The Broadway Subway – Vancouver’s Phallic Symbol

Vancouver’s politicians and elites desperately want the city to be a “world class city” and by their definition, a world class city must have subways.

The Canada Line, the only heavy rail metro in the world that operates as a light metro, runs in a subway under Vancouver’s streets because city politicos, in effect, held their breathe like a spoiled child until they got their way. The reason? Their political supporters didAi?? not want modern light rail on the Arbutus Corridor, so the region picked up the tab for construction.

Today, the Canada Line carries a sizable amount of ridership, or it seems too, because the trains are packed during peak hours. The truth is a little different.

The Canada Line’s construction costs were spiraling out of control and to curb a massive cost overrun (about three times or that of the ‘Fast Ferry’ debacle) the scope of the project was reduced to the point that the system could only operate two car trains, with stations having platforms 40 metres to 50 metres long. This means the Canada line was at capacity the day it was built! The other cost cutting measures included switching from a ‘bored tunnel’ to ‘cut-and cover’, which in turn ruined businesses and bankrupted shop owners along the route.

To counter the negative reporting about the Canada Line a professional troupe of highly paid claques were constantly interviewed by the media, spinning the story to such a degree, that those loosing their life savings by cut-and-cover construction along Cambie Street, were cast as greedy money sucking villains. This theme even entered Canada’s court system doing untold damage to those who were deliberately bankrupted by the Canada Line.

The following is what one will not hear from the SkyTrain subway lobby:

1. Ai??Capacity on the Broadway subway will be limited to 15,000 pphpd, unless a further $2 billion to $3 billion is spent upgrading the millennium and Expo line stations and electrics.
2. A subway will greatly increase operational costs for the Broadway route, as subways are power hogs and the power needed for escalators, elevators, lighting, ventilation, pumps, etc. will far outstrip the power needed to operate the trains.
3. The electric trolleybuses will go the way the trolleybuses did on Cambie St.
4. People, who’s transit journey is less than 7 km. will find they will have increased journey times.
5. Cut-and-cover construction will be used as the precedent was set with the Canada line subway.
6. The subway will not attract much new ridership and many people will think it user unfriendly.
7. Future maintenance costs will further exacerbate TransLink’s financial position.
8. Municipalities South of the Fraser may find the subway too extravagant and lobby for partitioning of TransLink.
9. The high cost of subway construction/operation may do away with the U-Pass.
10. Congestion along Broadway will increase as only a small percentage of people who will purchase the proposed new Condos and Apartments will use transit.

Today we have many bloggers pitching the virtue of a SkyTrain subway under Broadway, with many having close connections to those politicians who champion the subway projects. Like the claques and shills for the Canada Line a decade ago, most of the bloggers supporting a Skytrain subway will not deal with the reality of the costs today, or twenty to thirty years down the road because they are pitching the construction of what is tantamount to a massive phallic symbol to show that Vancouver is ‘world class’ to those who care and screw the rest of the region.