.aspx
The vehicles that seem really bad are ironically ambulances, fire trucks and police wagons. Then there is garbage trucks.
Some number of automobile trips and amount of vehicle kilometres are required to support automobile travel and are the result of automobile travel. To make a fair comparison with transit, these should not be counted as passenger trips but empty trips or portions of trips. This includes trips to gas stations, car washes, repairs, ICBC, Aircare, doctors and therapists to treat collision injuries, driving injured friends and family around who would otherwise be walking, cycling or using public transit, etc. Not sure what percentage of trips these would be but it would not surprise me if it is one or two percent.
Richard, quoting TransLink as a reference is hardly credible. Transport Canada states the following – the average number of people in cars is 1.6 (cars which are “not” taking people to work carry more than1.6 people and cars which are taking people to work carry less than 1.6 people). This includes cars in Metro Vancouver.
Almost 100% of the 99 B-Lines on the FTN are empty in the morning from UBC to Commercial Drive, during peak hours, and 75% of the bus seats are vacant (throughout the day) on the dozen bus routes going to UBC. I cycle to work and see many cars with more than one occupant (driver) on the way to work.
Particulate filters for diesel engines (when they are maintained) still allow up to 40% of the particulate matter through and the small particulate matter which isn’t trapped causes the lung cancer. Many of the diesel buses operated by TransLink are too old and can’t be retrofitted for particulate filters.
With two to five minute headways, even if 90% of the particulate matter is trapped for some of the diesel or hybrid diesel buses operated by TransLink, the particulate matter concentrations are still too high and are damaging the lungs of residents in Vancouver:
http://www.epa.gov/cleandiesel/documents/420f03017.pdf
http://www.nrdc.org/living/chemicalindex/diesel.asp
I have only been replying to correct the half-truths on the TransLink web-site. It’s been a good debate and there isn’t much more to add.
ec