Regional Mayors Want A new Funding Model, Instead They Need A New Planning Model
It seems our regional mayors have been smoking some good weed because they want $20 billion for transit and playing the old gambit that transit is really a Social Service, a human right.
That sort of thinking has gotten us where we are today: a massively expensive transit system that does not attract new ridership, especially the motorist from the car.
There is a steady downward trend for transit mode share in Metro Vancouver
In most other cities around the world, there would be serious questions asked of TransLink, TransLink’s management and those who make the final decisions. Instead the mayors are going full throttle demanding $20 billion to continue doing the same thing over again, hoping different results.
With climate change and global warming posing an ever greater danger, investing $20 billion into a somewhat discredited regional transit system, tells me that the Mayor’s Council on Transit really do not have a clue about transit, transit finances or why our current public transit system is not popular.
I sent the following letter sent to Delta’s Mayor and Council concerning TransLink’s current spin on a rail service for the Fraser Valley, commenting on a news story in the local paper.
Mayor and Council members;In the Optimist’s digital edition, an article by Sandor Gyarmati, “Interurban Rail Not on The Horizon for Delta”, underlines TransLink’s excuse for not looking at operating as regional railway using the old interurban line is” that the interurban line does not advance regional objectives as well as other options……………”.*I do understand TransLink’s objections to reinstating a passenger service on the former BC Electric line and it has nothing to do about “regional objectives and other options”, rather it is their fear and embarrassment that 130 km $1.4 billion regional rail route, operating at a maximum of three trains per hour, will attract far more new customers to transit than the current $4.5 billion to $5 billion, 16 km Expo Line extension to Langley.*In 2009 through my efforts and contacts, the Rail for the Valley group engaged Leewood Projects (UK) to do an independent analysis on the viability reestablishing a passenger service from Vancouver to Chilliwack via the old BC Electric interurban line which is still in use today. Leewood projects were very thorough with the study and networked both with Canadian professional engineers and Transport Canada in producing a credible document.*In 2010, Rail for the Valley and Leewood released the “Leewood Study” which showed that such a rail service was viable and could be built with costs ranging from $500 million for a basic 90 km. Scott Road Station to Chilliwack Line to $1 billion for a fully electrified 130 km Vancouver to Chilliwack route. These costs also include the vehicles.*The Stadler Flirt DMU, used in Ottawa. 81 metres long, the vehicle Can be upgraded to hydrogen power by purchasing a hydrogen power pack, now being developed. The Sadler Flirt has a seating capacity of 224, versus 132 seats for a Movia Automatic Light Metro (SkyTrain) 4-car train. Seating capacity is extremely important for attracting transit customers, especially on longer distance trips. The Stadlertrains can operate in multiple units, doubling seating capacity.*Updated, to 2023 the cost would be $700 million to $1.4 billion respectively. The latest cost for the 16 km Expo line extension is $4.1 billion for the guideway and $500 million to $1 billion needed for the Operations and Maintenance Centre #5, which must be built and in operation by the time the extension opens. This cost does not include vehicles nor the now over $3 billion rehab needed to both the Expo and Millennium Lines before they can carry capacities over the current legal Limit (Transport Canada’s Operating certificate) of 15,000 persons per hour per direction. Already the signalling and automatic train control systems are being replaced with a contract let for $1.7 billion last fall. Tthe electrical supply must be both renewed and upgraded at a cost much higher than the resignalling cost and as of yet, no contracts have been let for this necessary work.*When one includes the Broadway subway and much needed rehab, the real cost to extend the Expo and Millennium lines a mere 21.7 km, is in the neighbourhood of $11 billion, not including vehicles!*You can see TransLink embarrassment and why they do not want anything to do with reactivating a passenger service on the former BC Electric Line as it would provide a far better service for many more people at a far cheaper cost to the taxpayer.*The BC Electric Line would serve not only Vancouver and new Westminster, but North Delta/Surrey, Central Surrey, Cloverdale, Langley, Abbotsford, Huntington/Sumas (US Border Crossing), Yarrow/Vedder/Sardis (gateway to Cultus lake) and Chilliwack. The line almost gives front door service to KPU Cloverdale and the proposed major hospital in Cloverdale, KPU in Langley, Trinity Western University, Gloucester Estates Business park, Abbotsford International Airport, downtown Langley and Abbotsford and the burgeoning communities Yarrow/Sardis and Chilliwack. The tourist aspect of the line has been ignored by TransLink completely!*The journey time matrix from the Leewood Study from Scott Road to Chilliwack, with a trough journey time of 90.5 minutes.
It is easy to see, with the RftV/Leewood Study and plan, we would get 8 times more rail mileage for one third of the cost of a 16 km light-metro extension to Langley, which, according to TransLink, will carry fewer customers than the current Broadway B-Line bus!
*Rail for the Valley continues to be in contact with real transportation professionals who have expertise in all forms of rail transit and are advised accordingly. TransLink lacks real experts in rail transit and continues to plan for an obsolete proprietary light metro system that transit authorities around the world have rejected, ever hoping for different results.*The Leewood Study gives a firm template and technical information for the return of a modern interurban service from Vancouver to Chilliwack, serving over one million people by providing a modern and affordable regional rail service that is so desperately needed in the region.AddendumSkyTrain is the name of the regional Light Metro System and not the trains operating on them.*The Canada Line operates standard railway Electrical Multiple Units (EMU’s) manufactured by ROTEM (Hyundai) as a light metro, which internationally has not been copied.*The Expo and Millennium Lines operate the unconventional and proprietary Movia Automatic Light Metro, now owned by Alstom when they purchased Bombardier’s rail division.*MALM has had three previous owners; Bombardier, Lavalin and the Urban Transportation Development Corporation (UTDC)*MALM has also had five previous marketing names; Innovia Light Metro, Advanced Rapid Transit (ART), Advanced Light metro (ALM); Advanced Light Rail Transit (ALRT changed for the sale to Vancouver); Intermediate Capacity Transit System (ICTS).*Only seven such systems have been sold since the late 1970’s and no new system has been built since 2005. Vancouver is the sole customer for MALM and Alstom has strongly indicated that they will cease production when the last paid for orders are complete. No other manufacturer produces a MALM compliant vehicle as the mode is deemed obsolete.
The big problem for regional transit is that population growth is happening all the way up the Fraser Valley to Hope and with a light metro only mentality, means the only reasonable way for people to travel is by car.
It is time to say no to TransLink; to say no to the mayor’s Council on transit and to say no to the NDP government and instead demand an affordable and user friendly transit system that just may provide such a service to attract the motorist from the car. From what I can see, current transit planning is making metro Vancouver more and more unlivable, forcing families to move where they can afford and it is affordable because there is little public transport and that is a damn shame.
TransLink Mayors’ Council pushes for renewed federal funding to keep up with growth
The time is now to strip all the gloried welfare recipients on the government-dole of the right to VOTE. You know, the ones effing the dog all day at TransLink, CBC, Ottawa Transit, TTC and so on. Deadbeats on the dole tax everyone with a real job for them to pull on their dicks all day.
Politicos might ask the human righters taking scum train whether they’d like to continue their $20K annual subsidy to ride the scum train or have the $20K deposited in their bank accounts every year to find their own way around Metro Vancouver.
Randal O’Toole (rot@cato.org) is a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and author of the upcoming paper, Transit: The Urban Parasite:
https://www.ocregister.com/2020/04/01/covid-19-is-no-excuse-to-bail-out-urban-transit/
Taking Our Streets Back from the Homeless [and TransLink] and Making Housing Affordable Again [keep the communist out of Canada and ban immigration] and Getting the Crime Problem Under Control [shut down the scum train used by addicts making Vancouver a cesspool]:
https://www.pacificresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/FreeCitiesBook1_FullWeb.pdf
Transit: The Urban Parasite:
https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/transit-urban-parasite
Mr Zwei, please enforce some minimum standard of decorum in these comments. Mr Erin’s vulgar and abusive language should be shared with people of similar ilk and not on this Rail For The Valley forum.
Anything by Randal O’Toole, should be more or less ignored he is a corporate sellout to the Koke Brothers, Petroleum companies, road builders and the right wing conservative political organization known as the Heritage Foundation as well as being profoundly anti-transit.
One of the fundamental issues when dealing with a regional transit agency is how to fund them. It has always been my assertion that Translink has never had enough funding (a position Zwei has always disagreed with). It is one of the constants of North American transit agencies that regional based service areas are wildly underfunded compared to a transit agency in a single municipality.
The reasons are many but the most common problem is the different expectations and funding priorities between two or multiple municipalities. The Greater Golden Horseshoe Region around Toronto is an example of this. Getting an agreement on just basic funding levels can and often does cripple service in some municipalities and provides previously unimagined levels of service, several orders of magnitude higher to what other neighbouring municipalities were accustomed too.
At a basic level there is no agreement between many taxpayers that transit is even needed at all, let alone allowing funding to provide transit service levels that most people really want.
The other major issue common in former frontier based societies like Canada, USA, Australia and New Zealand is the one that continually frustrates me because people want desperately to believe in it due to an endless amount of programming from childhood around it. The belief that everything should be profitable and no matter what incredibly bad service is provided that unless it is profitable, it isn’t good. No form of transport is always cash positive or in some cases ever. A regional based transit system over very large service areas like the Lower Mainland of BC will never be unless, great swaths of territory are either unserviced or rarely serviced at all, frustrating many residents.
Zwei replies: It is not that I think we should not fund transit, but unfortunately, giving TransLink more money tends to be spent on politically prestigious projects like the SFU gondola (which the City of Burnaby will not release the ruling gradients of the roads leading to the university) or more communications people to tell the great unwashe how “world class” Vancouver’s transit system is.
Earlier i did applaud the proposed Richmond centre to Metro Town express bus but mused that it should go another 3 km to BCIT, which would would have a large potential of new ridership. it seems now TransLink has a spokes person for every day of the week.
I was told by a transit type that a spokesperson for TransLink was recently heard on the radio condemning Ottawa for building with LRT instead of a SkyTrain, which evidently can plow through snow and ice with ease and being driverless it is cheap to operate!
Translink has started the renovation of the expo and millenium lines. They are preparing the platforms to allow for the new 5-car Mark V trains.
Currently, work is underway on the platforms of Waterfront Station. Other stations that have been scheduled to receive work starting later this year include Royal Oak Station, Edmonds Station, 22nd Street Station, New Westminster Station, Sapperton Station, Lougheed Town Centre Station, and Gateway Station. Work on the remaining stations have not been scheduled, but the project will be fully completed by 2026.
This project is expected to cost $77.8 million, with the federal government covering $28 million.
Zwei replies: The feds are not paying for rehabs only 40% for new lines. The MK.V trains is a TransLink name, they are just 5 car train-sets consisting of MK.2 and MK.3 cars, allowing through communication.
The platforms won’t change, they are just adding new blind strips. The 5 car, Mk.5 Skytrains are 82 metres long and most Skytrain station platforms are 78m to 80m long anyway, so no structural changes are necessary, as long as the new Mk. 5 train stops in the right place, not over shooting or under shooting the platforms.
Many of the really needed changes just have not been budgeted for yet, like an upgrade to the Expo Line’s power distribution system so more trains can run simultaneously.
1. New longer track turnouts (higher speed switches) allowing for far quicker turnover of trains at end point terminals or allowing higher speed, single track sections of mainline track when needing to operate in this configuration. Thus, allowing higher capacity single track operations at night or quieter daytime hours so that, track work can be done on one track, while the other is running normally. This would greatly lower track maintenance costs (which is already very high for the Expo Line and getting higher as the Expo Line ages).
This however changes the track geometry which also means in many areas relocating the 3rd rails, track communication modules and turnout motors. Which means a major upgrade to the cabling and cable connections for the whole line (which was budgeted unofficially at $700 million to $800 million in late 2018 and early 2019). I know this because an engineer friend of mine did the assessment for Translink, this is just the cabling and connections not relocation of the 3rd rails and updated track geometry plan. The concrete guide way base slab that track sits on needs upgrades as well at many locations along the original 1986 Expo Line.
2. Many Station upgrades are not actual capacity upgrades. Commercial and Broadway was “upgraded” but only added a 3rd platform and improved its passenger flow plan but didn’t add a 3rd track on the Expo Line (which would have really upgraded the capacity of the line allowing more throughput of trains). They simply spent a considerable amount of cash to increase the number of passengers the station holds but kept the same number of trains running through the station. Yes, Mk. 5 trains are 25% larger but the maximum frequency of service won’t change.
The physical space was put into the station for a second standard transformer (the device which helps to change the voltage received from B.C. Hydro into a more useable form for Translink as well as break up the power supply into different track sections, through electrical isolation) so more trains can run on the same line (actual electric system management improvements) . However, they didn’t put anything in that new space would actually do that, an extra transformer, or even many new virtual transformers which added together can mimic the effect of a small to medium range transformer, at relatively lower cost than, adding an entire new one. They simply said they added space for future expansion like more stores and restaurants.
Many of Translink’s upgrades aren’t anything to do with what is really needed because they cost a whole lot more than what they thought and would require years plus, the closing of many line sections, while that work was being done.
Translink has finally admitted that the new operating system equipment/software for the new automatic train control system will have a total cost around $700 million (essentially the automation software for the entire Skytrain system is out of date and Bombardier never finished producing an upgrade before it was sold to Alstom). It has been budgeted for and will be done but will take 2 or 3 years to complete once the work has started
The new mark v cars do look similar to the Mark III cars, with some improvements.
There will be LCD screens above the doors and the front of the train have LED headlights
New features that can be expected include more open flex space for bike racks, strollers, and wheelchairs, as well as the introduction of more perimeter side seating — similar to the Mark I cars — to improve accessibility and capacity. Some of the flex and standing spaces are also aided by padded leaning rails.
These will be the longest, highest-capacity Sky Train cars yet, with the Mark V trains configured as five-car, articulated trains, meaning passengers can walk from one end of the train to the other end — similar to the existing four-car Mark III trains.
Overall, the Mark V trains carry much of the same design as the Mark III, but with some major improvements to interior layout efficiencies, accessibility, and passenger information and communications.
It looks like there are fewer seats, which is a downgrade.
Only seven such systems have been sold since the late 1970s, and no new system has been built since 2005. Not quite true. There are eight systems. Riyadh Metro is the newest of the Innovia Metro.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovia_Metro
Zwei replies. The mark V cars are just tarted up Mk.3’s which in the real world are called “coaches”, gangwayed at both ends, as bombardier put little or no investment in these cars as there is no market for Movia Automatic Light Metro.
Riydah is a conventionally powered system, thus not related to MALM. They both use somewhat the same body shell but are not LIM powered and use different trucks or bogies. It is not an eighth system as it has more in common with the Canada Line cars than the MALM cars of the Expo and Millennium Lines.
The lack of seats is TransLink’s quest for capacity, which they deem is the gold standard for transit but lack of seating will certainly deter ridership, especially on longer journeys.
From Haveacow 2017/07/07
As I mentioned before the Trucks (Bogies) of most of Bombardier’s passenger railway products (mainline railway and transit systems) use the new FLEXX Bogie System which is scalable up or down for many of Bombardier designs. This saves a lot of time and money during design and construction which shows up in savings for vehicle costs to the customer. Unfortunately, Skytrain’s Linear Induction Motors can’t use this design because the propulsion unit has to be mounted between the flanges (wheels) at the centre of the truck mounted frame instead of the side of the frame where it is significantly easier to get at to conduct maintenance. This is where most of the worlds electric or diesel electric propulsion units on trains are mounted.
From 2015/12/05
……………..Riyadh, Saudi Arabia has a possible future order for 47 (2 cat train sets) order but they want it built there in Saudi Arabia. It’s a simple order that may not require the Kingston Plant because the Saudi’s want standard electric rotary motors not the LIM propulsion units, The rest of the existing Metro fleet in Riyadh, uses standard motors and they don’t want to complicate things, which as a customer is their right! Remember John told me, “The LIM units are just a design option, they are not tied to the product anymore”. The people at Kingston are worried!
The real embarrassing thing is what happened with Bombardier’s website. I have been pointing out to anyone who had been willing to listen that, the INNOVIA Automatic Metro line section of Bombardier’s website was moved out of the rail vehicle section into transportation systems section. Well just before John retired a big s***storm about the website had occurred. Turns out that, both representatives from Kuala Lampur and Vancouver had both been wanting to ask why their rail vehicles were not in the rail vehicle section of the website. They were told that, even though they were both highly valued long time customers and Bombardier would always be willing to design a replacement vehicle for them. It was just more advantageous for them to have the INNOVIA product as a stand alone complete transportation system product because so few people had ordered the technology compared to Bombardier’s other rail vehicle lines. Very few would be looking for just replacement vehicles and they (Bombardier) assumed that your transit people would just call them directly because there are no other compatible technologies that you would be able to order, technically. The simple translation, you can’t call anyone else our propulsion technology only works with our vehicle designs although, there are others that use LIM propulsion it would be a very expensive option. John was not sure and seriously doubts that, there was a legal requirement that the current users must order from Bombardier unless, they Bombardier does not offer an equivalent product!