Eric Chris Responds To The SkyTrain Lobby
Eric Chris responds to the SkyTrain for Surrey blog.
It is just not Zweisystem who has questions about SkyTrain and TransLink and Eric Chris’s reply to the SkyTrain Lobby has great merit.
The Vancouver Sun has always treated SkyTrain as a “mother and apple pie issue” and has never challenged the government on building more. It seems Patricia Graham is from the “school of any rapid transit is good rapid transit“, even though it may bankrupt the taxpayer. The Vancouver Sun’s Editorial BoardAi??should hangAi??their collectiveAi??heads in shame with its reporting on SkyTrain and censoring anti-SkyTrain correspondence.
Again I pose this question to the SkyTrain lobby: “Why after being on the market for over 33 years have only seven SkyTrain type systems have been built and why has SkyTrain never been allowed to compete against LRT on a level playing field, in open bidding?”
Thanks for letting me know about the comments on the following website:
It isnai??i??t worth replying to Daryl and friends.Ai?? Some quick comments:
First, TransLink collected ~$1.3 billion from the federal government etAi??Ai?? al and another ~$700 million from In-Transit or private partners (see Source 1Ai??Ai?? and Source 2, below).Ai?? The RAV Line is not making much of any money and TransLink has been lying about theAi??Ai?? 100,000 ai???peopleai??? on board daily (really less than 40,000 people, manyAi??Ai?? transfers generating no income for the RAV Line).Ai?? The $100 million orAi??Ai?? more annually in performance payments for the next 30 years is paying back the private partners for theirAi??Ai?? ai???investmentai???, and the undiscounted cost to TransLink is going to be about $4.5Ai??Ai?? billion after 30 years.Ai?? Ultimately, a financialAi??Ai?? audit is required to find out how much the RAV Line is costing taxpayersAi??Ai?? because TransLink isnai??i??t going to willingly provide thisAi??Ai?? information.
If TransLink had built a LRT Line, instead, the cost would have been noAi??Ai?? more than ~$1.3 billion allowing ~$500 million for the bridge.Ai?? Ridership would have been built up gradually, and the LRT lineAi??Ai?? would have been serving local area transit users.Ai?? It would have hadAi??Ai?? excess capacity and most transit users would have had a seat, even at rushAi??Ai?? hour.Ai?? Revenue from the LRT line would have paid for the operating costsAi??Ai?? and maintenance (possibly with money left over for a profit) as TransLinkAi??Ai?? would have avoided being in the hole $700 million which is going to be repaidAi??Ai?? to the investors of the RAV Line (with a huge premium).
Also, LRT would have avoided the #15 Cambie diesel bus operating alongAi??Ai?? the RAV Line route to feed the RAV Line (TransLink tore down the trolley busAi??Ai?? lines and residents along Cambie Street are furious about the diesel bus noiseAi??Ai?? and pollution but the media wonai??i??t write about it).
Second, the provincial government is forcing SkyTrain onto the mayors as the following terse email from Dianne Watts implies:
ai???From:Watts, Dianne
Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2011 10:04 PM
To: ec
Subject: Re: Is the Vancouver Sun controlled by the provincial government?
They will pull the funding if it is not for Evergreen Line and MRN and Bus expansion.
From: EC
Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2011 09:04 PM
To: pgraham@vancouversun.com <pgraham@vancouversun.com>
Cc: gregor robertson <gregor.robertson@vancouver.ca>; Watts, Dianne; Richard Stewart <rstewart@coquitlam.ca>; Pamela Goldsmith-Jones <pgoldsmith-jones@westvancouver.ca>
Subject: Is the Vancouver Sun controlled by the provincial government?
Patricia,
You are right, it would be prudent for the mayors to take the $1 billion (about $800 million, really) from the provincial and federal governments for transit:
There are no strings attached by the federal government for its portion of the transit grant and there is no requirement for TransLink to build a SkyTrain line. It can simply build a streetcar or LRT line which it can afford and pocket the rest of the $500 million to ai???improveai??? transit for the entire region.
If the provincial government is going to threaten to withdraw its portion for transit in an attempt to force another SkyTrain line like it did with the Canada Line, the mayors can call the provincial governmentai??i??s bluff. The provincial government will fold.
Your continual propaganda favouring SkyTrain transit for the Evergreen line has been despicable. You and your pet transit reporter working for TransLink have never once provided balanced reporting to give people here the facts on transit. You have deliberately ignored the merits of streetcar and LRT transit.
You have never once questioned the credibility of the false information provided by TransLink and have continually published misleading information by TransLink to deceive the public. Thatai??i??s the unfortunate truth.
ecai???
Third, the $9.34 in 2010 is the daily cost perAi??Ai?? rider without taxes subsidizing TransLink (~90% confidenceAi??Ai?? interval as TransLink is not transparent on how it spends itsAi??Ai?? money).Ai?? It refers to the entire transit system and all operatingAi??Ai?? costs ($989 million in expenditures).Ai?? It represents the real cost to putAi??Ai?? someone onto transit for one day on average by TransLink.Ai?? Daryl isAi??Ai?? partly right, here – it might be reduced by at most $119 million if the listedAi??Ai?? roads, bridges and bicycle expenses arenai??i??t integral to transit operationsAi??Ai?? (that is, the expenses arenai??i??t bike racks for buses, busAi??Ai?? loop road modifications or SkyTrain bridge work, for example, seeAi??Ai?? Appendix 2A) to make the daily cost per rider for TransLink at least $8.22 onAi??Ai?? average (still too high):
In future years, the daily cost per rider will veryAi??Ai?? likely increase as 2010 was the year of the Olympics and an anomaly with manyAi??Ai?? more riders than normal (reducing the daily cost per rider forAi??Ai?? TransLink).Ai?? Operating expenditures over the next decade are forecast toAi??Ai?? increase by about 30% which could increase the daily cost per rider to muchAi??Ai?? more than $10 if ridership growth stalls or slows.Ai??Ai?? This isnai??i??tAi??Ai?? unexpected as transit use fluctuates up and down over time.
TransLink collected $690 million in taxes in 2010.Ai??Ai?? There isAi??Ai?? no way that it costs TransLink $660 million annually to operate transit asAi??Ai?? Daryl suggests.
Fourth, if there is any uncertainty aboutAi?? theAi??Ai?? degradation of the air quality from TransLinkai??i??s excessive use of diesel busesAi??Ai?? on SkyTrain routes, an environmental impact assessment would clear theAi??Ai?? air.Ai?? The relationship between diesel exhaust and cancer is wellAi??Ai?? known:
Fifth, the B-Line carries about 20,000 people daily (~500 trips averaging about 30 to 40 people per trip) with about 60,000 boardings from the same 20,000 people.Ai?? On weekends, summers and holidays it is about one-half this.Ai?? If ICBC counted drivers like TransLink counts transit users, there would be 7 million drivers for the 2.4 million population in Metro-Vancouver.
The B-Line has nothing to do with fast and reliable service.Ai?? From 6 am to 7:30 am on a two minute schedule, the B-Line operates (along Broadway with stop signs every few blocks) with almost no one on board before the UBC students roll out of bed.Ai?? TransLink has lots of money and can afford to operate empty buses every two minutes.Ai?? From about 8 am most buses to UBCAi?? are packed while the ones returning to Commercial Drive are ai???not in serviceai??? and totally empty.Ai?? At the same time, no one is using the #9 trolley buses operating on a 10 minute schedule.
If TransLink operated all buses to UBC (there are over 10 bus routes to UBC) at the same frequency (two minute or 10 minute, for instance), there wouldnai??i??t be any overcrowding on the B-Line to UBC and the B-Line would not be carrying about one-third of the students going to UBC.Ai?? However, TransLink is creating the overcrowding to make it seem as if transit by TransLink is ai???putting people on transitai??? and to purposely create the ai???overcrowding problemai??? so that it can offer the solution:Ai?? $3.5 billion for a SkyTrain route!
TransLink is merely stealing riders from trolley bus routes and increasing carbon emissions by 5,000 tonnes annually without increasing ridership with the B-Line service.Ai?? It is also impairing the health of residents with toxic PM.Ai?? This is so that the bureaucrats earning $20,000 monthly to $30,000 monthly at TransLink can spend the next 20 years doing studies and providing grants to UBC economics professors to prove that SkyTrain is economical.Ai?? If TransLink built a streetcar line to UBC, it would take one year and cost about $300 million, but then we wouldnai??i??t need TransLink…
It is getting late… the rest of Darylai??i??s post is just more gibberish.
ec
http://www.rockantenne.de/webplayer/?playchannel=alternative
Source 1:
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Source 2:
