Now do you beleive Zwei!
Zwei has stated over and over again, one modern tram and tram driver is as efficient as six to eight buses and six to eight bus drivers and for every tram or bus operated one needs a minimum of four people to drive, maintain and manage them. As wages account for 70% or more of operating costs; over a period of a twenty-five year business cycle, the savings in operational costs are huge!
Why do you think the bus union does not like light rail?
Modern LRT is just not a transportation tool, it is an economic tool to keep operating costs in check, something to think about when just the Expo Line costs about 60% more to operate than comparably sized LRT operations.
OC Transpo to cut 500-600 positions after LRT starts in 2018
Transit boss John Manconi met with three unions to ask for ideas to minimize layoffs
ByAi??Joanne Chianello
CBC News Posted: Jul 11, 2016 6:14 PM ET Last Updated: Jul 11, 2016 7:08 PM ET
Ottawa’s Confederation light rail line is set to open in 2018. (City of Ottawa)
OC Transpo’s largest union is “very disappointed” after the transit service revealed it is looking to cut between 500 and 600 positions once LRT comes online in 2018.
“I’ve been blindsided, absolutely, by the numbers,” said Clint Crabtree, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 279.
“I didn’t have anything in mind or have any ideas of the numbers ai??i?? not at this point ai??i?? but when I was presented the numbers, I was very disappointed.”
Transit boss John Manconi wrote in a memo to council that he met with three union leaders, including Crabtree, on Monday to discuss the cuts and ask for ideas to minimize layoffs.
‘I’ve beenAi??blindsided, absolutely, by the numbers.’ – ClintAi??Crabtree, ATUAi??Local 279
The city estimates that light-rail will take 170 to 180 buses off the road.
One light-rail train carries the equivalent riders as eight articulated buses. (Zwei replies: Put another way, 1 tram driver is as efficient as at least 8 bus drivers!)
That means fewer operators, maintenance and support staff will be needed.
As well, fewer fare inspectors will be required as fare gates will be installed at the LRT stations.
Manconi’s email said the city will look to retirements and attrition as ways to keep down the number of layoffs.
And some folks hired in dealing with detours in Phase 1 of the $2-billion (USD $1.52 billion) Confederation Line project could be re-employed in handling detours for Phase 2.
Crabtree said retirement is currently 60 to 80 people annually.
Also, Manconi points out that the city will need to hire additional workers for the light-rail system: 70 operators, 15 controllers and 10 support staff.
“The Confederation Line creates approximately 100 new positions, which reduces the overall reduction, and management is committed to making all the position available to our current employees by investing in training, facilities, equipment, etc. to create the opportunities for you to be successful in qualifying for these exciting new opportunities,” according to Manconi’s memo.
His email also states that all drivers hired since 2015 have been told that fewer operators will be needed by 2018.
CrabtreeAi??said he is “exploring all options” in the wake of the news but did not offer specifics.
“We’ll do everything to protect our members,” he said, adding that he will be meeting with OC Transpo management again in August.
Nice catch, I have been so busy dealing with my move, I missed the story until I heard it on the evening news. One thing they didn’t say in the story which was making the rounds yesterday was that approximately $42,970,000 will now be cut from the transit operating budget which is almost $490,000,000 this budget year. Not bad for phase 1. These are just the direct savings this is not counting the extra money that will be generated as buses are freed from being trapped on the Transitway during the peak periods and can start generating money on the seriously long ignored and underserviced suburban routes. I want to see the big savings expected with phase 2 which is expected to cut $60,000,000+ from the transit operating budget in 2024 and the freeing up of a large part of the bus fleet from peak hour Transitway service.
This is exactly what I have been saying for the past 30 years and locally have been met with jeers and insults. NOT NO MORE!
I don’t to my recollection ever recall TransLink ever cutting diesel bus service after any subway or viaduct for s-train. On the contrary, TransLink “planning” public transit has had to increase service hours for buses to transfer patrons (mostly kicking and screaming) to its s-train lines.
“Tri-City transit users will be seeing a number of changes to the bus route landscape next fall, with expanded service and increased connections planned to the Evergreen Line [s-train].”
http://www.tricitynews.com/news/bus-route-changes-will-connect-riders-to-evergreen-extension-1.2037063
It looks like public transit in Ottawa is run by intelligent and conscientious people who are putting rail transit (LRT or tram) into service to take transit buses off the roads and to reduce operating costs (pollution and carbon emissions, also). Vancouver, not so much.
It costs TransLink about $500,00 annually to operate and maintain (O&M) each one of its transit buses. For the 1,400 transit buses which TransLink has in service, the annual O&M is about $700 million. One 36 metre long tram (electric) replaces three 12 metre buses (soot blowing and cancer causing diesel) and cuts operating costs by roughly two-thirds. TransLink can cut O&M by almost $500 million annually if it goes with 36 metre trams throughout Metro Vancouver. It gets even better though, the trams make s-trains redundant to save 100% of the cost presently spent to run s-trains in subways and on viaducts!
Basically, if TransLink were to run trams, the O&M to provide public transit is about $200 million annually plus about another $200 million annually for the infrastructure (including substations and wires). This makes the whopping $150 million annually for the bozo squad on overhead at TransLink untenable with trams requiring an operating budget of only $400 million annually.
Hence, the operating budget approaching $2 billion annually for s-train and all the transit buses used to get people to the s-train. In other words, part of the reason for the expensive s-train is for the overhead ($150 million at TransLink) to be made to appear small relative to the operating budget at TransLink so that TransLink can employ lots of fake managers, engineers, directors and “others” as well as its “CEO” and not draw too much attention the high overhead at TransLink.
I’d prefer to just take all these maggots stealing from us at TransLink and use them for zombie practice with armour piercing bullets, but some people might consider this too extreme. Okay I’ll settle for throwing them all off the tallest building in Vancouver, instead. Splat.
On second thought…
http://www.amc.com/shows/the-walking-dead/video-extras/season-02/episode-07/making-of-the-barn-scene-inside-the-walking-dead
Zwei replies: TransLink and BC Transit before did not cut bus service (though they did cut trolleybuses from Cambie St) because the SkyTrain did not replace a bus line, rather they created a rapid transit spine to be fed by buses. This came about by using SkyTrain on the old Central Park Line.