Like children playing with their Christmas morning train sets, the Mayors council on transit blunders on wanting more and more, without any care as to the cost.
Not one of the mayors has any knowledge about public transit, nor seems to care about the onerous tax burden TransLink’s user-unfriendly service has become.
If any of the mayors had any moral fibre they would ask for a fully independent review of TransLink to see if the taxpayer is getting good value for their money.
I would wish that the mayors would contact the Baltimore MTA about their former and now TransLink’s CEO. I did and here is what I received in a Email.
you are about to get a new CEO of Translink in the person of Kevin Quinn. this is a good news/bad news situation. good news is we are rid of him, bad news you are getting him.
Mr Quinn may be the nicest yes man you will ever meet. he is very personable and friendly but have yet to actually see him in 6yrs have an opinion of his own. and if he has any use for light rail he has kept it well hidden.
hopefully you will have better luck than Baltimore, ridership is off (before pandemic) 2% year over year since he took over.
Hardly reassuring!
Like most Canadian politicians, the regional mayors think the taxpayer has deep pockets and will keep on paying for mediocre planning and even more mediocre transit service.
The lesson of the 2015 transit plebiscite, which showed that 61.7% of the regional population rejected TransLink’s transit planning and tax increases, has been ignored.
With the next round of civic elections in 2026, just in time for new taxes being loaded on the already over taxed taxpayer, the Mayor’s Council on Transit, “Lotus Land’s Ship of Fools”, may find themselves clinging to a sinking ship, with their politcal fortunes sinking with them.
Addendum: Trying to find out what the Mayor’s council on transit get paid for attending meetings. After 15 minutes of perusing Google, no can find.
In my book it is money poorly spent.
TransLink Mayors’ Council unveils funding wish list for transit improvements
Local politicians are hoping the federal government plays Santa.
The TransLink Mayors’ Council detailed its wish list Thursday for federal funding to help pay for a litany of transit improvements across Metro Vancouver.
The funding requests include supporting the building of new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) projects, giving $375 million for an expanded bus fleet, $1.4 million for additional bus depot capacity, $70 million for active transportation and road safety projects, as well as $120 million for the Golden Ears Way BRT readiness project.
“Transit-oriented development is a key component of the province’s and region’s plan to respond to the housing affordability crisis, but without federal financial support and a sustainable funding model to help deliver additional transit into the future, we won’t be successful,” said Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West, chair of the Mayors’ Council.
He adds that this funding is important as Metro Vancouver’s transit services are “essentially frozen at 2019 levels even as the region’s population has grown by almost 200,000 between 2019 and 2023.”
The announcement came a week after TransLink unveiled plans for three new BRT routes in Metro Vancouver. The “priority corridors” will be King George Boulevard from Surrey Centre to White Rock, Langley Centre to Haney Place, and Metrotown to the North Shore.
The timeline, however, isn’t as quick as some might hope. TransLink says potential services on these routes could roll out in 2027.
The ask from the council also came before work on the multi-billion dollar Surrey Langley SkyTrain is set to begin in 2024. The province previously said it expected to start awarding contracts in the first few months of the year.
Earlier this month, the Mayors’ Council pushed for an injection of cash for local transit projects after the B.C. government announced it had tabled legislation to densify housing near transit hubs.
“The fact is, you can’t have transit-oriented development without transit, and TransLink’s current system is unable to keep up with growing public demand for services across this region,” said West.
“With transit in Metro Vancouver currently frozen at 2019 levels, we need to see both the provincial and federal governments commit funding to dramatically expand public transit service. This legislation represents one of the most significant changes to land use and zoning policy that we’ve ever seen in this province, but it won’t succeed unless our three levels of government work together to deliver better transit in this region.”
Funding Translink Federal government: Expand the Bus Fleet, Real BRT, Bus maintenance and storage expansions.
During 2020 Translink Deferred upgrades Starting up Again 2022 Slowly Upgrades and replacement. From bus exchanges, OMC 4, Power system upgrades 2, Replacement of the fiber optic cabling, New sky train control center, Additional capacity Maintenance to OMC 1 2, Bus charging infrastructure and Minor Replacement. Oh, still ongoing rail replacement and Friction modifier program. A Wi-Fi on transit program.
Looked into the LIM air cooling and it’s just a fan only mechanical on LIM. 1992 Rubber deflector was added to the front and back of the limb motor and Rubber bushings Between the bogey and the LIM. The Lynn stays in a range of 8-20 Millimeters In service. Steel wheels and Rail profile has changed to be more Acoustically Quiet And less maintenance intensive. With the addition of a new friction modifier will preservel the longevity of rail profile. Increase of rail maintenance with grinding from a presentative maintenance of 2 times a year 116.8 km. Proactive maintenance of 4 times a year 233.6 km. Winter reliability problems is with the sensors for the automatic train. And the Canada line has Traction Problem With Snow.
Cost of maintenance per KM of skytrain in 2018. Canada line vs expo and M line.
( Annual operations ÷ Line km= $ Per KM)
Canada line $116.9 Million ÷ 21.2 km = $5.15 Million dollars per km.
Expo and M line $ 172.5 Million ÷ 58.4 = $ 2.9 Million dollars per km.
With the so-called bad value of skytrain We have a difference between these 2 operation being 2.25 Million dollar difference per km. Expo line being more frequent and M line Equal frequency Then the Canada line. Zwei Is Put a comparison to an lRT?
More frequency does increase the maintenance, but it doesn’t seem like it’s linearly to mark light weight cars vs Canada line cars.
More of a side note, the cities with light rail only are strictling to get riders back on transit. Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa and ION lRT.
Sit and wait Financial numbers for the REM of operations to Compare all 3 automated rail options.
Mr haveacow Comparable numbers in your part of the world? thanks for inspiring me to look onto LIM and Skytrain bokies.
(Caution, dyslexi)
Zwei replies: Afew notes. The optimum distance between a LIM and the reaction rail is 1cm (UTDC and remember it is an attractive LIM and the 1cm distance is critical as it consumes more power if there is a variance) and becomes expensive to maintain due to track and wheel ware.
The Canada Line is a 35 year P#, where the cost to the taxpayer is mitigated by annual payments to the Consortium. The actual; cost per km is around $260 million/km.
There are so many hidden subsidies for the SkyTrain light metro system that a true accounting cannot be made. From the politicians I talked to, not many put any faith in TransLink’s numbers. We know, via the GVRD’s numbers that the SkyTrain Expo Line was subsidized to the tune of $157 million per year.
LRT is quite cheap to operate, compared to light metro, always has been.
Most automatic transit systems seem to have problems in the snow, with the added embarassment that the Canada Line suffers wheel slip from leaves in the fall.
Putting aside you numbers, you forget that this system has been on the market for 45 years and of the 7 systems built, 2 were forced upon the operating authority, 1 was a single track demonstration line, 2 were sold by bribing politicians and bureaucrats, 1 was refused funding by the American federal government and one was built to steal technology. There has been no interest in the system for almost 20 years, despite it being the one of the most studied, new build, rapid transit systems in the world.
The problem is that what they say is the maintenance budget isn’t all what is actually spent on maintenance. What you are quoting is the expected budgeted amount for 2018. There are other parts that aren’t included in that maintenance budget, that you have to search for buried in other categories. These extra amounts aren’t insignificant and add considerable amounts to the total, anywhere from 30%-40% more. Nor do they include the work which didn’t for whatever reason, get done and its value towards the total. It’s also significant anywhere from 5%-15%.
I’m not criticising just Translink here, ALL transit agencies do this to some degree or another. Translink is just particularly better known for burying info like this.
The former Region of Ottawa Carleton and its transit agency O.C. Transpo used to include the majority of the bus Transitway maintenance cost in the road budget (it was a road after all), not the transit budget. Thus politicians here locally, used to swear up and down, showing and telling anyone who would listen, how inexpensive Bus based Transitways were compared to anything else in the rapid transit world. The reality not so cheap.
As for our transit numbers here. The transit passenger numbers for Ottawa traditionally live or die on how many federal government workers are going to work. There is still a significant portion of the public service, working at home, thus our numbers are still 65% – 75% pre Covid 19 totals. Until those numbers change, our transit numbers won’t go up.
Many knowledge industry workers, which represents a significant portion of their job totals in Kitchener- Waterloo, still work at home and haven’t come back yet. Which seriously effects their totals
Funding Translink Federal government: Expand the Bus Fleet, Real BRT, Bus maintenance and storage expansions.
During 2020 Translink Deferred upgrades Starting up Again 2022 Slowly Upgrades and replacement. From bus exchanges, OMC 4, Power system upgrades 2, Replacement of the fiber optic cabling, New sky train control center, Additional capacity Maintenance to OMC 1 2, Bus charging infrastructure and Minor Replacement. Oh, still ongoing rail replacement and Friction modifier program. A Wi-Fi on transit program.
Looked into the LIM air cooling and it’s just a fan only mechanical on LIM. 1992 Rubber deflector was added to the front and back of the limb motor and Rubber bushings Between the bogey and the LIM. The Lynn stays in a range of 8-20 Millimeters In service. Steel wheels and Rail profile has changed to be more Acoustically Quiet And less maintenance intensive. With the addition of a new friction modifier will preservel the longevity of rail profile. Increase of rail maintenance with grinding from a presentative maintenance of 2 times a year 116.8 km. Proactive maintenance of 4 times a year 233.6 km. Winter reliability problems is with the sensors for the automatic train. And the Canada line has Traction Problem With Snow.
Cost of maintenance per KM of skytrain in 2018. Canada line vs expo and M line.
( Annual operations ÷ Line km= $ Per KM)
Canada line $116.9 Million ÷ 21.2 km = $5.15 Million dollars per km.
Expo and M line $ 172.5 Million ÷ 58.4 = $ 2.9 Million dollars per km.
With the so-called bad value of skytrain We have a difference between these 2 operation being 2.25 Million dollar difference per km. Expo line being more frequent and M line Equal frequency Then the Canada line. Zwei Is Put a comparison to an lRT?
More frequency does increase the maintenance, but it doesn’t seem like it’s linearly to mark light weight cars vs Canada line cars.
More of a side note, the cities with light rail only are strictling to get riders back on transit. Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa and ION lRT.
Sit and wait Financial numbers for the REM of operations to Compare all 3 automated rail options.
Mr haveacow Comparable numbers in your part of the world? thanks for inspiring me to look onto LIM and Skytrain bokies.
(Caution, dyslexi)
Zwei replies: Afew notes. The optimum distance between a LIM and the reaction rail is 1cm (UTDC and remember it is an attractive LIM and the 1cm distance is critical as it consumes more power if there is a variance) and becomes expensive to maintain due to track and wheel ware.
The Canada Line is a 35 year P#, where the cost to the taxpayer is mitigated by annual payments to the Consortium. The actual; cost per km is around $260 million/km.
There are so many hidden subsidies for the SkyTrain light metro system that a true accounting cannot be made. From the politicians I talked to, not many put any faith in TransLink’s numbers. We know, via the GVRD’s numbers that the SkyTrain Expo Line was subsidized to the tune of $157 million per year.
LRT is quite cheap to operate, compared to light metro, always has been.
Most automatic transit systems seem to have problems in the snow, with the added embarassment that the Canada Line suffers wheel slip from leaves in the fall.
Putting aside you numbers, you forget that this system has been on the market for 45 years and of the 7 systems built, 2 were forced upon the operating authority, 1 was a single track demonstration line, 2 were sold by bribing politicians and bureaucrats, 1 was refused funding by the American federal government and one was built to steal technology. There has been no interest in the system for almost 20 years, despite it being the one of the most studied, new build, rapid transit systems in the world.
That about sums it up.
The problem is that what they say is the maintenance budget isn’t all what is actually spent on maintenance. What you are quoting is the expected budgeted amount for 2018. There are other parts that aren’t included in that maintenance budget, that you have to search for buried in other categories. These extra amounts aren’t insignificant and add considerable amounts to the total, anywhere from 30%-40% more. Nor do they include the work which didn’t for whatever reason, get done and its value towards the total. It’s also significant anywhere from 5%-15%.
I’m not criticising just Translink here, ALL transit agencies do this to some degree or another. Translink is just particularly better known for burying info like this.
The former Region of Ottawa Carleton and its transit agency O.C. Transpo used to include the majority of the bus Transitway maintenance cost in the road budget (it was a road after all), not the transit budget. Thus politicians here locally, used to swear up and down, showing and telling anyone who would listen, how inexpensive Bus based Transitways were compared to anything else in the rapid transit world. The reality not so cheap.
As for our transit numbers here. The transit passenger numbers for Ottawa traditionally live or die on how many federal government workers are going to work. There is still a significant portion of the public service, working at home, thus our numbers are still 65% – 75% pre Covid 19 totals. Until those numbers change, our transit numbers won’t go up.
Many knowledge industry workers, which represents a significant portion of their job totals in Kitchener- Waterloo, still work at home and haven’t come back yet. Which seriously effects their totals