Here We Go Again!
BROADWAY IS NOT THE BUSIEST TRANSIT ROUTE IN CANADA
It seems trouble is brewing on Broadway, buildings are sagging and media keeps repeating the TransLink and City of Vancouver’s nonsense that Broadway is the busiest transit route in North America.
Well it isn’t and never was and my guess is that TransLink, the provincial NDP and the CoV are softening up the taxpayer for some bad fiscal news about the now $2.7 billion, 5.7 km Broadway Subway.
The clincher is this; according to Thales News Release announcing thew $1.49 billion re-signalling contract;
The government of Canada, the government of British Columbia, and the region have committed to investing $C 1.47bn ($US 1.1bn) in the Expo and Millennium Line Upgrade Programme until 2027.
When the programme is fully implemented, the Expo Line will be able to accommodate 17,500 passengers per hour per direction, and the Millennium Line will be able to handle 7500 passengers per hour per direction, a 32% and 96% increase respectively.
A maximum capacity of only 7,500 pphpd on the Millennium Line (Broadway subway) supposedly busiest transit corridor in North America? Is Broadway the busiest transit corridor in North America, I think not.
An updated RftV repost.
Broadway
BROADWAY IS NOT THE BUSIEST TRANSIT ROUTE IN CANADA
For the past several years, the SkyTrain Lobby, politicians and academics have all said, almost in unison, that Broadway was the busiest transit corridor in Canada, if not North America.
The old Joseph Goebbels quote is true; “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
Thus for the past several years the big Broadway lie, enabled by TransLink has ingrained the notion that Broadway is the most heavily transit route in Canada.
Fact Check!
According to the TTC’s Fall 2022 data, these routes are busier than Broadway 99B Bus Route:
(data is from Translink and the TTC)99 B 35,800 Boardings (Fall 2022)
King 514 A&B Streetcar: 48,900 Boardings (Fall 2022)
Queen 501Streetcar: 37,400 Boardings (Fall 2022)
Finch West 36 Bus: 36,900 (Fall 2022)
Lawrence West 52: 36,100 (Fall 2022)
In a letter to several news organizations, all metro mayors and other interested parties, I laid the foundation that Broadway was not the busiest transit route in Canada .
Stung by this, TransLink wrote a letter to myself and in a round about way claimed that Broadway “is our region’s most overcrowded bus route.”
No apology and not even a hint of remorse, TransLink continues to boast about Broadway!
Finally, on January 31, 2019, you contacted several news organizations and this Secretariat raising concerns over TransLink’s assertion that the 99 B-Line is the busiest bus route in the US and Canada. TransLink is confident in its data collection and peer comparisons, noting that the 99 B-Line route on the Broadway Corridor moves 60,000 customers per day on articulated buses running every three minutes at peak times. This is our region’s most overcrowded bus route. Pass ups are already common, as our regular riders on that route are fully aware. TransLink projects that the 99 B-Line from Arbutus to UBC will be at capacity in the peak when the Millennium Line extension from Commercial-Broadway to Arbutus opens.
Just a minor footnote, according to TransLink the 99B moves about 70,000 customers a day, but of course that is both ways, as TransLink slyly tries to once again inflate the real ridership on Broadway.
Why?
The big prize is the now $2.7 billion Broadway SkyTrain subway to Arbutus and TransLink does not want the truth to upset the subway bulldozer!
The MIllennium seems a bit of a waste!
Even if the statement about Broadway being the busiest in Canada is true, why such a discrepancy between the contract for the signaling system and the current claimed daily ridership of 60,000 per day. The signalling system is designed to max out in peak hour capacity 7,500 p/h/d, that means your planning for a line that will move roughly 105,000 – 135,000 passengers per day. If your present bus corridor is actually moving 60000 per day, that’s roughly 3,300 – 4,500 p/h/d during the busiest point of the peak hour, and I’m being very generous. That’s a busway or a very light surface LRT line.
Montreal’s surface Busway is designed to handle twice that number per day (approximately 120,000). It cost, including cost overruns, $535 Million for 17 km, including a major bridge over a large river. That street doesn’t need a tunnel it needs better bus system management. Broadway is just as wide as Pie IX Blvd. Your going to spend anywhere from $4-$6 Billion for a 6 – 7 km long tunnel extension. MONEY YOU DONT HAVE, to extend the Millennium Line to U.B.C., to move half the daily passenger traffic Montreal’s Pie IX Busway is designed to move. This line is being built for purposes other than transport. After all this time it still doesn’t make sense.
I know the bus you are ridding is probably full and it feels like a Skytrain extension would be so much better but a massively expensive tunnel isn’t the answer, considering the small numbers your actually currently moving.
I do not believe that not on of the mayor’s sitting on the Mayor’s council actually understands signalling. They all seem to believe the simplistic, operating more cars, will increase ridership. Fact is not one of the politcans involved actually has a clue how a transit system operates. It is just, we need a few billion more to put things right!
Quote: The Millennium seems a bit of a waste!
The Millennium Line is a NDP Glen Clark/Joy McPhail project.
Originally, the Millennium Line was the Broadway/Lougheed Rapid Transit project which was supposed to run from Coquitlam to Arbutus (hence the Arbutus terminus for the Broadway Subway. Political inducements (a fabrication plant to assemble MK.2 cars) to the NDP compelled them to switch from light rail to SkyTrain.
The Evergreen line was the uncompleted line to Coquitlam. The total cost of the Millennium Line is now well over four times of that of the original LRT planning, but with LRT having a much higher capacity.
Laden demand for an east-west connection between the EXPO and M line to the Canada line instead of the waterfront connection. Buses are unpredictable in rush hour. One way trip between 4-15 min reduced travel time. 99-b line all day service 60,000-70,000 boring in 2019 (Both directions) Was most heavily used bus route in CAD and USA. Outbeating New York and TTC Par boarding on a bus route. Yes Street car or LRT will have more boardings than the bus whenever in North America. But a bus route serving the same amount of people as an LRT is not ideal. At this point in time, Translink cannot add another mode like LRT without adding confusion and delay. The bus route is only rated between 2000-2500 People per direction per hour. For SkyTrain They like to use 4 people per square meter Instead of the universal 6 people per square meter. I could talk about the connections. And how much more time could save but I don’t think you guys would listen.
Zwei replies: Actually you are full of BS. You haven’t a clue what you are talking about and you repeat Translink’s politically inspired exaggerations as fact.
Everything you claim is not based on fact. You do not know what LRT is and yes, we don’t listen to trolls or armchair experts, who rant on discord. Sorry.
I actually have data from CUTA and others, so does Translink. They consciously omit them. They do this because they are DESPERATE to justify OVERSPENDING ON THE SKYTRAIN FOR THEIR DEVELOPMENT POTENTIAL. Even though this type tower development generally doesn’t produce housing most can afford or easily support with infrastructure, especially if your the City of Vancouver.
In 2019 for example the M5 in Manhattan moved 86,000 per day. The King Street Streetcar Route 507 A & B (the route 514 was my mistake) was 84,000 per day. Technically, Rideau Street corridor in Ottawa (2016 in this case) moved 75,000 passengers a day. That’s not even on Ottawa’s Transitway Network.
A BRT Busway could EASILY have been put on Broadway that would handle 120000 – 130000 passengers per day. Please, before you contradict me Legoman, I do this for a living. Again there were no limitations due to width. Just absolutely no desire from the people who operate the buses for Translink. Their management is terrible, I been to Vancouver, I have seen what could be done, they just refused to do it. It would be simple to build, much simpler than a double bored tunnel for small gadgetbahn trains.
In most cities daily passenger levels of 130,000 -150,000 are required before surface BRT or LRT operate at a lower efficiency than any tunneled right of way. The only reason to adopt tunnels below this level is if there are physical or policy reasons which make surface operations difficult or impossible. Broadway doesn’t have that problem.
The Eglinton Crosstown LRT for example, required a tunnel because the road right of way on the central portion of Eglinton Ave East & West was laid down as a residential main street in the 1870’s and 1880’s. Main Street yes, but a mostly residential one (52 ft. instead of the standard 66 ft.). There was simply no room for a surface LRT right of way and a full 13 foot vehicle lane, plus curb stopping space. In the few places that streetcars ever operated on Eglinton Ave., the various streetcar companies, specifically the Toronto Civic Railway and the Toronto Suburban Railway, were forced to physically widen the entire street right of way at their cost.
Davis Drive in New Market and Pie IX Boulevard are the same width as Broadway, notice how BRT and potentially surface LRT can fit in and move the same number as your going to move on Broadway even with the latent demand. You don’t need a tunnel or an above grade right of way to effectively move them. The surface right of way is cheaper to maintain and operate. Not really any slower if you add in the extra time to have to enter stations from too few entrances, go up and down stairs because the last time I visited Vancouver’s Skytrain most of your escalating devices were consistently turned off.
https://www.stm.info/en/about/major_projects/major-bus-projects/pie-ix-brt
https://urbantoronto.ca/news/2015/12/vivas-davis-drive-rapidway-now-open-newmarket.18793
There are many corridors where ridership is high enough to warrant upgrading.
From Local Bus to Express Bus to BRT to LRT to Regional Rail to a subway
Each corridor should be analysed properly.
The analysis for the Broadway/ Lougheed corridor was done in the 1980s/90s and LRT came on top.
Predictable headways of 2 or 3 minutes on SkyTrain are predictable and reliable because there is no mixing in traffic like buses and trams have to do. I am happy the 99 is going to be replaced, at least part of the way, I regret that the continuation to UBC is not funded. If there was a way to build a tram to UBC that did not have to deal with red lights or traffic, then I would be all for it, but there isn’t, its going to be grade separated and that is what makes skytrain a success.
Zwei replies: Trams do not actually stop at “red lights” as they control the lights; this is called preemptive signalling. Actually SkyTrain is not a success, with only 7 such systems built in 44 years and only 6 remain in operation. No sales since 2005; 6 marketing name changes (SkyTrain is the name of the light metro system and was chosen in a radio contest) and 4 owners, tells the tale.
Over 80% of ridership first take a bus and there is no verified claim of modal shift from car to transit. The huge costs to extend the system has doomed it to become nothing more than a curiosity, where the vast majority of riders are forced to transfer onto it.
Over 40 years of Yellow Journalism about the light metro has created the SkyTrain myth and like all myths, the reality is something quite different.
I will add this, grade separation is a man of straw argument that light rail easily dispels as modern LRT outperforms SkyTrain in all areas, which is another reason no one wants this now obsolete proprietary railway.
Boarding average for Monday to Friday
99 bus 57,240 and 9 bus 23,240 = 80,480 Boarding 2019 on Broadway
M5 8,657 Boarding 2019
M15 46,078 Boarding 2019
36 Finch West 47,300 Boarding 2018 no new or updated number for TTC(I can Find)
I’m not here to disagree with a bus way, BRT or light rail with executed and maintained examples of their respective modes.
Only took 40 years for Skytrain to be at Medium capacity metro once new trains running on the Expo Line. Once a route is at capacity there is no growth new customers or development. If 80s Modern LRT like C- train or ETS would be at its capacity limit of technology at least for the EXPO line.
By your own definition, Finch shouldn’t get an LRT. It’s getting upgraded long before it will be at that capacity or daily ridership number. No different than the Broadway. Only difference is a land use plan to accompany this rapid transit expansion. Housing density and transit work really well in tandem of better economic scale to development and growth Translink is playing the long game on meeting ridership and demands for the region. Only transit authority in Canada that is regulated to manage overcrowding and capacity. Skytrain is chosen over and over again because of its height reliability and Low to high capacity if needed. With demand and the network benefit once Broadway project is done obviously more ridership than expected. 2020 bc Government expected 108,000 First year of operation. 2023 Translink is expecting 130,000-150,000 First year of operation. And Vancouver city By-law ban skytrain being elevated in the downtown core. (For some reason it’s dumb).or National security of Bomb Shelter?
Zwei replies: Well Mr. TransLink, you continue to show everyone you haven’t a clue about transit. I will be kind and just say, Mr. Cow is a professional (I know this by correspondence) and you are an Avatar, who cherry picks what numbers you want to use.
I will add this, you haven’t a clue about LRT, you should read a boo on the subject.
Legoman the difference is Finch West will move 50,000 – 75,000 (not the tiny 46,000 claimed) daily within 3 to 5 years of opening, the TTC simply doesn’t have the buses or enough drivers, Translink does.
Which is something the Coast Mountain Bus Company officials admitted when the engineering and planning firm I worked for toured there. It was costing a fortune for them to bring anywhere near enough buses from their bus garages. We offered our system and route platooning/repositioning planning for their fleet. There fleet systems couldn’t manage the buses needed without taking out the Trolley Bus fleet and rebuilding a whole new garage for that service. We showed them that what they were doing wasn’t necessary and it could be done with options like forward basing and staff shuttles. Not to mention several rail yard owners offered them their yard spaces near the Broadway corridor which would have cut their yearly operating costs by 30% and made it easier for the bus operators to start and end their shifts there, very close to the Broadway corridor, instead of having to travel to a far off bus garage.
Anyway I digress, the heavy daily car and truck traffic on Finch West made anything other than BRT or surface LRT unfeasible. Surface LRT allowed for the replacement of 75 to 100 local buses from the Finch West 36 bus and several other parallel routes moved to other critically bus short areas, not to mention being replaced by a total fleet of only18 LRV’s and 15 operators are needed at peak.
The other big issue was with the 77,000 students at Humber College’s North Campus and nowhere near enough Toronto or Miway (Mississauga Transit) buses to serve them. The students have been underserved for years but a BRT line would require more buses than were available for either transit services. The traffic being so bad that only a small fraction of the students could be served by transit. Plus the local transit connection to Pearson Airport, via the new surface Transit facility and right of way being built there would be better served by surface LRT.
Then add in the planned future connection by surface LRT from Finch West Station east, through Finch Staion (Yonge Street Line) towards Seneca College’s Newnham Campus at Finch East between Don Mills and Hwy. 404, serving their 23,000 full time and 26,000 part time students. This line will eventually meet an extension to the planned Ontario Line from Eglinton and Don Mills, north to Finch East and Don Mills. This particular location will also have a BRT Busway (a VIVA Rapidway actually) operated by VIVA and the TTC running north on Don Mills to Hwy. 7 existing Rapidway.
The simple fact Toronto isn’t building an unneeded tunnel at $2.83 Billion +for 5.7 km, aka, phase 1 and at the least, $5.033 Billion for 7 km of phase 2 to UBC, like Translink wants to. They are building an affordable surface LRT system (11 km for $1.3 Billion in capital costs and $1.2 Billion for the 30 year contract) that will potentially, with extensions in the future, link 3 subway lines (2 Heavy 1 Light), 2 Community College Campuses (with over 100,000 combined students), 2 Go Train Lines and the northern portion of downtown North York (45,000 area residents 2 broadway theatres, 18,000 jobs in 2021).
By the way the LRT costs includes the 18 Light Rail Vehicles, whereas Vancouver’s costs don’t include the trains.
Finch west LRT glorified bus upgrade. We have 5 min frequency or 3,480 ppdph(people per 6 square meter) on opening later this year and not reducing travel time to the post-secondary education. The line is also designed to maximum 15,000 pphpd(People per 6 square meter). Finch East LRT has been canceled. Still a stubby section of route 36. Instead of the TTC hiring more bus drivers. leave that up to the contractor to hire train operators of LRV. It’s not closing the gap in between the top part of Line 1 together.
The sky train will be closing the gap between Canada line and EXPO line. Broadway extension save people few minutes on their commute every day and frequent at 120 seconds with MK 2 7,500 pphpd(People per 4 square meter) or 10,000 pphpd( People 6 per square meter)
A comparison between a Finch west LRT and Broadway SkyTrain Extension is both rail rapid transit projects. SkyTrain Improvement to service. LRT Capacity increase of 36 bus routes.
Phase 2 last estimate for the broadway extension to UBC at $3.3 B 2022. And till we get a cost update from the business case. That’s supposed to be released this year or next year?
Zwei replies: Pure nonsense I am afraid. I have been told by a local engineer that the Broadway subway will be a minimum of $5 billion. Right now, Translink has a subsidence problem that they are trying to deflect and a host of other ills, which the mainstream media do not report on.
Also, rail rapid transit is a politcal term to masquerade what SkyTrain is and that is a light metro and Translink does not want want to admit that LRT made light metro obsolete years ago. In my book, people who use the term rail rapid transit are charlatans.
Update budget cost of operations for the next 3 years of the LRT Finch West and Eglinton Crosstown $330M 2024-2026. Annual cost if it was split evenly is $55 Million. But I would think it would be 1/3 of Finch west $36.6 M and 2/3 Eglinton Crosstown so $73.3 M
And the Eglinton Crosstowns max capacity 30,000 ppdph(people per 6 square meter)
Zwei replies: The problem with TransLink trolls is that they just post nonsense to make it look important. As i know who Mr. cow is and where he works and what he does for a living, but not you, I will take what Mr. cow says over your mutterings any time.
No one actually used 6 persons/m2 in North America because it cannot be obtained. Even 4 persons/m2 is a recipe for customer unhappiness. I have been told by an American Engineer in Baltimore that they measure capacity at 5 persons per yard (metre) length of car thus a 60 foot car would have a capacity of 100 people and this is because in the USA, customers demand seats and refuse to stand.
It is a mistake, talking off the cuff about transit schemes in other parts of Canada and the world, because one lack local knowledge. Pulling figures from the ‘net’, with out local input makes for mistakes and miscalculations.
Why does the millennium line have lower capacity than expo line?
It cost more to build and have same station design as expo line.
Lougheed and production way stations serve both lines. Yes, you can take expo train from production way to waterfront.
The extension to arbutus opening in 2025 will replace two bus routes #84 & 99.
#84 bus starts at vcc station to pick up ubc students. This will wiil be redundant in 2025.
Why build stations with 80 meter platforms and only use half of it?
It makes no sense.
Burnaby is concentrating its development near stations.
Zwei Replies: My guess is, to save money on the then called Evergreen Line, that capacity was limited to about 4,000 pphpd to save signalling costs. When the Evergreen line was cascaded into the Millennium Line, the lesser capacity ruled.
Also, from what I heard about, Translink doesn’t expect much in ridership increase after the Broadway subway opens and thus OK’ed Thales to limit capacity to 7,500 pphpd to save money. Translink is cash strapped at the moment and is cutting costs and corners with abandon.
The peak hour capacity of the 99B is a mere 2,000 pphpd and less for the 84 bus about 400 pphpd. Subway are notorious fro not attracting ridership.
Hi Supergrass, Zwei knows this but the Millennium line theoretical capacity is not currently significantly different than the Expo line. What is different is the actual capacity which is based on the frequency and size (type) of vehicles currently running. Currently it is running 2 car Mark Is on relatively (for Skytrain) low frequency. The joint portion of the line will have the same capacity as the Expo line.
Zwei replies: Sorry Wrong! According to the Thales TransLink contract the Millennium Line will have a maximum capacity of only 7,500.
According to the Thales/TransLink contract: When the programme is fully implemented, the Expo Line will be able to accommodate 17,500 passengers per hour per direction, and the Millennium Line will be able to handle 7500 passengers per hour per direction, a 32% and 96% increase respectively.
I get so tired repeating this. Capacity isn’t just the number of passengers x frequency over a unit of time! That’s actually wrong! Doing it this way is mathematically easy but it makes the mistake that effectively, nobody leaves the train over the given time period. You have to include passenger turn over, while traveling a given length of line per time unit.
Also, how quickly passengers leave and enter the vehicle, seriously effects capacity. A 2 car train with 14 doors per side (7 doors per car) moves a lot more passengers in and out at a far quicker rate than a similar sized 2 car train with only 6 doors (3 per car). Especially, if the stations are larger as well. Thus the stops are shorter which decreases travel time.
Acceleration rate and top speed also have a big effect on capacity. For example, Ottawa’s LRV’s accelerate 25% faster (1.42m/s squared) than the Skytrain (1.1 m/s squared). The top speed is another factor, due to the fact that the Citadis Spirit LRV’s on Ottawa’s Confederation Line have seriously overpowered motors, they are 20 km/h faster than the standard Citadis LRV. Again, these measurements significantly shortens end to end travel time, thus the capacity is different..
I learned early on that capacity is measured in many ways.
Translink and BC Transit have weaponized capacity for 40 years. The city od Vancouver has doubled down in claiming that trams (LRT) can’t carry more than 7,000 to 8,000 pphpd, yet there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. In the USA capacity tends to be measured at so many people per 3 foot of length of car because in the United states customers demand a seat and not stand. In Vancouver it is the opposite where seats are reduced to increase the number of spaces for standees.
Also this is worth considering, ridership is increasing, but the percentage of population taking transit is dropping. I am pushing 69 and just about all my contemporary’s do not use transit because of the shoddy way the transit system treats customers and they do not feel safe anymore. I know one lady who has taken transit to Vancouver for 40 years and she has stopped as she was verbally abused on a bus by a drunk and when she phoned to complained she was told “so what?”
Just a few weeks back I heard a government cabinet minister claim that SkyTrain had the highest capacity of any transit system in North America and when i tried to contact the radio station I was ignored.