The Song Remains The Same. The NDP Stick To Their Worn SkyTrain Script
The following is a repost from 2020 and sadly absolutely nothing has changed. Just four years later, Premier Eby continues to fumble the transit ball.
The now full estimated cost for the 21.7 km extensions to the Millennium and Expo Lines is now North of $15 billion and climbing by the day. From a rough guesstimate, the project is now around $5 billion underfunded, so the continued random closing of Emergency Wards in Hospitals in the “Hurtlands” will continue as the NDP fumble along trying to source the billions of dollars needed to fulfill politcal promises now well over twenty years old.
The completion of the Broadway subway to UBC is now in excess of $8 billion and rumour has it that TransLink wants to build it elevated from around Vine to UBC to save $2 billion or so in cost.
Then there is the recent 19.5 km North Shore SkyTrain plan, which in light of recent huge escalation is cost for building with the proprietary light metro, would be in excess of $12 billion!
Then there is the Canada Line P-3, with its billions dollars worth can of worms with future expansion.
Not going to happen and the NDP instead of planning what the taxpayer can afford, instead plan for ‘pie in the sky’ SkyTrain light-metro projects to bamboozle the taxpayer once again.
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
So in the 2024 election cycle, the NDP’s transit planning is akin to “The song remains the same”; lots of promises; lots of photo-ops and 10-second sound bytes for the evening newscast, but in the end, nothing.
An Election Is Coming. The NDP Follows The Old Script.
Posted by zweisystem on Tuesday, September 15, 2020
As with all Metro Vancouver transit projects, they are good for three or four election cycles.
The NDP are just using their tired playbook from the 90’s, nothing more and, shock and disbelief, Parliamentary Secretary for TransLink, Browinn Ma is the do nothing MLA for North Vancouver Lonsdale.
Need I say more.
“Our government is committed to creating greener and more liveable cities and boosting access to transit as much as possible,” Claire Trevena, minister of Transportation.
If the NDP government was really committed to creating a greener and more livable cities, they would dump the $500 million/km plus Broadway subway in favour of $25 million/km LRT and the $200 million/km Expo Line extension in Surrey for $6 million/km Vancouver to Chilliwack TramTrain.
Show us the funding for this $6 billion plus project, then maybe we will get excited.
So, where is the funding John?
Five Burrard Inlet rapid transit crossing options announced
by Marcella Bernardo and Mike Hall
Posted Sep 15, 2020
File – SkyTrain. (Lasia Kretzel, NEWS 1130)
The five study options include a tunnel or bridge
NORTH VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Rapid transit to the North Shore is one step closer to being delivered after the completion of a technical feasibility study, with five potential crossing options.
The list for a third Burrard Inlet crossing — finalized by the B.C. Ministry of Transportation — includes links to either downtown Vancouver or Burnaby, via a tunnel or bridge.
“We are now able to move forward on some more technical planning around that. That’s the really exciting part, for me. There’s at least five feasible options,” said Linda Buchanan, mayor of the City of North Vancouver.
She’s not saying which option she prefers, though.
“At the end of the day, I just want to make sure that we can do the next phase of the work, and we really are looking at getting a line that starts us to be able to move people and goods and greener and sustainable ways, keeps our cities vibrant and makes us more prosperous.”The Burrard Inlet Rapid Transit study is to help with Transport 2050 planning.
The study was led by Mott MacDonald Canada and listed as crossing options:
- Downtown Vancouver to Lonsdale via First Narrows (tunnel crossing);
- Downtown Vancouver to Lonsdale via Brockton Point (tunnel crossing);
- Downtown Vancouver to West Vancouver via Lonsdale (tunnel crossing);
- Downtown Vancouver to Lonsdale via Second Narrows (new bridge crossing);
- Burnaby to Lonsdale via Second Narrows (new bridge crossing).
“Our government is committed to creating greener and more liveable cities and boosting access to transit as much as possible,” Claire Trevena, minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, says in a release.
“This study shows possibilities that can be considered in future planning. It’s exciting to look towards a future high-speed connection that will make moving around on the North Shore and Greater Vancouver easier and greener.”
Connecting Lonsdale City Centre with Vancouver’s metropolitan core and the regional rapid transit network, while considering compatibility with existing and future land use, is one of the recommendations put forward by the Integrated North Shore Transportation Planning Project.
“People living in North Vancouver are eager to embrace socially, environmentally responsible ways to travel that allow them to beat the traffic,” says Bowinn Ma, MLA for North Vancouver.
No timeline or start date has been set for the crossing project, nor have costs.
Zwei, I respectfully suggest an update in the costs per km your using. Your not doing yourself any favors by using these extremely outdated costs.
In terms of a modern Regional Railway using existing lines and being built in Canada!
For example, the $810 Million Trillium Line (Ottawa Line#2 & Line#4) was 40.2 Million per km.
A Temporary Aside to My Own Big Pet Peeve!
The Trillium Line’s $810 Million cost, is the actual construction and vehicle acquisition costs, not the $1.6 Billion that is often quoted because that larger price includes the $825 Million, 27 year operating contract value.
The anti-transit crowd in Ontario has now made it standard to add these costs to all rapid transit projects (the ones that they don’t support anyway), designed to make it seem more expensive than it actually is. For example, both the Hamilton and Finch West LRT projects (both primarily surface LRT lines) didn’t have the constantly quoted construction costs of $3-$4 Billion but around $1-$1.4 Billion, with the $2 Billion+ 30 year operating contract values added in.
Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Web Site Comment!
That being said, the $40.2 Million per km cost for the Trillium Line (Ottawa Line #2 & Line #4) was before the inflation rate shot up due to the post Covid inflation jump. So you are probably looking at $60-$65 Million per km now.
Even cheap surface LRT projects are $100 – $200 Million/km now because of inflation (construction and vehicle costs only).
Hey Skytrain Fans!
Supposedly cheap Skytrain projects using prefabricated above-grade concrete rights of way to reduce costs (no tunnels in site) plus more numerous and smaller project construction contracts (3 in total), instead of one big one, to help control non construction related building costs are an astonishing $375 Million/km. Include everything in the Ontario projects (construction and vehicle purchasing costs) Skytrain projects jump to $421 – $444 Million/km. I’m not even including tunnels here, just cheap as possible surface lines.
What’s Actually Included In the Costs?
Lastly, it’s really important to point out what’s included in the cost. All the projects from Ontario I mentioned not only include their multiple decade operating contracts but vehicle costs as well.
In all 3 Ontario projects, The Trillium Line, The Finch West LRT and the Hamiltion LRT, the project cost included not only the new vehicle costs but new vehicle maintenance and operations facilities costs as well.
Where the Skytrain only includes the Line and Station infrastructure. Vehicle costs as well as the often talked about Operations and Maintenance Centre #5 (OMC 5) aren’t included. Add in vehicle and OMG #5 costs for the line, estimated between (using pre Covid cost estimates and 5 minute Mk. 5 Skytrain service frequency, which means a minimum of 12 trains)
That’s $211 Million for 12 Mk. 5 Skytrains or 14 (which allows for 2 extra at peak service level) for 246 Million. Add in the 2019 cost estimate for OMC #5 which is $550-$850 Million, not including land acquisition costs. Thats $761 Million to $1.096 Billion that needs to be added in or an extra $46.5 -$68.5 Million/km. For a grand total of $421 – $444 Million /km to be equivalent to the Ontario lines in construction and vehicle costs.
Again, the Mk. 5 Skytrain and OMC #5 costs haven’t included inflation adjusted costs. Thus the massive new $421 – $444 Million per km, construction costs, may be a little on the low side.
The $25 million/km is from 2020 and was a post for the 2020 provincial election, would be $30 million in today’s coin and came from an article in T&UT. but this Canada and the cost of construction is climbing fast as per SkyTrain light metro and your $40 mil/km figure would be correct. Our local politicians still think Skytrain is a bargain at the current price.
I will predict this, if Rustad wins, kiss goodbye to all rail projects and will enter a new boom in highway construction, no matter what the cost.