More sense from Ottawa

Our friend from Ottawa, Haveacow, is a transit consultant from Ottawa, he also has studied Vancouver’s transit scene and is a worthwhile read as he makes too much sense.

The following is a reply from Mr. Cow, which I think deserves a post of its own!

I agree that tunneling any rail based transit system very greatly raises its cost of construction. The question that people in Vancouver really need to be asking is about the long term viability of the Rapid Transit system.

1. Translink currently canai??i??t afford even a one third share of funding of the capital costs on any new rapid transit line, be it Light Metro Skytrain, LRT or even Zweiai??i??s current medium and high end Tram-Train proposals, for that matter. New funding sources are desperately needed no matter the rail transit technology choice, or whomever runs the transit agency, the form of the transit agency, regardless if said agency is publicly or privately run or a combination of the two. Translinkai??i??s capital and operating funding is actually declining relative to inflation. To afford Translinkai??i??s share of the current Skytrain extension, the agency had to seriously divert funding from operational sources to the capital program. Leaving very little money for service improvements anywhere till at least 2016. The current situation is unsustainable not only in the long term but medium term as well. Arguments can be made that yes, the Skytrain and the Canada Line are key culprits historically and currently in the high level of costs associated with the entire transit system but they exist, they are running and have to be dealt with. You could pay all transit employees near slave level wages and run them with the leanest and most efficient management people (public or private) on the planet and it wonai??i??t change the fact that, the basic transit systemai??i??s operating and capital costs are rising faster than inflation and that the current funding model is increasing revenue slowly but at levels below the rate of inflation.

2. Taxpayers are always claim to be overtaxed but if you want a service you have to pay for it. New funding tools are needed and if you want any money for expansion of the transit system, regardless of the technology its going to increasingly have to come from local tax sources because the amount of money available as grants for rapid transit projects from the province and the federal government are going to decline in the future.

3. Privatizing transit rarely works in the short term and has always failed in the medium and long terms for various reasons (I wonai??i??t bore you and bother repeating them again). Most private transit schemes usually end up costing more for the same or declining levels of service.

4. Itai??i??s now too late to force a transit funding referendum question to be put on the ballot for the BC Municipal election in November 2014. Your provincial government can now waffle back and forth for at the least 2 more years, on this issue. Regardless of your opinion on whether you want to pay more transit or not, the opportunity to move the whole process forwards is now lost. So whatever direction and answers the vote would have produced regarding the future of transit in the province is delayed. This means nothing can happen and I mean nothing can happen, until the provincial government decides on a promised referendum question and what if any answer they want to provide to it. The entire process for updating and changing the way transit is funded and delivered in the lower mainland of BC is now dead! For the next 2 years at least (or however long the province can legally wait), politicians, companies and locals, like Zwei, can endlessly promote their transit ideas and proposals all they want. Also for the next 2 years, those same people can also endlessly debate what is the best of choice transit technology secure in the knowledge, none of it means anything because the process to decide on a direction canai??i??t move forward till there is a vote. When the public see the opening of the Evergreen Line in 2016 they will ask, whatai??i??s next? All your beloved provincial government has to say is ai???nothingai???, because you guys wouldnai??i??t give us any real input on a transit referendum question when we asked about funding transit 2 years ago. The province and feds can throw away any request for capital funding from any lower mainland transit agency (regardless whom it is) because we canai??i??t give you money till you decide how you are going to pay for it!

5. Bombardier has admitted recently that it has too much excess rail production capacity. Although it has not announced it yet, Bombardier will probably be closing many production facilities including their dedicated production facility they have for their Skytrain and Monorail systems division, the Innovia Line of products (the Skytrain and Monorail technology share many common systems and are generally grouped together). Soon after the Mark 3 Skytrainai??i??s are delivered for the Evergreen project (2016) and the extension in Kuala Lampur (2016-17) to their Skytrain like line is complete as well as the new Monorail project in Brazil is delivered (2015-16), the division will most likely be closing down due to the need to rationalize and downsize Bombardierai??i??s massive amount of excess rail production capacity. The Bombardier production facility, several facilities actually, that produce these products donai??i??t have enough future orders coming in compared to other Bombardier product lines (Light Rail, Metro, as well as commuter and long distance mainline passenger railway vehicles) to keep them open as an independent production line. That doesnai??i??t mean that they arenai??i??t going to build these products anymore but it does mean that, any future orders of say Skytrain technology (Innovia products), will have to wait for a open spot in the production schedule inside the remaining Bombardier rail production facilities. This will increase the cost of future Skytrains because each time a production line changes from another rail product to say a different rail technology like the Skytrain, the effected production line that has been chosen will close down and have to be retooled before work on the new order can begin. These shutdowns can take days or weeks depending on the individual changes needed to the production equipment.

Proposal: As a consultant I can only propose an idea. Since you have in my opinion, a considerable amount of time before the provincial government needs to respond or do anything for that matter, I suggest a summit of internet transit people and other groups like your own. The idea being that, there are many people and groups that promote urban and regional based transit (regardless of the technology choice), I suggest you group together for a common cause. Nothing overly dramatic but a simple task, to force the provincial government to move forward on transit funding by presenting a large wide ranging united front. Get together with Daryl (Skytrain for Surrey) Transport Action Canada (formerly Transport 2000) and anyone who Blogs, complains or writes about transit issues on line, in your region, for a simple but straight forward, positive proposal or series of proposals on transit funding. The local PTBai??i??s and the province are delaying any action to move transit funding forward, I say you should force the issue. Get local papers and radio, especially talk radio involved (they are all dying for content). Have everyone involved contact local TV people and bombard them a message that whatever the transit mode it is time the provincial government act and do something. Just an idea!

Cheers

Addendum: With the premier’s LNG promises disappearing faster than bad comedy act, all transit and bridge promises will soon be dust in the wind. Look for higher fares and a truncated transit system and massive congestion.