Lies, Damned Lies And The Broadway Subway

Translink, Metro Vancouver, and the provincial NDP, especially Minister of Transportation, Mike Farnsworth, are “flooding the zone”, with the Broadway subway, “nearing completion“, “on time and on budget“, “with change how people commute“, and the goody, “the line will be soon extended“.

Why all the hype and hoopla?

Like all big ticket items, politcans want the biggest bang for their electoral buck. Subways have been presented as the ultimate form of public transit, which will solve the issue of overcrowding and traffic congestion. The extra costs and bankrupt businesses along its route are worth it.

A little bit of pain, is worth the gain in the NDP’s election strategy.

But, what about the costs?

The following was posted in 2020 and is still relevant today.

Both the Broadway subway and the Expo Line extension to Langley are based on inaccurate and manipulated assumptions!

A general note: According to Thales news release in 2022, regarding the $1.47 billion resignalling of the Expo and millennium Lines:

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.

Broadway Subway: Based On Inaccurate And Manipulated Assumptions

Posted by zweisystem on Thursday, November 19, 2020

Haveacow is an avatar of a very knowledgeable chap from back east who works with public transport.

In the arcane world of transit in Canada, speaking one’s mind or even being truthful can send one to Coventry.

To send someone to Coventry is an English idiom meaning to deliberately ostracize someone. Typically, this is done by not talking to them, avoiding their company, and acting as if they no longer exist. Victims are treated as though they are completely invisible and inaudible.

Mr. Cow’s insights and vast experience makes him a person to be listened too and indeed, Zwei does.

When one reads the following, which is a comment he made on a previous post, the first thing that comes to mind is that Broadway is not the busiest transit corridor in Canada or the USA. Far from it, it is rather average.

Of course this manipulation of the facts, repeated over and over again so the public tended to believe it, was and is the basis for the justification to build the Broadway subway.

Even TransLink, grudgingly admitted to this in a letter, when they thought they were to be faced with a possible judicial inquiry.

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.

Please note, this includes all bus routes that use Broadway, including the number 9, 8, 14, 16, 17, and of course the 99B. It should be noted that the only bus route which the subway will replace is the 99 B-Line and only from Commercial Drive to Arbutus!

Not only has this sham planning been approved by regional mayors, it has been approved by the province!

For the common person, this would lead to investigation and criminal charges, but not our transit planning, where six figured salaries and bonuses are the order of the day.

Sadly inaccurate and manipulated data, repeated over and over again, swayed civic, provincial and federal politicians to fund a 5.8 km almost $3 billion subway under Broadway! (A cost update from Zwei: I have been told privately that the real cost of the Broadway subway is past $3.5 billion and may top $4 billion when completed.)

The frustrating thing about the way TransLink measured the capacity ranges for the various types of rapid transit technologies was because it was based on how they believed they would run the particular transit operating technology. It wasn’t based on how other more experienced regional transit properties ran their facilities or even close to the best-known Canadian or international operating practices of each type. This pretty much guarantees the results you want. The choice of SkyTrain on Broadway was highly manipulated by this kind artificially low operational capacity and standards and practices that were poor choices for any comparison. I used Bus Rapid Transit as an example here not because I thought it was the best option on Broadway but as an example to show how poorly TransLink’s BRT option really was compared to what could have been used in their report.

The Bus Rapid Transit norms used were inferior and far from the superior practices used by Ottawa and other cities.This absolutely shoddy choice of BRT infrastructure and operating practices shows the limited understanding TransLink officials had on the subject. Thus it’s not surprising that the capacity limits believed for their BRT comparison were more than a little artificially low, especially compared to where and how they planned to operate the SkyTrain.

How TransLink Defined and Would Operate Bus Rapid Transit

I remember reading what TransLink defined as Bus Rapid Transit in many of their past reports and giggling. Ottawa has operated real Bus Rapid Transit on our bus transitway Network since 1983. Ottawa still has the most extensive network of BRT lines in North America, even with 12.5 km of BRT lines already converted to LRT and about 25 km more being converted presently. Many of the operating details of what TransLink defined under BRT would be laughed at by longtime Ottawa Transitway passengers and not considered BRT but really, a glorified express bus with nice bus stops.

Professionally, many of the operating practices presently used or what TransLink planned to use as BRT operational practices in their reports, showed at best an inexperienced operator and a lack of understanding about what you can really do with BRT. If you are going to measure BRT against SkyTrain in a given corridor to determine the most useful operating technology, actually measure a real functioning line that is working within a real BRT operation. Not the joke TransLink used to compare against the SkyTrain. What was obvious from the start was that TransLink doesn’t either understand or wouldn’t acknowledge that there are 2 main types or extremes, of BRT operations, open or closed systems. Choosing to mainly concentrate on either one has real operating advantages depending and different issues that very much effect what gets put in reports. Unfortunately the same lack of understanding can be said for their LRT and just general standard bus operating comparisons as well.

The example of BRT system TransLink used was a mostly closed system which by their nature purposely limits operational capacity and bus numbers to preserve the infrastructure’s theoretical capacity. It greatly lowers cost as a result but TransLink’s own documents downplayed the cost reality. It mainly concentrated on the capacity argument. The examples below are mostly open BRT systems which greatly increase operational capacity.

Before the conversion to LRT, during the height of both the AM and PM peak period, Ottawa’s Transitway would have a passenger level of 10,700 passengers per hour per direction. This was done using 185 to 200 buses per hour per direction on 85 separate bus routes. During the day the Central Transitway would average between 4,000 to 6,000 pass/hr/direction using 60 to 80 buses/hr/direction.

Currently, during both peak periods Gatineau’s Rapi-Bus Transitway moves 4600 to 5000 pass/hr/direction using 90 to 100 buses/hr/direction.

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia “Brisbane Transport Agency known as “Translink” operates a successful BRT “The Busway Network” moves at peak 14,000 pass/hr/direction using 225 buses/hr/direction.

Pitsburgh’s Busway Network during both peaks sees 4500-4800 pass/hr/direction using 90-95 buses/hr/direction

Capacity and Cost is Important Here

The capacity of TransLink’s BRT example in the report shows a service level of only a marginal improvement over the current bus system. Each one of these BRT examples I used uses far greater levels of buses than was currently planned for the Broadway Corridor, but their capacity far exceeds stated capacity levels of Bus Rapid Transit in the reports. The truly laughable BRT capacity used by TransLink here can’t be realistically compared against a full Light Metro line operating in a tunnel. Especially if operating costs aren’t considered important. For example, data out of various projects in Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa all showed that a full scale BRT line is lower in cost per passenger and 30 year operating costs than a Light Metro line if that particular line is moving less than 134,000 people a day. Broadway has quite a while before it will consistently break that service level.

Compare Apples to Apples and Oranges to Oranges

The BRT example used in the Broadway report was mostly operating in a painted bus lane with some physical segregation. Painted bus lanes can be easily entered by other vehicles, they are almost impossible for any police service to regulate if it is more than a kilometre long, are highly effected by parking lanes, driveways and laneways, block lengths, the number, size, frequency of and types of intersections. Different types of intersection signaling and control and the sheer number of other lanes. Painted bus lanes have a very low numerical capacity 3000 to 5000 pass/hr/direction depending on many physical conditions. Lastly, the amount of external traffic is desperately important as well for the operating effectiveness of a painted bus lane. Unless the bus lane is a non painted, physically segregated from other traffic, the comparison of this bus lane to any train in a tunnel is meaningless.

To be fair, if you are going to measure a BRT lane against a SkyTrain operating in a tunnel, the BRT lane needs to be in a tunnel as well!

The type of BRT operations used needs to have the capacity maximized to compete fairly against any type of train. The position of the BRT lanes also needs to be considered as well given other surface road conditions.

A mostly closed BRT system operating along mainly painted bus lanes, operating in the open, along with other mixed traffic lanes and having to enter signalized intersections will never compare favourably against the SkyTrain operating below grade in a tunnel.

Stations become critical here because the report had fairly numerous bus stops that could only hold two articulated buses 18 to 20 metres long each. The SkyTrain station platforms were 80 metres long. There were also more BRT stops than SkyTrain Stations. That’s just not an equal comparison!