Is The Canada Line A Classic White Elephant?
From Wiki: A white elephant is an idiom for a valuable but burdensome possession of which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost (particularly cost of upkeep) is out of proportion to its usefulness or worth. The term derives from the story that the kings of Siam (now Thailand) were accustomed to make a present of one of these animals to courtiers who had rendered themselves obnoxious, in order to ruin the recipient by the cost of its maintenance. In modern usage, it is an object, scheme, business venture, facility, etc., considered to be without use or value.
The Gordon Campbell Liberal government in eager haste to reward their political friends in Richmond, Vancouver, and the Vancouver International Airport, cobbled together an expensive SkyTrain subway plan to provide both quick service to YVR and not using the former BC Electric Vancouver to Richmond interurban Arbutus Line, which bisects the more posh west side of Vancouver. To pretend that the subway portion of the Canada Line was viable a P-3 charade was hatched to hide real costs of the project.
It should be noted at this point that the judge overseeing the Susan Heyes/TransLink lawsuit called the Canada Line P-3 process a charade!
To TransLink’s chagrin, a conventional metro was chosen, built as a mini-metro through the charade P-3 process, which was incompatible with the rest of the proprietary SkyTrain mini-metro system. As costs for the mini-metro began to escalate from the original cost of $1.3 billion, the scope of the project was greatly reduced, including cheaper cut & cover construction instead of a bored tunnel; not paying compensation to people badly affected by cut & cover subway construction; omitting some stations; single track operation in Richmond and YVR; and build smaller stations with 40 metre to 50 metre platforms, which could accommodate only 2 car trains.
As built the Canada Line cost about $2.5 billion to build, yet was near capacity soon after it opened. All Vancouver bound South Surrey, South Delta and Richmond bus routes were cascaded onto the Canada Line and forcing transit customers to transfer from bus to mini-metro. Despite dubious claims of record high ridership, the Canada line, as built, has the capacity of a heritage streetcar line such as those operating in Toronto. The Canada line, with 41 metre long trains and 40m to 5om long station platforms, compares very poorly other LRT lines such as Calgary’s C-Train soon to be operating 99.3 long trains, with stations having 110m long platforms.
TransLink has not released figures for how many new transit customers the Canada line has attracted, nor do they mention anything more about the often repeated claim that the Canada line would take 200,000 car journeys off the road each day. Except from a few boasts in the media by Translink or their surrogates who work in the media, there is very little said.
The hugely expensive Canada Line, almost at capacity today and is ruinously expensive to both extend and to increase its capacity!
There has been absolutely no mention by the provincial government of extending the Canada Line across the Fraser into South Delta and South Surrey with the Massey tunnel bridge proposal. The provincial government has seen to have forgotten all about their Canada Line, which they forced upon TransLink. No mention of the Canada Line at all. It has become clear that “rubber on asphalt” is the future for transit in the lower mainland.
This begs the question: “Is the $2.5 billion Canada Line a white elephant, ruining TransLink with large maintenance costs and too expensive to extend and too expensive to increase capacity?“
Postscript: TransLink’s official capacity for a 41 metre, 2-car ROTEM metro-set used on the Canada line is 400 persons. Wikipedia gives a full load of 334 per 2 car set (167 per car) and a crush load of 400. The industry definition of a crush load is all seats taken and standees at 6 persons per square metre, impossible to obtain in North America. In comparison, the 49 metre long Spirit Class trams being built for Ottawa have a capacity of 300 persons per car and one wonders if the real capacity for a 41m long ROTEM train-set is much less and capacity figures have been greatly exaggerated to misinform the public.
Great post. Too bad the local media won’t print anything like it and few other than the ones who visit this blog will ever know how much of a white elephant TransLink is. Jim in a related comment is right, unless we reform transit to encourage community based LRT or tram transit for people to work near their homes, Vancouver is going to resemble LA in the future – wait, it already does.
Most people are only willing to commute 30 minutes from their destination by bus or car – proved by Marchetti years ago. Fast transit (rapid bus and sky train) merely increases the distance to travel 30 minutes in Metro Vancouver and results in more expensive transit inducing urban sprawl, without the concomitant reduction in drivers, who are the same percentage now as they were twenty years ago.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121018-hidden-rules-of-human-progress/4
http://www.cesaremarchetti.org/archive/electronic/basic_instincts.pdf
I believed you when you said nobody bulids subway anymore. Oh! look here:
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/transportation/2013/09/23/ottawa_pledges_660m_for_scarborough_subway.html
Zweisystem replies: you are not telling the whole story. The Scarborough RT (SkyTrain) was to be replaced with a new LRT line, but Toronto Mayor Ford hates LRT and streetcars and had a hissy-fit until the province gave in to build a subway (akin to what happened with the Canada line). So, what Scarborough is getting instead of a multi stop LRT is a two stop subway and, oh yes, they have to come up with a billion dollars from local ratepayers to pay for it. It is like demanding a couple of billion from the city of Vancouver to help pay for a Broadway subway and maybe that is a good thing.
A message about subways. Generally when ridership reaches a certain point of saturation (Karlsruhe for instance), the transit must be grade separated due to length of trans and frequency of service. In the 40’s, 50′ and 60’s, subways were all the rage, with scores of transit authorities planning subways as the great philosopher stone in improving public transit……..didn’t happen and those cities that built subways on routes that did not have the ridership to sustain them have been left with massive maintenance bills or abandonment of service like the Chaleroi.
Toronto city has a population of about four times of that of Vancouver and they metro region has a population over twice of that of Metro Vancouver. Toronto has both subway lines and a large heritage streetcar system. The huge cost of subway construction means subway lines are built slowly and experts wanted more affordable LRT to be built, as a faster introduction of improved transit. it also must be noted that much of the new LRT lines were to be grade separated.
There is a notion that subways alone will provide more capacity, but this is not true, one only has to look at the truncated Canada line. What is not mentioned by the subway lobby, other that it is very expensive to maintain subways, is that at-grade transit attracts more new customers than subways or elevated transit, so much so that, modern LRT became the one mode with a proven record of attract new transit customers including the all important motorist from his/her car. Today, knowledgeable transit planners try to avoid subway construction at all costs, simply because there is very little bang for ones buck.
Even in Toronto, the transit debate continues with which subway line should have priority…..
http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/09/25/downtown-relief-line-a-priority-over-scarborough-subway-ttc-head-andy-byford-says/
Since the Canada Line is overcrowding, there should be a new shuttle train service on the Arbutus rail corridor to relieve congestion. Also, after dissolving Translink, every city’s bus service should be independent from Skytrain/subway so that there will be no forced transfer from bus to rail.
Zweisystem replies: I agree. Bus routes should fulfill an economic function and not just be a feeder to the light-metro system. It is good transit planning having bus/rail transit interchanges, but the bus must not solely be a feeder to the rail transit.
The 351 White Rock bus used to terminate at Downtown Vancouver, but after Translink’s incompetent decision to construct the Canada Line, this route is shortened to Bridgeport. It would be a great idea to make the 351 a premium route (with special fares) and terminate at Downtown Vancouver as same as before.
When will there be a chance where all residents of Metro Vancouver can vote to dissolve Translink and organize new bus and rail companies?