Thoughts For 2025
If You Build a Better Mousetrap the World Will Beat a Path to Your Door.
TransLink would like the public to think that our transit system is world class and spends a lot of money on ‘spin-doctors’ to convince the taxpayer of this.
Sadly, the centerpiece of TransLink’s transit empire is the now obsolete and unsalable SkyTrain light metro system. Even more sad is that the light metro system has been one of the most studied, new-build transit systems in the world, yet no one has copied Vancouver. No one is beating a path to Vancouver’s door.
Strange that a world class transit system is unsalable as the world did not beat a path to our door.
2025, TransLink needs about $600 million a year more in subsidies to operate the transit system at its current levels and there is great public push-back, in an era of inflated costs for bare necessities of life.
TransLink and many local politcans remain deaf to this and continue promoting the expansion of our dated light-metro system.
Oh, we have a “foamer” from Toronto telling us that light-metro is good and subways are even better, yet he never mentions funding. Embarrassingly, the very same “foamer” disses Seattle’s rapid transit system for being light rail, when it is in reality a light-metro with 90% of its route grade separated, either on viaduct or in a subway, and is signaled to carry a maximum capacity of 18,000 pphpd. This is still more than after the Expo Line re-signalling program, which according to Thales, who is doing the the $1.47 billion re-signalling program, stated the maximum capacity of the Expo Line will be `17,500 pphpd after completion!
TransLink continues to plan for grossly over built light-metro lines on routes that just do not have the ridership to sustain them.
Example, on Monday Dec. 23, at 12:45 PM my wife, waited six minutes at Broadway Station for a Canada Line Train to Bridgeport Station. Now, 6 minute headway’s works out to 10 trains per hour, operating a maximum capacity of about 3,600 pphpd – really on a busy light-metro route?
The Broadway subway, upon completion will have a maximum capacity of only 7,500 pphpd, 5,000 pphpd less than what Toronto streetcars were carrying in the late 1940’s!
There is something radically wrong with our regional transit system, but those in charge just want more money and more money to make things better and the taxpayer is being held hostage.
TransLink is broke, yet no one will deal with this; not the premier, not the Mayor;’s Council on Transit; not anyone and this bodes ill for the future.
What do I see in my crystal ball for 2025.
I see the Expo Line extension to Langley deferred as this now $7 billion project and climbing is just not practical for several reasons, including lack of potential ridership.
The preceding sign is rather dated as the cost for Expo Line extension to Langley is now pegged at $6 billion or $7 billion including the needed Operations and Maintenance Centre #5.
I see planning for future ‘SkyTrain’ lines with great promises (all transit projects make good promises) but no real action will take place.
I see an expansion of B-Line (TransLink and the provincial government will call them BRT, but in fact they will not be) express bus routes.
I see a rationalization of bus services, especially suburban rush hour bus services.
I see higher compensation packages for the ossified TransLink bureaucracy much to the chagrin of the taxpayer.
I see higher fares for the commuter and cheaper fares for others, mostly those who would vote for the NDP.
I see former transit users, once again going back using the “electric” car.
I do not see any fiscal responsibility at TransLink continues to treat the taxpayer as a ‘milch cow.
I do not see any tangible improvement to our regional transit system, except higher subsidies, needing higher taxes, taxes the average person is finding hard to pay.
As politicians, pundits cheer for new projects, including the SFU Gondola, financial realities are going to bite hard and with only a one seat majority in Parliament, the current Eby government will not be so cavalier in spending.
Then there is the next federal election and with the current prime Minister Trudeau held in high odor with the voters a Conservative government is almost assured and the conservatives will halt many of the generous funding programs the Liberals have tried to vote buy for the past parliament.
My big fear is that we could be left with some very expensive, uncompleted projects, which like the previous “FastFerries”, will be were left to rot in full view of the taxpayer.
The built, but never used subway station in Chaleroi Belgium.
It is all about funding and I am afraid the “funding tap” is about to get turned off. TransLink has no plan “B”, in fact it really hasn’t had a viable plan for several years, they just do the same thing over and over again, ever hoping for different results, ever hoping the “government” will once again bail them out.
2025 is going to be an interesting year as TransLink will be living in interesting times.
Nice “cherry pick” of that subway in Belgium. However it is hardly representative of the thousands of busy subway stations in the world is it ? ( yes, thousands)
Zwei replies: You read it wrong, there is a fear that a lack of funding may prevent operation and now with the cost fast approaching $4 billion, the subway may remain uncompleted to Arbutus and passenger service terminate at Cambie.
Zwei replies: I am afraid that there will not be the funds to operate the subway, like Chaleroi and the subway will remain unused. Remember it will now cost an additional $50 million annually to operate it and the vast majority of users will be $1 a U-Pass holders, meaning the subway will be paid pennies. Also the subway will have very limited capacity, with a maximum capacity of only 7,500 pphpd!
Subways tend to busy because they are built on heavily used transit routes, with traffic flows well in excess of 20,000 pphpd, yet the Broadway subway will replace the portion of the Broadway 99-B Line bus, with a maximum capacity of only 2,000 pphpd! Again, I fear that a lack of funding could see a semi completed Broadway subway mothballed, due to lack of funding.
Yes, there are many U-bahn stations that handle thousands of passengers a day, but there is a number that have closed due to change in passenger habits.
We found on our side of the pond that U-Bahns looked nice for politcal resumes, but are poor in attracting new passengers. The longer distances between stations is not desirable and the huge costs to maintain the stations is a considerable drain on our transportation resources.
Legally, we must staff our stations for passenger protection unless if traffic flows are so low it just becomes impractical.
The lesson that your politcans and planners have not learned is mid life rehabs, which could rival the original costs of the U-Bahn.
On heavily patronized U-Bahn routes this is not a problem, but on minor routes and less used stations, this becomes problematic.
The naivete of those wanting subways in your part of the world, may come back to haunt them at tax time as the local rates increase past the point that residents wish to pay, then the politcans who built the U-Bahns, may find them to be a politcal death sentence.
Zwei makes a good point Mr. McGowan, fear for the lack of government funding is the main reason the Sheppard Ave. Subway (locally refered to as the “Sheppard Stubway”) ends at Donmills station and not Victoria Park Ave North Station, as well as missing the interim Brian Drive/Consumers Road Station.
Mr. Zwei writes, “The Broadway subway, upon completion will have a maximum capacity of only 7,500 pphpd, 5,000 pphpd less than what Toronto streetcars were carrying in the late 1940’s!”
I’ve read such claims before by Mr. Zwei about the ridership of Toronto streetcars. Since he never provides his sources let’s try some arithmetic and common sense.
Presumably, the 12,500 pphpd was for the highest ridership Bloor-Danforth line. I see in Wikipedia that its PCC streetcars of the day were 46 feet long and seated 42 people but could carry 103 with standees. (Elsewhere I see a crush load of 134, but I will use 103.)
A 12,500 pphpd with 103 passengers per car means 121 streetcars each hour. If evenly spaced, there would be 2 cars a minute. If the lights at major intersections change every 2 minutes, four cars have to make it through each light.
This is for the best case scenario. Real-word Toronto in the 1940s would not have 103 passengers in every streetcar. Acceleration/deceleration, intersections and scheduled stops would constrain line speed. Delays would occur when large numbers of riders got on and off cars. Streetcars would have to deal with cars and bicyclists (like my Mother) on their tracks and which sometimes blocked oncoming vehicles by turning left. There would be no ‘smart’ timing of traffic lights. And lets not even consider Toronto’s ice and snow.
At 12,500 pphpd, the ‘bunching’ of streetcars at intersections and general gridlock would be inevitable/commonplace in a mixed traffic route like the 1940s Bloor-Danforth. At the centre of the city there were three major streets that crossed this streetcar line within 2000 feet (Young St., Bay St., and Avenue Rd.). Delays at these (or any other) intersections would ripple out along the whole line.
And so Wikipedia reports, “By 1949, traffic congestion was making it difficult for streetcar service to stay on schedule using less than 2-minute headways”. This partly motivated a switch to two car trains which could load/unload and pass through intersections in less time than two single cars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloor_streetcar_line).
Note, 2 minute headways. Not the half minute headway projected above.
For single PCC cars a two minute headway means a pphpd of 30 cars times 103 passengers or 3,090. For two car trains the pphpd would be 30 trains times 206 passengers or 6,180.
Nothing like the 12,500 that Mr. Zwei claims was achieved.
As a kid I saw dozens and dozens of streetcars lined up bumper to bumper to carry us away from the annual Canadian National Exhibition when its Midway closed for the night. Sure, they could move 12,500 people in the first hour. But the route during this limited service was a near-continuous wall of red and yellow streetcars.
As a reference point for discussing capacity by transit mode Mr. Zwei’s 12,500 pphpd by Toronto streetcars is unbelievable.
Zwei replies: The number is used in the 1983, article in Modern Tramways, “The direction of TTC Planing For the 1980’s” by Philip Webb a respected researcher and I believe author from Ontario. Our own Mr. Cow, a transit expert, refined that to 12,500 pphpd on occasion.
So there you go
The 12500 p/h/d flow for the Bloor-Danforth Streetcar Line was achieved in the late 1940’s through to the early 1960’s. The amount began to drop as construction of the original Bloor-Danforth Subway contributed to big line delays. The subway line opened in 1966. The TTC could couple 2, sometimes even 3 streetcars together in the war and post war period because the PCC Streetcar fleet grew from 385 in the middle of world war 2 to its height of 745 in the late 1950’s, the conversion of several lines to Trolley Buses in the late 1940’s, plus the upgrading of 138 Peter Whit Streetcars, replacing the last wooden streetcars in the fleet.
Tomorrow January 6, 2025, Line #2 & #4 (formerly the Trillium Line) officially opens in Ottawa. Initially it will be a weekday only service then after 2 weeks, Monday through Saturday then after another 2 weeks full 7 day a week service. The $1.633 Billion ($810 Million for construction, $823 Million for the 27 year operating agreement with the operator Transitnext) 2 line project (Line #2 19.8 km long & Line #4 3.6 km long), using mainline railway track and DMUs as a diesel LRT like service. The system is going to have a 10 to 12 minute service frequency. The stations are spaced as LRT staftions (800m – 3 km apart) instead of commuter or regional rail stations (3 km – 8 km apart) due to the flange gearing in the DMUs. I will send pictures.
I found the 1983 article by Philip Webb. In the process I also came across an earlier blog by Mr. Zwei that *did* identify this source (https://www.railforthevalley.com/latest-news/zweisystem/after-intense-pressure-from-the-provincial-government/).
My apologies for failing to read this post from 10 years ago, and any others that should have moderated my opinion that Mr. Zwei too often makes factual claims that are unsupported.
Mr. Zwei has now usefully reproduced excerpts from Webb’s article in his blog post following this one (https://www.railforthevalley.com/latest-news/zweisystem/for-mr-b-dealing-with-the-facts/).
As can be read there, Webb’s 12,000 pphd by Toronto streetcars came from the ‘IBI Group’. Webb does not actually quote the IBI Group study or describe the derivation of its number. If I was going to flog this number like Mr. Zwei does I would find the IBI report in order to quote it rather than rely on a secondary source. But Webb does include a key qualification that Mr. Zwei fails to make in his own use of this number, like above where he compares the 12,500 pphpd “that Toronto streetcars were carrying in the late 1940s” to the 7,500 projected for the Broadway Skytrain.
The key qualification is that the IBI’s 12,000 pphpd was only achieved “at times”.
In other words, the Webb-IBI number does not represent the normal or typical ridership or capacity that should be used when comparing transit modes. During the Olympics the Canada Line averaged 228,190 passengers (probably boardings) per day (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Line). Mr Zwei, is that the number you quote to represent this service?
Webb’s article is very good in detailing how streetcars were hampered by the priority given cars and operations in mixed traffic. His own calculation of the Toronto streetcar pphpd is 12,000. This was as a potential, not what actually prevailed in the real world. With articulated cars he says the pphpd might approach 20,000. These numbers assume *30 second* headways. Webb’s 12,000 pphpd only differs from mine above by using 100 rather than 103 passengers per car.
Just as I did, Webb notes how many passengers were moved away from the CNE by streetcars following a special event. But he cites numbers: “1580…in a 15-minute period (6320 passengers/hour/direction) and 1205 in a 10-minute period (7230 passengers/ hour/direction…with no transit priority!)”.
Mr Zwei, Webb’s real-world pphpd is barely half the number you attribute to this source, though this is not for a regular scheduled service. Please stop muddying the waters by claiming 12,500.
Zwei replies: Mr. B suffers the same sad anti LRT nonsense as the rest of the SkyTrain Lobby, they refuse to face the fact that their beloved SkyTrain is a 2nd rate proprietary light-metro system, that no one wants. When one starts listing the reasons, they go ballistic, calling me and others liars or more.
Remember ICTS was unsalable; ALRT was unsalable; ART could only be sold if “success fees” were paid to bureaucrats and politcans or the federal government underwrote the costs.
This leaves some very pointed questions on how Vancouver first built with ICTS/ALRT and why the NDP flip-flopped from LRT to ART/MALM twice!
Now Zwei and Mr. Cow both know a hell of a lot more about SkyTrain, but we do not print it because it would cause a lot of personal legal grief and for me, at 70, I really do not want to spend the next 5 years in the courts, proving that I am correct.
So Mr. B, enjoy your anti-LRT tripe because it is a fiction that only people in BC believe.
The truth is there only you will not look and hide behind conspiracy theories.
The following is from an Email from ‘Major Hoople’ (an avatar used because he still does consulting work) from Germany. Mr. H is an engineer, specializing in tram/metro operation.
It is part of a longer Email which I have edited for brevity and not to further excite the SkyTrain types.
I am printing it here to show that yest the modern tram can carry in excess of 12,500 pphpd and in fact this is rather common in Europe.
From 2013
That’s the whole point of traffic light pre-emption. Which does not
*increase* the green phase for streetcars, but *shift* it in time. So
automobile traffic does not wait longer, it’s just different drivers who
wait, statistically.
If there’s no significant automobile traffic parallel to the
streetcar/light rail tracks (as typically the case in those “transit
malls”), you can even dynamically reduce the green phase for the trains
to the strict minimum required to clear the crossing (less than ten
seconds, even for a four-car set), which will actually *increase* the
green phase for crossing automobile traffic.
Right here next door, Leipzig is easily running 40 trains per hour on
sections shared by several routes. And the infrastructure is not
nearly at capacity, neither concerning trainset lenght (platform
length would allow 60m instead of 42m), nor concerning frequency. Other
operators do as well or even better. Karlsruhe’s 80 trains per hour are
running through a pedestrian street. Calgary’s transit mall precisely
seems to suffer from a lack of traffic light pre-emption, judging form
the videos.
Another example, from Czechia, the streetcar at Prague. The section
from Karlovo Namesti east to I.P.Pavolova carries the routes
4: 8 min 7.5 trains/h
6: 8 min 7.5 trains/h
10: 8 min 7.5 trains/h
16: 8 min 7.5 trains/h
22: 4 min 15 trains/h
That’s 45 trains per hour.
The tracks from Karlovo Namesti to the north carry the routes
3: 4 min 15 trains/h
6: 8 min 7.5 trains/h
14: 8 min 7.5 trains/h
18: 8 min 7.5 trains/h
22: 4 min 15 trains/h
24: 8 min 7.5 trains/h
That’s 60 trains per hour.
The tracks from Karlovo Namesti to the south carry the routes
3: 4 min 15 trains/h
4: 8 min 7.5 trains/h
10: 8 min 7.5 trains/h
14: 8 min 7.5 trains/h
16: 8 min 7.5 trains/h
18: 8 min 7.5 trains/h
24: 8 min 7.5 trains/h
That’s 45 trains per hour as well.
All figures given are for the morning peak. There are various other
networks in Europe that have similarly dense operation on sections
shared by several routes. 40 trains/h is not uncommon.
Boston’s green line is running 40 trains per hour, 90s frequency. On
sight in the tunnel, without ATC. Four branches, six minutes frequency
each. They are running four-car trainsets for events so the platforms
would be long enough.
64 seats per car times four cars per train gives 256 seats per train.
100 passengers altogether per car (as cited by others on this list)
yields 400 passengers per train.
Times the frequencies for operation on sight whether in the streets (60
trains/h) or in tunnel (40 trains/h) gives
40 60 trains per hour
256 10,240 15,360 seats per hour an ddirecton
400 16,000 24,000 passengers per hour and direction
And these are the number given for “real occupancy” here on this list.
Personally I hate standing for more than five stops, and I’m not that
old yet. During peak hour, I often don’t have the choice however.
Transverse seating is almost impossible with two-way low-floor cars.
One-way low-floor cars (à la Karlsruhe’s GT8-70D/N: 124 seats for 39.5m
length) allow a significant fraction of transverse seating:
http://fotogalerie.verkehrsgigant-portal.de/data/media/25/Bild_563.jpg
That’s one reason why I would always advocate one-way rolling stock and
infrastructure with loops: It allows more seats *and* more doors.
Besides that the rolling stock is cheaper to buy and to operate and
more reliable. Besides that loops allow a higher frequency than stub
ends. Besides…
Sincerely,
27 years since translink, as an organization has been running and planning service in Metro Vancouver. Improved service hours and span of service over BC Transit. But with shortage of operation funds have hampered expansion for bus services. Overcrowding still exists quarterly service changes with it being like a game of wakomo with crowding. It’s just not people struggling, public transit as well. Translinks plan A is to get new funding, whatever that may be. Plan b like any transit operator is service cuts.
2026-2036 access of everyone planned.
Or translink investment plan for 10 years.
9 BRT
UBCX
11 rapid buses(BRT light infrastructure)
Redesign columbian skytrain station.
Electrify the bus.
Transit service expansion.
Improvements to pedestrian and cycling infrastructure.
Burnaby mountain gondola.
All up in the air until funding announce before the end of the year.
Zwei replies: Nice advert for Translink with a lot of prestige projects, but dear me, where is the funding? No funding? Pity!