Hint: Regional mayors, with little knowledge about transit, are promising everything, but without a mention of raising taxes to fund those gold plated pre election goodies!
I have one question: Funding?
It all sounds good, bike lanes here, a gondola there, a UBC subway (strange, no mention of the Expo Line extension to Langley) and exploring extending SkyTrain to Port Coquitlam and rootin-tootin Newton, but no mention of funding.
Funny that. Oh, by the way proprietary Movia Automatic Light Metro trains used on the Expo and Millennium lines line will be out of production, as Vancouver is now the only customer, by the time a decision is made.
Sorry, I forgot, then there is the $3 billion (inflation you know) rehab of the above to proprietary railway lines, needed and needed soon, lest any more “dislodgements” happen.
Oh, by the way, that $200 million gondola for SFU is now going to cost $300 million, inflation again; but I again ask; funding?
$21 billion is still a lot of coin and in today’s post Covid reality, that coin is going to be hard to come by.
Don’t hold your breathe, this mere window dressing for the 2022 Civic elections, where every city in metro Vancouver gets a piece of the pie before the election, but there will be meagre offerings after October when fiscal reality will hit the new Mayor’s Council on Transit with a vengeance.
Which mayor on the mayor’s council will campaign for higher taxes, before October’s election to pay for all this transit largesse?
Answer: None!
The classic transit mistake. We are spending tens of billions of dollars connecting areas of high density and not building transit to satisfy transit customers travel needs.
Metro Vancouver’s $21-billion transit plan, which includes a gondola to SFU, approved
The plan also includes doubling bus service and adding 450 kilometres of new traffic-separated cycling paths.
Metro Vancouver’s Transport 2050 plan—which includes doubling bus service— has been approved.Photo by Jason Payne /PNG
A new gondola to Simon Fraser University, doubling the bus service, and hundreds of kilometres of new cycling paths are some of the transit plans approved by regional authorities on Thursday.
Metro Vancouver’s 10-year transportation plan was approved by the Mayors’ Council and TransLink’s board of directors and outlines a list of priorities.
Those priorities include nine new traffic-separated Bus Rapid Transit lines, extending the Millennium Line from Arbutus to the University of British Columbia, increasing HandyDART service by 60 per cent, and exploring other SkyTrain extensions, including to Newton in Surrey and to Port Coquitlam.
Also receiving a green light Thursday was a plan for 450 kilometres of new traffic-separated cycling paths, including bike networks in every Metro Vancouver Urban Centre, and 200 more bike lockers, according to a Metro Vancouver news release.
And Metro Vancouver will extend SeaBus service start and end times to match SkyTrain’s service hours.
The Transport 2050: 10-Year Priorities plan is estimated to cost $21 billion over the decade and will need significant new revenue sources and investments from all levels of government to deliver, according to Metro Vancouver.
The region said it will be delivered in phases and funded through a series of future investment plans.
Earlier this year, Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley said it would be challenging to get the proposed $200-million gondola built to Simon Fraser University because of a funding crunch.
Burnaby city council has endorsed a 2.6-kilometre route option for TransLink’s gondola proposal between SkyTrain’s Lake City Way station and SFU’s Town Centre.
Burnaby public looks over Translink plans for the Burnaby Mountain Gondola Transit Project at a community open house on May 25, 2011, in Burnaby. The plan is for a 2.6 km tramway system linking Production Way skytrain station with SFU campus.Photo by Steve Bosch /PROVINCE
The Transport 2050 plan is Metro Vancouver’s long-term vision to accommodate anticipated population growth of one million over the next three decades.
The article about this in the Hive even says on the 3rd or 4th line that there is no present funding for any of this. I was also curious about the lack of any mentions of a rapid transit line by 2050 to North Vancouver as well as there being no mention of the SLS extension. But it sure mentioned a lot of BRT though. I wonder how the developers are going to handle only getting a Skytrain line to UBC? I bet they become somewhat anti-transit until another Skytrain extension is mentioned. Now we will see how pro-transit the local people and companies of the lower mainland really are when nothing but BRT is offered up, instead of a property value buffering Skytrain line extension.
Oops, my mistake, that wasn’t a Daily Hive article but it sure reads like one though.
Zwei replies: The article is from the Vancouver Sun, once the main newspaper in Vancouver, not no more! The Sun’s management have been SkyTrain and TransLink supporters for decades and one former reporter told me that I was person non gratis with the paper and I was not to be interviewed nor any letters to the editor to be published.
1, On page 26: Local bus service will more than double the largest increase in our region’s history. This is not true. The late premier Dave Barrett doubled the service from 1973 to 1976 plus built two SeaBuses. Many other transit systems will double their service in the next 5 years. Squamish BC just approved that on June 21, 2022.
2. No proper details are given: Will the cuts to 50 bus routes since the beginning of COVID be returned? Every other major transit system in Canada has returned to the Pre-COVID level of service. Will the cuts from 2001 to 2020 be returned? https://www.facebook.com/vantransitriders
3. Metro Vancouver is behind now (per capita basis )compared to other big metro areas in Canada . We are no. 4 now and before 2030 we will be No.6 unless massive ketch up funding is provided by the BC govt.
The article about this in the Hive even says on the 3rd or 4th line that there is no present funding for any of this. I was also curious about the lack of any mentions of a rapid transit line by 2050 to North Vancouver as well as there being no mention of the SLS extension. But it sure mentioned a lot of BRT though. I wonder how the developers are going to handle only getting a Skytrain line to UBC? I bet they become somewhat anti-transit until another Skytrain extension is mentioned. Now we will see how pro-transit the local people and companies of the lower mainland really are when nothing but BRT is offered up, instead of a property value buffering Skytrain line extension.
Oops, my mistake, that wasn’t a Daily Hive article but it sure reads like one though.
Zwei replies: The article is from the Vancouver Sun, once the main newspaper in Vancouver, not no more! The Sun’s management have been SkyTrain and TransLink supporters for decades and one former reporter told me that I was person non gratis with the paper and I was not to be interviewed nor any letters to the editor to be published.
TransLink once again managed to fool us
https://www.translink.ca/-/media/translink/documents/about-translink/governance-and-board/council-minutes-and-reports/2022/june/attachment-2-transport-2050-10-year-priorities-for-translink.pdf
1, On page 26: Local bus service will more than double the largest increase in our region’s history. This is not true. The late premier Dave Barrett doubled the service from 1973 to 1976 plus built two SeaBuses. Many other transit systems will double their service in the next 5 years. Squamish BC just approved that on June 21, 2022.
2. No proper details are given: Will the cuts to 50 bus routes since the beginning of COVID be returned? Every other major transit system in Canada has returned to the Pre-COVID level of service. Will the cuts from 2001 to 2020 be returned?
https://www.facebook.com/vantransitriders
3. Metro Vancouver is behind now (per capita basis )compared to other big metro areas in Canada . We are no. 4 now and before 2030 we will be No.6 unless massive ketch up funding is provided by the BC govt.