How The NDP Paved Paradise and Turned It Into a Parking Lot. A Repost From 2020
This is a repost of a November 2020 blog post.
The estimated cost for a 21.7 km extension of the Millennium Line (Broadway subway) and the Expo Line (Surrey – Langley extension) is now past $11 billion.
The NDP are setting in motion a highway’s only planning for the future, doubling down on BC’s famous blacktop politics.
In the age of Global Warming and climate change and all the climate change disasters that have befallen BC, this pure politcal madness, so cynical, it defies imagination.
From November 2020……………………
The NDP’s refusal to give Metro Vancouver’s transit planning an independent review has condemned the region to congestion and gridlock for generations. The billions of dollars spent on rapid transit and the future billions of dollars to be spent expanding rapid transit has and will utterly fail to attract the driver from his/her cars.
The continued planning and building of obsolete light-metro, especially the now called Movia Automatic Light Metro (MALM) system, used on the Expo and Millennium Lines, has condemned the taxpayer to ever increasing ‘transit’ taxes, high fares and onerous user fess.
Breaking News: Mobility or congestion charging is now back on the table to pay for TransLink’s and the Mayor’s Council on Transit’s largess.
The continued use of the now obsolete light-metro, means that the region has now past the point of no return for transit being effective in moving people and the family chariot becomes essential for urban mobility.
How the hell did we get here?
The Broadway Subway
The Broadway subway to Arbutus, is based on the 1990’s Broadway – Lougheed Rapid Transit Project, which saw a planned LRT line being built from Arbutus in Vancouver, east to the Tri-Cities. At the time, the plan was to use light rail on the Arbutus Corridor, giving a direct Richmond to downtown Vancouver light rail service and having the proposed Broadway light rail connecting would give many advantages to transit customers.
The NDP flip-flopped from LRT to Bombardier’s new proprietary Advanced Rapid Transit (ART) system, which was a rebuild of the older Advanced Light Rail Transit (ALRT) system used on the Expo Line. Bombardier Inc. purchased the Ontario Crown Corporation’s Urban Transit Development Corporation (UTDC) at a fire sale price after Lavalin, which originally bought the UTDC, went bankrupt trying to sell the again renamed Advanced Light Metro (ALM), in Bangkok, Thailand. Lavalin returned the UTDC to the Ontario Government and then amalgamated with SNC, to become SNC Lavalin. The Ontario government quickly sold the remains of the UTDC to Bombardier Inc.
The NDP naively purchased ART and forced it onto the GVRD, when Bombardier promised to build an assembly plant in Burnaby for ART cars, with promises of major international sales and many union jobs.
Union jobs, you say? The NDP were all over that!
To sell a ART light metro to the GVRD, the NDP government promised to sweeten the deal by paying to two thirds the cost of ART only construction West of Commercial Drive. The City of Vancouver passed a by-law banning elevated construction and the only option for the driverless light metro was to place it in a subway. Then GVRD Chair and Vancouver Councilor, George Puil, was then offered to be Chair of the newly formed TransLink as a further inducement to build with the proprietary ART light-metro.
The international sales for ART did not materialize; the fabrication plant has been abandoned; union jobs gone; but subway planning continued.
Premier Horgan’s chief advisor; big subway booster and former Vision Vancouver Councillor Geoff Meggs, ensured the Broadway subway was made a transit priority. The problem it’s being built on a route with not even close to the ridership numbers that would demand a subway.
Broadway is not the busiest transit route in Canada, rather according to TransLink, it is their most congested route, which sounds more like a management problem than anything else.
The Broadway subway is now an integral part of the NDP’s election strategy and the City of Vancouver’s desire to be seen as world class, yet being part of the Millennium Line will offer no real advantages to transit customers, except making transit more cumbersome to use. The subway, when built will be force fed bus riders from many routes to pretend the subway is carrying high numbers , just as the Canada and Expo Lines do.
The subway will not reduce congestion.
The Fleetwood Extension
As the potential ridership numbers in Surrey did not warrant a “SkyTrain” extension TransLink was forced kicking and screaming to plan for light rail for BC’s second largest city. TransLink did everything in its power to increase costs, delay planning and in the end, designed the Surrey LRT not as a true tram system, rather a “poor man’s” SkyTrain, doomed to fail in the public’s mind.
Then enter the the 2018 civic elections and the former mayor of Surrey running again for mayor, claimed he was some sort of transit guru and ran on a platform of doing a flip flop from LRT to SkyTrain, and he won.
Shades of the Broadway Lougheed!
Building driverless light metro at grade creates the “Berlin Wall” effect.
His claim about building SkyTrain for the same cost of LRT soon turned out to be ‘porkies’, but TransLink, the provincial and federal governments all approved and SkyTrain it was for Surrey, but not to Langley, but just to Fleetwood, a mere 7 km extension.
The funded costs for the Broadway subway and the Fleetwood extension is $4.6 billion and if there is any money left over, an aerial tramway in Burnaby going to Simon Fraser University.
The problem is for the NDP and Metro Vancouver is that SkyTrain is a classic light metro
Light metro was a 1960’s/70’s transit innovation, before the 1980’s light rail renaissance and was an attempt to to build a small metro type system, much cheaper than a heavy rail metro. The main characteristics were elevated construction (about half the cost of subway construction), small trains operating a close intervals, and automatic (driverless) operation.
Light rail could achieve everything a light metro could do at a cheaper cost and more. By the 1990’s, light metro was deemed obsolete and as most light-metro’s were proprietary, such as Vancouver’s ALRT and later rebranded ART, obsolescence has come quickly.
With light metro, came light metro ‘philosophy’, the raison d’etre for building it.
Many academics at UBC and SFU provided one; densification. Rapid Transit (no one in Metro Vancouver calls our light metro system, light metro) is to be built on routes where densification is to be allowed.
Rapid transit was to be a driver for land development, by up-zoning land to build high rise condos and towers.
Rapid transit ceased to become a cost effective and user friendly transportation tool, rather it was built as a harbinger of densification. And with densification, came land speculation, land assembly and land development. Politicians soon jumped on the bandwagon for rapid transit and light-metro because it made their political friends and insiders very happy and very rich.
The transit customer, not so much, as to pretend that rapid transit was successful, bus customers, were forced to transfer to rapid transit and the vast majority, over 80% of SkyTrain’s ridership, first take the bus and that translates into boarding’s as the average transit commuter makes 4 to 6 boarding’s a day!
The Ghost of Transit Costs to Come
What has been ignored by TransLink, the SkyTrain Booster Club, politicians and academics is that rapid transit comes at a cost.
Funded:
– $4.6 billion for 12.8 km of R/T Line
Unfunded:
– $1.6 billion+ To complete the Expo Line to Langley.
– Up to $3 billion to rehab the aging Expo Line (needed before the Langley extension is completed).
– $1 billion+ – New SkyTrain cars to replace the aging MK.1 stock.
Wish List:
– $4 billion+ – Completion of the Broadway subway to UBC
– $5 billion+ – Sending R/T to the North Shore.
– $2 billion+ – Rehab of the Canada Line to increase capacity beyond its current limit of around 9,000 pphpd.
Honourable Mention:
$70 million+ in extra annual operating costs for the funded subway to Arbutus and Fleetwood extension.
Pandora’s Box of Costs:
The 50 year rehab, finance, operational and capital costs of the SkyTrain light-metro system.
The 50 year costs for SkyTrain are never mentioned and for good reason, they are huge.
The NDP, by supporting further light-metro construction has condemned the region to a very small and very expensive light metro system, ill designed for suburban use.
The small network will mean that it will not be a competitive option for car drivers, nor will it be user friendly. The small light metro cars will be expensive to maintain, uncomfortable for longer journey’s and definitely not user friendly; and that is to be expected because rapid transit has been designed to meet the needs of politicians and their political friends and not for the transit customer.
The result of the NDP’s transit hubris will be more cars on the road, more congestion and more gridlock at classic choke points, such as bridges. More car use will bring demands of more roads and highways, only creating more gridlock and the vicious circle will continue because at a minimum cost of $200 million per km to build, the taxpayer will only be able to afford a short light-metro line every decade.
Rail for the Valley offered a decade ago a viable transportation solution for the Fraser Valley, to reinstate the Vancouver to Chilliwack interurban service, using modern vehicles such as TramTrain or light diesel multiple units. The cost in 2020, around $1.5 billion for over 135 km of route mileage, connecting Vancouver to north Delta, Cloverdale, Langley, Abbotsford, Sardis and Chilliwack, and also connecting the many post secondary institutions and business parks along the route.
For less than the cost of the Expo line extension to Fleetwood, we could have had a much longer passenger line, connecting to many destinations; a transit service that would attract more new ridership than a 7 km SkyTrain extension or a 5.8 km subway under Broadway.
Sadly, for the NDP, just like the BC Liberals, rapid transit is being built to meet their political needs and not the transit customer needs and by doing so, ensuring that the auto is the prime transportation mode in the region.
Don’t it always seem to go
That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone?
The NDP have paved paradiseAnd turned it into a parking lot.
No childish responses like: No other city wanted to buy xxx of xxx or Any headway greater than 5 Are useless or It’s Petitory And costly upgrades.
Quite a bit of projects For the Lower mainland then Rest of the province. Translink works more closely with the mayors. The problem is BC transit and City councilsis not working together on regional plans
Current skytrain upgrade.
Electrical system is getting more Transformers, not upgraded or replacements
New operations and maintenance are existing OMC 1 and 2
New computer system Expo and Manennium line Increase speed and reliability.( Set up 90 Seconds to 75 or 60 Second Still operate with 2 minute Frequency)
New escalators
Platform barriers of some sort have the retirement of MK 1
New Mk 5 Order
Langley extension of skytrain
The skytrain extensions allow for bus services to be reworked for Surrey and Langley. In turn, increased frequency on all bus services in the area. It will save countless hours of travel time for transit users. Bus services expensive part of a transportation in the lower mainland or any transit system. impact the opportunist transit customer. And yes, there’s TOD You can poke your holes in. Something something land cost. Current contracts 4.01 Billion.
A Broadway Subway project.
This project is to expand the downtown core Vancouver. Important connection to the Canada line and major destinations along the corridor as well. Transfer customer options approach entering or leaving Vancouver Core. Along with improving travel times. Along with the You’re replacing the 99 B bus. It’s been a long way to get funding for the project.
Burnaby mountain gondola. (SFU Gondola)
To be completed before the extension to Broadway. Gondolas Faster than a bus or a street car (LRV) In elevations. Saving commuters a lot of hours up-and-down the mountain. Also to boot have wonderful views Of the Lower mainland.
The Cross City line.( Multi-line)
Connecting the North Shore to Burnaby.
Connections to Park Royal, Phibbs Exchange, Kootenay Loop, Burnaby hospital, BCIT and Metro Town. This line will fill a major gap in the transit mesh of the Lower mainland. Currently, this project is in the planning stages. Not a larger details.
Hopefully they can start it right after the Broadway extension.
Canada line Improve service?
I don’t know if there is any plans or any information on any changes to the P3 contract.
Capital cost of operations of skytrain
Average for automated Driver list train systems. But Canada line costs more to maintain. Either do to Heavier rolling stock or the P3 operations or Complexity higher maintenance efforts. Until we get a report of a breakdown of the costs between the differences of these Heavy rail and light rail. Cost of operations, maintenance, and infrastructure. Open the air and open to speculation and guessing.
Highway one whitening.
Stupid project that will have 10 lanes.
They’re the dedicated: HOV Lane, Commercial truck lane and Bus only lane. Fraser Valley Langley, Abbotsford and Chilliwack.
You’re putting your money into the highway Adding more fuel to the fire that is Highway 1.
I call a bunch of PS on user on friendliness of skytrain. Up or down stairs or escalators won’t kill you!! Announcements Keep you updated on what’s going on we have skytrain. The signage is in plain English And Has pictures point you in the right direction.
You had a lot to talk about and so do I.
*Is it just me or the other Light rail projects having difficulty On time and on budget. In Canada* My grammar is not that good. Sorry if anything seems a bit out of place.
Zwei replies: You are kidding right?
The electrical system on the Expo line is nearing 40 years old and must be replaced, as are the transformers. The electrical system must be upgraded to handle more cars on the system to achieve the predicted 17,500 pphpd.
The OMC #5 must be in operation before the the extension to Langley opens. All the NDP did was split the project into two: 1) guideway; 2) OMC#5.
The re-signalling on the Expo and Millennium Lines, will, according to Thales News Release; “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.”
No contract has been signed for the Expo Line extension to Langley, the estimate is merely last years cost estimate and with inflation it is bound to increase.
Te Broadway subway will terminate at Arbutus and no extension into the downtown core is planned.
Absolutely no funding for the daft gondola to SFU or any other R/T line.
As for the 10 lane highway plan, they will just move gridlock to the choke points.
As for the light rail projects you mention, it seems there are issues with the Alstom cars in Ottawa due to the lack of any commissioning time and the P-3 maintenance agreement. Remember the line is a hybrid light-metro with full automatic operation and automatic operation does not work well in snow.
There is a reason no one builds with or wants to plan and build with MALM (SkyTrain is the name of the regional light-metro system) and the failure to recognize why is costing the taxpayer about three times more for transit projects than they should pay!
By the way, I have been warned that inflation will increase costs dramatically.
Thales News Release not Capacity or frequency. For writing and New SelTrac™, Automated Storage OMC 4, Current extensions and further extensions. No mention of OMC 5. Same hardware: Santiago, Chile, London, England, and Doha, Qatar. In Canada, Thales will deliver this VOBC solution as part of the Toronto Transit Commission’s new Finch West
I think that you’re ‘When the upgrade programme is fully implemented, the Expo Line will be able to move 17,500 passengers per hour per direction, and the Millennium Line will be able to move 7,500 passengers per hour per direction. This represents a 32 and 96 per cent increase respectively over the existing capacity’ from.
https://www.railwaypro.com/wp/on-board-controllers-for-vancouver-new-skytrain-vehicles/#:~:text=When%20the%20upgrade%20programme%20is,respectively%20over%20the%20existing%20capacity.
No push release of the statement from Thales. The statement is made up and is a guess on future capacity.
Vancouver Core is Broadway being a part of that Downtown Vancouver.
Translink Expanding revenue resources to one time projects.( Infrastructure)
New R/T line In the planning stages. Funding approve for construction or Surveying.
Electric Transformers are good between 30-50 Replace After the 40 year mark Less effective. I can see some of the original content Replace. New ones in between the existing Transformer.
Issue and problems.
TTC Eggleton costtown or ETS Valley line.
Alstom said they could do perfect solution for Qttawa.
Zwei replies: The wiring is shot on the Expo line. Capacity is a function of headway my friend and Thales is somewhat innocent of the politcal nature of the Capacity and frequency cliche’s so over used by those supporting SkyTrain.
By the way, the teething problems with the Expo Line lasted into the 1990’s and with the local media in bed with TransLin k and the SkyTrain lobby, no negative reporting took place.
I will state again, only 7 systems sold; 6 rebrandings; and no sales since 2005 of what is now called MALM, gives a good indication that the system is way past its “best by date”.
Capacity is a suggestion. The system has been crafted around a user Experience in the future. You may look at it as a machine, but others see a friend. I made a poem. I think? help!
Skytrain is my shiny rock bit rough but making a smooth going on 40 years and being the first fully automatic line. People said it was on a cutting edge for it’s time. A future for all cities to follow. People around the world came. saw. and said it wouldn’t work for us. Hearing that the limb motors and being told steer trucks is the way to go. It can go straight down streets or wind around the city Anyway, you’re like. How many people can a carry? saying LOT.
Manufacturer says only 15000 In one direction. A waste of time to see the future is not in carrying people like certains. People of the lower mainland will love to hate to ask for more skytrain. Everyone takes the skytrain to major events or to work the North American way.
Where capacity would help but no one else will bother Shine the rock. Strenuous and annoying to get it polished to the rest of the world. A freedom of time and choice stop think of what they best way forwards.
Everyone that makes the rock feel important or special or save. Go unnoticed. A team dedicated for To be perfectly on time. Another team to make it ready everyday every morning without fail.
One trillions of 1 time Something goes wrong is heavy weight on the rock. The shiny rock will remain In the lower mainland.
Zwei replies: You are so off-track, you have convinced yourself of hearsay and not fact.
Your “everyone takes SkyTrain” is patently false. What you call SkyTrain is an unsuccessful proprietary railway that in the end, the patent holders paid “success fees” to ensure its construction. The question remains, “were success fees paid in BC?”
When we first arrived in Vancouver, unlike our side of the pond, th average citizen is woefully uninformed about transit issues and transit in general.
We were more than surprised with the great following of your so called SkyTrain had with the public, especially how badly designed the system was. There is also a general reluctance to admit how expensive your system is to operate and maintain.
Driverless transit systems are extremely expensive to operate and maintain because they must be at 100% condition to operate. To maintain a driverless or automatic transit system demand constant attention.
Though the costs to operate automatic transit systems are dropping, it is still only installed on heavier used routes.
What looks cheap to operate (politicians love the driverless transit systems because the pretend they are cheap to operate because they have no drivers!!) is the exact opposite and driverless transit systems age badly.
Word is reaching us that the government is signalling it is stepping away from rapid transit and instead will be investing in buses and bigger highways, etc. If our experience is anything to go by, it will go very badly.
We hear of major forest fires in your part of the world, yet building more highways and not addressing the lack of any coherent regional transportation strategy leaves us with an uneasy feeling of politcal hubris.