One wonders if Premier Eby is going to call a snap election in January or February?
Surrey will be hotly contested as the police, flip-flop, issue is hurting the NDP MLA’s there.
Nothing like “good news everyone” photo ops and 10 second sound bytes for the evening news, to try to steer the voter away from the police issue.
I still see TransLink and the provincial NDP are still deliberately misinforming the public about the cost of the project, by quoting, “………the line is expected to be around $4 billion, the province says.”
I think not.
The cost of the guideway is now $4.01 billion for 16 km. of line, but wait, that estimate was from a few years back and the cost of cement and structural steel have been badly affected by inflation.
So here are the current costs associated with the Langley extension.
Cost of guideway, estimated in 2021 – $4.o1 billion, funded by TransLink, the provincial and federal governments.
Resignalling of the Expo and Millennium Lines, needed to operate the Langley extension – contract for $1.47 billion, signed with Thales.
UNFUNDED – The Operations and Maintenance Centre #5 needed before the Langley extension opens. Estimated cost $500 million to $1 Billion.
UNFUNDED – The electrical rehab of the E & M Lines, needed before the Langley extension opens. Estimated cost $1.5 Billion to $2 Billion.
UNFUNDED – All switches on the Expo Line need to be replaced with high speed switches, before the opening of the Langley extension, which also requires structural rebuilding. Cost is piecemeal and not included in the finding package. Estimated cost $800 million to $1 billion.
NOT INCLUDED – The fleet renewal which includes a minimum of five 5-car train-sets. Cost @ $3 million/car – $75 million.
NOT INCLUDED – Station rehab, cost unknown.
Added up the true cost of the 16 km Langley extension and the 5.7 km Broadway subway, pegged at $2.7 billion, will be around $11 billion to $12 billion! And that is for a mere 21.7 km extension to the Expo and Millennium Lines!
Where is the money coming from?
Well, Premier Eby and TransLink are not saying, especially before a snap election. Announcements of tax increases do not win elections.
Well you know the old politcal saying; “If a politician repeats a lie often enough, the media and the public will tend to believe the it”.
Surrey-Langley SkyTrain station names, locations announced
FILE – A SkyTrain station sign in Metro Vancouver. (Allan Chek, CityNews Image)
We’re getting closer to the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain extension project becoming a reality, as eight new station names were announced Friday.
The SkyTrain to Langley is part of the province’s plan to extend the Expo Line from King George Station in Surrey to the city.
Once complete, it will be the first rapid expansion south of the Fraser River in 30 years, the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure adds. Commuters will be able to travel on transit from Langley city to downtown Vancouver in just over one hour.
The eight stations along the 16-kilometre track will include:
Green Timbers Station (140 Street and Fraser Highway)
152 Street Station (152 Street and Fraser Highway)
Fleetwood Station (160 Street and Fraser Highway)
Bakerview-166 Street Station (166 Street and Fraser Highway)
Hillcrest-184 Street Station (184 Street and Fraser Highway)
Clayton Station (190 Street and Fraser Highway)
Willowbrook Station (196 Street and Fraser Highway)
Langley City Centre Station (203 Street and Fraser Highway)
The ministry notes over 50,000 new residents are expected to move into Metro Vancouver every single year. It says this project aims to help with the increase in population.
In addition to the new stations, there will be more bus exchanges, park-and-ride spaces, 30 more SkyTrain cars, an operations and maintenance centre, and system upgrades.
“Once complete, this extension will connect people to jobs, to friends to businesses and to opportunities throughout the south of the Fraser region and beyond,” said John Aldag, member of parliament for Cloverdale-Langley City.
The cost to build the line is expected to be around $4 billion, the province says.
“This is another important step in moving this project forward from concept to reality,” said Rob Fleming, minister of transportation and infrastructure. “The stations we are naming today will become community landmarks and will be recognized for decades to come.”
He says this project will mark a 27-per-cent expansion to the original SkyTrain network.
“That’s huge. That is unprecedented in Canada right now to make those kinds of investments in public transit — 16 kilometers, the new alignment. And it will bring incredible opportunities.”
Construction on the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain project is expected to begin in 2024, with a slated opening of 2028.
Ok I got hammered by this so many times on line for this, yes, the Expo Line can operate without numbers 3,4,5 and 7 but as both the Millennium Line & Expo Line continue to age, your operating costs are going to skyrocket!
The basic railway technology used on both of these lines, the Expo Line especially, just isn’t designed for traveling on a 40 km long, one way, line haul run, with your primary traffic generator stuck at one end of that 40 km long run.
This type of operation is very heavily effected financially by even light to moderate drops in passenger traffic at your primary traffic generator, while the maintenance costs get geometrically higher as you travel further and further away from your primary traffic generator.
A Very Simple Example
Yes, the Expo Line will continue to operate without OMC #5. However, you are now going to start servicing your 81.5 metre long, 5 section (5 car) Mk. 5 Skytrains at the existing yards OMC #1 – OMC #4. These trains, may not need much more storage space than the a 6 car long Mk. 1 train, (about 3-5 metres more) but the longer trains can seriously complicate your maintenance schedule. If there was an issue with just 1 of the Mk1. vehicles you can detach it, get another extra one and off you go. If there is an issue with a single truck or boogie, on one of the new Mk. 5 trains, the whole train can’t move.
This is ok if you have an extra train ready, more than likely you will be fine, I’m sure Translink has planned for that. The real problem not shown here is Translink is very short of maintenance and servicing tracks, the simple act of holding this single Mk. 5 train for more maintenance, has now backed up the entire maintenance schedule because a maintenance track you were hoping would be open, now isn’t. That means the next train that would be starting its servicing and inspection when scheduled, now must wait!
Since you just added 16 km of track going to Langley, a train going to start its day in Langley instead of King George now has to leave the yard 10 to 15 minutes earlier each day for each train serving the Expo line.
So a maintenance schedule which was under pressure before the Langley extension because you were already running short on maintenance space, even with the new OMC #4 now being operational people, is further hampered by your larger trains simply taking more physical space. So you now have an operating schedule under intense pressure, with Translink staff hoping they don’t find a maintenance problem they didn’t count on. These kind of discoveries happen every day, especially on aging rail lines. Suddenly fewer trains are available on a nearly constant basis.
To address the problem you either cut the frequency of the service, which cuts revenue down or you build more maintenance space and higher more staff, that adds a huge one time capital cost but also more operating costs.
The problem now is the Langley extension really won’t add many new customers when it opens, fewer passengers than the 99 bus handled in 2019 before Covid 19! (Translink s own figures) So a $4.01 Billion extension is not going to initially attract a huge number of riders, will more than likely add considerably more than the planned operating costs, unless they build a $500 Million plus, maintenance facility, immediately. Considering the length of trip to downtown Vancouver from Langley, the old pre-Covid 19 medium & long term passenger estimates for the Langley extension are IMHO, way, way overstated.
Zwei replies” Privately I have been told that the cost of the 16 km extension may soar to $6 billion, due to very expensive issues with the Serpentine Valley. It is a huge peat bog. This was one of the original issues that swayed TransLink to build with LRT, a hell of a lot cheaper. The “expert” mayor was told this before the flip-flop but he was the expert and experts are never wrong.
Crossing the Serpentine Valley will mean deep foundations for the guideway, far more cement than originally envisioned.
Also, I was told that the Line would probably be extended to Fleetwood and no longer, which means no crossing of the Serpentine Valley; no OMC#5; and a deferred electrical upgrade.
This photo-op about naming the stations, is, I think, mere theatre masquerading the massive fallout from the Surrey police fiasco.
Thank you for this insight in light metro maintenance. Most posting here do not have a clue about maintenance regimes. Automatic railways have rigorous maintenance procedures as the vehicles must always be at 100%. If a car fails, the entire line fails.
Also not factored in is the extra mileage the cars will run.. Not much at first, but consider each train, collectively, will travel an extra 500 km a day or 15,000 km per month or over 182,500 km a year! Now consider that collectively the Vehicles will operate over 7 million extra kilometres per year This will be costly.
There’s is a very simple way to look at this whole issue. Putting aside the Alstom Citadis Spirit LRV issue here.
1. Ottawa spent $2.167 Billion for Stage 1 LRT and $4.8 Billion for the Stage 2 LRT programs, or a combined $6.967 ($7 Billion) for 63.8 km or (64 km) of LRT with Light Metro infrastructure.
Vancouver is spending $6.84 Billion (almost $7 Billion) for 21.7 km of Light Metro.
2. Both systems are operating in completely physically segregated rights of way however, Ottawa’s includes, 2 main yards, 1 light service yard and all the trains.
3. Ottawa’s LRT with Light Metro infrastructure has a superior maximum theoretical capacity;
17,500 p/h/d (passengers per hour per direction) in Vancouver vs. Ottawa’s 24,000 p/h/d
4. Vancouver is getting 5 km of tunnel and Ottawa has 2.5 km but will have up to 7.6 km.
5. Vancouver’s 14 new stations are 80 m long.
With the exception of 2 stations on a branch line to Ottawa’s airport which are 40 m long. 11 Ottawa stations are 80 m long and could be affordably expanded to any required length. 28 Ottawa stations are 92 m to 100 m long and easily expandable to 120 m long. 3 Ottawa stations, all in a downtown tunnel are already 120 m long. All station platforms in both cities are of similar width.
6. Vancouver is getting the extension of 2 existing lines while Ottawa has 1 completely new line with 2 extensions in the east and west, the western extension has 2 full service branches. Ottawa is getting a 2nd completely upgraded existing north south line and a southerly extension with a branch line to our airport.
According to those who watch these things, the next provincial election will be in May. The bid announcement for the Expo Line extension will be made in June.
Federal Government $1.3 billion 30.76%
Provincial Government $2.4 billion 60%
City of Surrey and TransLink 300 million 9.24%
SLS Cost Estimates
– Early Property Acquisition and Review of a future OMC5 $150 million
– Surrey-Langley Skytrain Early Works $17.5 million
– Elevated Guideway $1.1 billion
– Eight New Stations Skytrain $475 million
– ATC $700 million
– Active Transportation $60 million
– Engineer and Survey Work ?*
ALL= 2.5 billion*
2.New Control room, New PC ATC, New fiber optic Cables and New Radio Communication Equipment. New ATC can Increase Frequency and Expansion when needed. More comfortable and more ergonomical layout for the control room with room to extend.
3. It is in Transport 2050 Plan.
Wait until OMC 4 It’s complete before we hear about the next one timelime.
4. E&M line Eventually? we’ll be having trains run down its tracks. But it is taking its sweet time for government processes.
5. Program for Replacing turnouts.
Replace 170 existing switch machines and 24 Turnouts/Track switches that are past their useful service life over the span of the next three years (2023‐2025) $ 24.83 million
6. 205 mk 5 Replacing 150 mk 1 Options 400
7. infill stations Property contributions to Skytrain station. I’m going upgrades Roof replacement, elevators, escalators and Brentwood Town Centre.
on hold for rework Burrard Station. BCRTC Hinted Columbian station need to rework.
mr Haveacow
Ottawa and Edmonton plant of future grove in their light rail network. The lower mainland couldn’t decide which Transit mode to even build.
Currently, there’s a relationship difference between the VAN and Ottawa.
Expo line In the next 10 years or less station platform expansion needed for future capacity.
Evil Eye
Expo Line extension construction is supposed to start Q2?
All these cost estimates are pre Covid and pre inflation. As the tendering contracts have not been let, the costs you mentioned are very dated.
It is now been recognized the Eby is going to call a may election so there is going to be a plethora of “good news” everyone photo ops and 10 second sound bytes.
Here is another issue, it has come to my attention that if Trudeau calls a snap election and loses, and if the Conservatives win, they withdraw all funding, even if contracts are signed, as the Conservatives did to Ottawa a decade ago, costing the city to pay $34 million damages to Siemens.
Ok I got hammered by this so many times on line for this, yes, the Expo Line can operate without numbers 3,4,5 and 7 but as both the Millennium Line & Expo Line continue to age, your operating costs are going to skyrocket!
The basic railway technology used on both of these lines, the Expo Line especially, just isn’t designed for traveling on a 40 km long, one way, line haul run, with your primary traffic generator stuck at one end of that 40 km long run.
This type of operation is very heavily effected financially by even light to moderate drops in passenger traffic at your primary traffic generator, while the maintenance costs get geometrically higher as you travel further and further away from your primary traffic generator.
A Very Simple Example
Yes, the Expo Line will continue to operate without OMC #5. However, you are now going to start servicing your 81.5 metre long, 5 section (5 car) Mk. 5 Skytrains at the existing yards OMC #1 – OMC #4. These trains, may not need much more storage space than the a 6 car long Mk. 1 train, (about 3-5 metres more) but the longer trains can seriously complicate your maintenance schedule. If there was an issue with just 1 of the Mk1. vehicles you can detach it, get another extra one and off you go. If there is an issue with a single truck or boogie, on one of the new Mk. 5 trains, the whole train can’t move.
This is ok if you have an extra train ready, more than likely you will be fine, I’m sure Translink has planned for that. The real problem not shown here is Translink is very short of maintenance and servicing tracks, the simple act of holding this single Mk. 5 train for more maintenance, has now backed up the entire maintenance schedule because a maintenance track you were hoping would be open, now isn’t. That means the next train that would be starting its servicing and inspection when scheduled, now must wait!
Since you just added 16 km of track going to Langley, a train going to start its day in Langley instead of King George now has to leave the yard 10 to 15 minutes earlier each day for each train serving the Expo line.
So a maintenance schedule which was under pressure before the Langley extension because you were already running short on maintenance space, even with the new OMC #4 now being operational people, is further hampered by your larger trains simply taking more physical space. So you now have an operating schedule under intense pressure, with Translink staff hoping they don’t find a maintenance problem they didn’t count on. These kind of discoveries happen every day, especially on aging rail lines. Suddenly fewer trains are available on a nearly constant basis.
To address the problem you either cut the frequency of the service, which cuts revenue down or you build more maintenance space and higher more staff, that adds a huge one time capital cost but also more operating costs.
The problem now is the Langley extension really won’t add many new customers when it opens, fewer passengers than the 99 bus handled in 2019 before Covid 19! (Translink s own figures) So a $4.01 Billion extension is not going to initially attract a huge number of riders, will more than likely add considerably more than the planned operating costs, unless they build a $500 Million plus, maintenance facility, immediately. Considering the length of trip to downtown Vancouver from Langley, the old pre-Covid 19 medium & long term passenger estimates for the Langley extension are IMHO, way, way overstated.
Zwei replies” Privately I have been told that the cost of the 16 km extension may soar to $6 billion, due to very expensive issues with the Serpentine Valley. It is a huge peat bog. This was one of the original issues that swayed TransLink to build with LRT, a hell of a lot cheaper. The “expert” mayor was told this before the flip-flop but he was the expert and experts are never wrong.
Crossing the Serpentine Valley will mean deep foundations for the guideway, far more cement than originally envisioned.
Also, I was told that the Line would probably be extended to Fleetwood and no longer, which means no crossing of the Serpentine Valley; no OMC#5; and a deferred electrical upgrade.
This photo-op about naming the stations, is, I think, mere theatre masquerading the massive fallout from the Surrey police fiasco.
Thank you for this insight in light metro maintenance. Most posting here do not have a clue about maintenance regimes. Automatic railways have rigorous maintenance procedures as the vehicles must always be at 100%. If a car fails, the entire line fails.
Also not factored in is the extra mileage the cars will run.. Not much at first, but consider each train, collectively, will travel an extra 500 km a day or 15,000 km per month or over 182,500 km a year! Now consider that collectively the Vehicles will operate over 7 million extra kilometres per year This will be costly.
There’s is a very simple way to look at this whole issue. Putting aside the Alstom Citadis Spirit LRV issue here.
1. Ottawa spent $2.167 Billion for Stage 1 LRT and $4.8 Billion for the Stage 2 LRT programs, or a combined $6.967 ($7 Billion) for 63.8 km or (64 km) of LRT with Light Metro infrastructure.
Vancouver is spending $6.84 Billion (almost $7 Billion) for 21.7 km of Light Metro.
2. Both systems are operating in completely physically segregated rights of way however, Ottawa’s includes, 2 main yards, 1 light service yard and all the trains.
3. Ottawa’s LRT with Light Metro infrastructure has a superior maximum theoretical capacity;
17,500 p/h/d (passengers per hour per direction) in Vancouver vs. Ottawa’s 24,000 p/h/d
4. Vancouver is getting 5 km of tunnel and Ottawa has 2.5 km but will have up to 7.6 km.
5. Vancouver’s 14 new stations are 80 m long.
With the exception of 2 stations on a branch line to Ottawa’s airport which are 40 m long. 11 Ottawa stations are 80 m long and could be affordably expanded to any required length. 28 Ottawa stations are 92 m to 100 m long and easily expandable to 120 m long. 3 Ottawa stations, all in a downtown tunnel are already 120 m long. All station platforms in both cities are of similar width.
6. Vancouver is getting the extension of 2 existing lines while Ottawa has 1 completely new line with 2 extensions in the east and west, the western extension has 2 full service branches. Ottawa is getting a 2nd completely upgraded existing north south line and a southerly extension with a branch line to our airport.
Who’s getting a better bang for their buck?
According to those who watch these things, the next provincial election will be in May. The bid announcement for the Expo Line extension will be made in June.
Zwei
1. $4.o1 billion Funding available for SLS
Federal Government $1.3 billion 30.76%
Provincial Government $2.4 billion 60%
City of Surrey and TransLink 300 million 9.24%
SLS Cost Estimates
– Early Property Acquisition and Review of a future OMC5 $150 million
– Surrey-Langley Skytrain Early Works $17.5 million
– Elevated Guideway $1.1 billion
– Eight New Stations Skytrain $475 million
– ATC $700 million
– Active Transportation $60 million
– Engineer and Survey Work ?*
ALL= 2.5 billion*
2.New Control room, New PC ATC, New fiber optic Cables and New Radio Communication Equipment. New ATC can Increase Frequency and Expansion when needed. More comfortable and more ergonomical layout for the control room with room to extend.
3. It is in Transport 2050 Plan.
Wait until OMC 4 It’s complete before we hear about the next one timelime.
4. E&M line Eventually? we’ll be having trains run down its tracks. But it is taking its sweet time for government processes.
5. Program for Replacing turnouts.
Replace 170 existing switch machines and 24 Turnouts/Track switches that are past their useful service life over the span of the next three years (2023‐2025) $ 24.83 million
6. 205 mk 5 Replacing 150 mk 1 Options 400
7. infill stations Property contributions to Skytrain station. I’m going upgrades Roof replacement, elevators, escalators and Brentwood Town Centre.
on hold for rework Burrard Station. BCRTC Hinted Columbian station need to rework.
mr Haveacow
Ottawa and Edmonton plant of future grove in their light rail network. The lower mainland couldn’t decide which Transit mode to even build.
Currently, there’s a relationship difference between the VAN and Ottawa.
Expo line In the next 10 years or less station platform expansion needed for future capacity.
Evil Eye
Expo Line extension construction is supposed to start Q2?
All these cost estimates are pre Covid and pre inflation. As the tendering contracts have not been let, the costs you mentioned are very dated.
It is now been recognized the Eby is going to call a may election so there is going to be a plethora of “good news” everyone photo ops and 10 second sound bytes.
Here is another issue, it has come to my attention that if Trudeau calls a snap election and loses, and if the Conservatives win, they withdraw all funding, even if contracts are signed, as the Conservatives did to Ottawa a decade ago, costing the city to pay $34 million damages to Siemens.