Mr. Harcourt, Shut the H*ll Up.
Former one term wonder as BC’s Premier, Mr. Harcourt suffers the same sort of dementia as do most other regional and provincial politicians, he firmly believes he is a transit expert. Both Harcourt’s term as Vancouver mayor and BC Premier, was much ado about nothing. A notable fence sitter, Harcourt waxed and waned as the public opinion wind blew.Fast forward a decade and Harcourt championed the Canada Line, the only heavy rail metro in the world designed and built to have less capacity than a streetcar. Instead of of much cheaper light rail, Harcourt joined the SkyTrain bandwagon and trumpeted the virtues of subways to anyone who cared to listen.Strangely, he remained deaf to the pleas of one Susan Heyes who was nearly bankrupted by cut-and-cover subway construction and years of litigation, but former Premiers have always remained deaf to the pleas of the small person whose rights are being trampled by the thugs of big government.Well Harcourt is back at it again, build a gondola to SFU; build a subway under Broadway; and let Surrey build LRT – the man just hasn’t a clue about transit, transit mode, and transit finance, but he is a media favourite and most of his ill-thought out musings is given airtime.
Well Mr. Harcourt, chew on these apples:
- For the cost of our three mini-metro lines, we could have today a light rail network stretching from Chilliwack to UBC.
- If we had built LRT on the Arbutus corridor, we would be carrying more passengers at a far cheaper cost.
- If we had built with LRT instead of light-metro, TransLink would not be in a financial crisis.
- Subways are notorious expensive to maintain and lead many operating authorities to financial chaos, cities that build with light rail do not have the same financial distress.
- Modern LRT has a higher capacity than SkyTrain or light-metro, yet can be built at a fraction of the cost of a SkyTrain or light-metro.
The folly of Mr. Harcourt and his inane musings is that people (especially those of the NDP persuasion) listen to him.
So Mr. Harcourt, until you actually understand what you are talking about, do everyone a favour and shut the hell up!
The tram (streetcar) line on Karlsruhe’s Kaiserstrasse, sees peak hour headways
of 45 seconds, offering peak hour capacities in excess of 40,000 persons per hour per direction.
Newly-elected govai??i??t needs to improve transit: former premier
Mayors of Vancouver and Surrey have made their cases
Jesse Johnston May 17, 2013
LOWER MAINLAND (NEWS1130) ai??i?? One of BCai??i??s former premiers says the Lower Mainland needs better transit service and the newly-elected government needs to make that happen.
Mike Harcourt feels there are three areas in particular that should be priorities.
ai???There are three lines in Surrey, the line out to UBC, and the gondola up to SFU,ai??? Harcourt tells News1130. ai???Get them all done. Give people a really good transit system.ai???
There has been much debate in Metro Vancouver over which is a bigger priority: The line out to UBC or expanding transit routes south of the Fraser River. The mayors of Vancouver and Surrey have each made cases for their own cities.
Buses to UBC are stuffed with students every day and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson wants to see a subway line to the university.
Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts says her city has waited patiently with no significant transit upgrades while major projects, such as the Evergreen Line and Canada Line, have been built in other communities. Her cityai??i??s transportation committee is eying light rail transit down 104th Avenue and Fraser Highway toward Langley as possible solutions.
Council is also looking at possibilities to serve South Surrey.
Harcourt says both mayors should get their wish. ai???We have to finish the transit system. We got three quarters of it done; letai??i??s finish the rest.ai???
He adds improving relationships with First Nations groups and making housing more affordable should also be on the new governmentai??i??s to-do list.
The implementation of new transit infrastructure boggles my mind. You can tell it is all being put in place by people who do not actually RELY UPON transit to get them about. The lack of using other great city transit structures as examples of what to do, and crummy transit systems as what not to do, makes me apoplectic. I’m lucky at present. I live on the B’way corridor, and rarely use the trains as part of my ride.
I have used both underground and overland transit systems elsewhere in the world. When you consider how long some of these have been in place (Paris, NYC, London, Seoul, TO, HK in my limited experience) one wonders how our system could be new and so very poor. Here are some comparisons that make little sense:
Subway exits: Why are there not subway exits on each of the four corners at Broadway and Cambie? Why are so many people still crossing the streets overland, blocking turning flows and (especially) endangering themselves to try to catch busses?
Subway stops: Why is there no stop in a shopping/residential area like 16th and Cambie and at other points on Cambie? And why would we plan a subway with stops 1 km apart across the B’way corridor? Not only does that pevent people from using the system to get around quickly and conveniently, it also forces us to require a duplicate above-ground bus system for to connect people with the neighbourhoods. It will also ensure that a significant number of people will continue to use their cars to get downtown, and around.
Bike routes: Anybody ever notice how 10th avenue on the East side is dangerously filled with tree debris? Who’s idea was it for this route to be put on 10th and not 11th? (BTW, my house is on 11th. If we could move the bike route to 11th, I would be the first to advocate for this street to be a no-car street to facilitate a safer bike route. #justsaying.
LRT vs. Subway: Please. See above.
As I mention at the beginning of this comment, the people designing our cities (and I mean those with the power, not those with the ideas that are summarily dismissed) obviously do not need to use the things they are building. See community centres, arts facilities, art installations, transit, HOUSING.
And all I want to know is how do we the community members, the users, the taxpayers, take away the undeserved power these people wield and get things done in ways that actually work for us, the people who live in the real world.
Zweisystem replies: Subways are very expensive and the reason why there are the bare minimum of exits on the Canada line is because the project cost was escalating out of control and extra exits, etc. were kept at a bare minimum to reduce costs. What was once promised to cost no more than $1.3 billion, escalated to well over $2.5 billion and for that the public got the only heavy-rail subway in the world that was designed to have less capacity of that of a streetcar. Again, stations were omitted to reduce costs.
From your post I see that you do get it about transit, sadly Mr. Harcourt does not.
Harcourt is an ass. He was a disappointment as Vancouver’s mayor and a failure as premier – a one term wonder is just a too kind a description.
Harcourt, as Zwei stated, was a classic fence sitter, leaning one way and another, picking the most political opportune time to make a decision.
Here we have a man, who built his summer cottage on a high cliff and promptly built a sundeck on the edge of the cliff, without a railing of any sort and the chump promptly slipped and fell almost to his death. Harcourt has no foresight and will spew all sorts of transit nonsense because he feels it will win public acclaim as the great champion of transit, which in reality he is the great chump of transit.
Karen, great and thoughtful comment. Both sky train and rapid bus slice through communities and do not serve communities.
They really only increase ridership by getting transit users to live farther from home or work for transit users to travel farther on transit and to board transit more. This is wrongly interpreted as sky train and rapid bus increasing ridership – it just makes transit users pollute more and clog up the roads more on buses.
Go to UBC today. You will see streams of empty 99 B-Lines operating in parallel to empty trolley buses! Media don’t report on this and don’t want to report on it – bad for the UBC subway which they want to promote even if it means being dishonest.
Ironically, both sky train and rapid bus have led to greater vehicle use, and all the condos built on the sky train lines require roads and parking. For every one person who moves into the condos along sky train lines, four end up driving (57% modal share drivers compared with 14% modal share transit users = 57% / 14% = 4).
This has increased traffic congestion, The modal share of drivers is the same now as it was when TransLink was formed in 1999 – 57% and there are over 300,000 vehicles on the roads thanks to sky train. This contracts the claim by TransLink that sky train is reducing carbon emissions and road congestion. TransLink was so bothered by this revelation that it banned me from making comments in the “Georgia Straight” about it with the help of TransLink loving editor Martin Dunphy.
Sky train with stations 1,500 metres apart on average is promoted under the false premise that it is faster than trams or LRT. In fact, there are two components to transit travel:
First, getting to transit by foot or bus and second traveling on transit. Sky train is twice as fast as trams in mixed traffic but getting to trams with stops every 270 metres to 400 metres apart is four to five times faster than getting to the sky train station.
So, statistically for the seven kilometre median distance traveled in Metro Vancouver, trams are always faster than sky train for the vast majority of transit users. Harcourt is a fool or crook profiting from condo sales along sky train lines paid by taxpayers and likely part of the mafia group profiting from sky train.