Transit History That Politicians Would Like The Public To Forget
The history of Vancouver’s SkyTrain light-metro system has been somewhat altered to fit today’s politcal narrative; the following is a brief but concise history of how metro Vancouver got saddled with the SkyTrain light metro system.
Prior to the Social Credit government forcing the then called Advanced Light Rail Transit (ALRT) system onto Metro Vancouver (To quote then premier Bill Bennett; “you will get SkyTrain whether you like it or not”, which was quoted again when then NDP Premier, Glen Clark echoes the same threat for the Millennium Line), there was a well studied plan to implement a modern light rail system for Canada.
Just weeks before the plan was to be accepted by the GVRD, the Bill Bennett government entered into a private agreement with the Government of Ontario to buy their unsalable Intermediate Capacity Transit System (ICTS) system, which was renamed ALRT for the sale to Vancouver, to acquire the services of the then famous “Blue Machine”, to win the next election, which like today, saw a one seat majority in the legislature in Victoria.
Only one ALRT system (Vancouver) was built and the proprietary transit system remained unsalable domestically and internationally.
Bill Van der Zalm was merely the government “points-man” to sell ALRT to the public and had little to do with the decision. He is on record stating that, except for the Expo Line, ALRT or SkyTrain, was unsuitable for the lower mainland rapid transit and supports the Valley rail scheme.
The original LRT plans saw LRT from Vancouver to Richmond; Vancouver to New Westminster/Lougheed Mall and Whalley.
The following is a map, with costs (1978 dollars) of the proposed LRT lines, but for a somewhat higher cost we got ALRT to New Westminster.
Adjusting for inflation, the $430 Million to $558 Million would be $1.88 Billion to $2.45 Billion. Compare to the $6 to $7 Billion, 16 km extension of the Expo Line to Langley or the now $4 billion, 5.7 km Broadway subway!
The GVRD did not want SkyTrain and instead wanted light rail for the then Broadway Lougheed Rapid Transit Plan as their “Cost of Transporting People in the Lower Mainland” Study found that SkyTrain, just to New Westminster, was subsidized at $157 million annually in 1992; more than the trolley and diesel bus operations combined!. Accounting for inflation, this is $300 million annually in 2024 dollars
The NDP have flip-flopped twice, Broadway Lougheed and Surrey, from originally planned for light rail to SkyTrain light metro.
Why?
It certainly wasn’t because it was a better system because the well studied ALRT/ART (ART is the name for Bombardier’s rebuild of ALRT) has been found wanting and remains today unsalable.
The following is from Modern Tramways in 1983 and clearly shows that ICTS/ALRT was inferior to LRT, yet the Toronto studies were never permitted to be made public in BC and the Vancouver media never bothered to investigate ALRT.
It was known by 1983 that what we call SkyTrain was unsalable and today only seven systems were built and only six remain in operation. It was well known in the 1990’s that Bombardier’s rebuild of ICTS/ALRT was unsalable and resorting to pay “success fees” to bureaucrats and politicians in Korea and Malaysia to build with ART.
Bombardier could only sell one ART system in the USA, if the Canadian government, through the Overseas Development Bank would fund it, yet Vancouver continues to plan for more and worse, pretends it is a “world class system“!
Whoever has heard of a “world class system” that is unsalable?
This is the legacy of the SkyTrain light-metro system, a world class white elephant.
Why does government continue planning and building with it?
https://www.translink.ca/-/media/translink/documents/about-translink/corporate-reports/translink_employee_remuneration/2023-financial-information-act-filing-and-remuneration-report.pdf
2024 Budget
TTC
Additionally, the TTC Board also considered a revised Capital Investment Plan report, which shows that, “despite significant capital/state-of-good-repair investments, there’s a growing backlog estimated to reach $8.244 billion by 2033
Daily ridership TTC 2.5M
Daily ridership Subway 1,064,700
SERVICE HOURS 9.19M
Budget $2,567.9
1 SERVICE HOURS cost $0.279
(Does not include the new LRT line service)
TL
Daily ridership translink 1.3M
Daily ridership Skytrain 500k
SERVICE HOURS
skytrain 1,211,693 h
Bus 5,789,971 h
All 7,001,664
Budget $2,370,438,000
No WCE, Road and bridges cost $2,188.2 M
No Interest payment, WCE, Road and bridges cost $1,918,3M
1 SERVICE HOURS cost $0.312
1 SERVICE HOURS cost $0.273
Employees 4,819 CMBC average annual gross pay average: $98,466
FIRSTCANADA ULC $67,061,911
TAXI all:$1,872,382
Mayors’ Council cost:$471,010
What, I could find on trolley operations. To Mr haveacow.
TROLLEY CONNECT $4,077,875
TROLLEY SUPPORT LLC $407,000
CMBC BC HYDRO $5,458,959
PARKLAND CORPORATION( Diesel fuel)
$57,151,293
PETRO-CANADA LUBRICANTS INC.(Support vehicle fuel) $104,524
Cost operations for expo and millennium line.
Maintenance and parts $151,727,769
Staff Cost $134.656,759
Capacity has increased when needed or expansions.
1985 4,224 pphpd 5-minute frequency day time 4/car MK 1
1986 Expo 86 10,560 pphpd 2.5 min on the rails in between stadium and waterfront stations. 4/6 car MK 1
1995 6,336 pphpd 5-minute frequency day time 6 car MK 1
2002 8,000 pphpd 3-minute frequency day time 4 car MK 1 and car2 MK 2
2010 12,000-13,000 pphpd 108 sec frequency day time 4 car MK 1 and car2 MK 2
2011 11,000 pphpd 130 sec frequency day time 4 car MK 1 and car 2 MK 2
2019 15,500 pphpd 108 sec frequency am/pm peak MK 1, MK 2 and MK 3
2020 14,500 pphpd 122 sec frequency am/pm peak MK 1, MK 2 and MK 3
2026 17,500 pphpd 82 sec frequency am/pm peak MK 1, MK 2. MK 3 and MK 5
2029 21,000 pphpd 82 sec frequency am/pm peak MK 3 and MK 5
2035-2040 26.000 pphpd MK 3 and MK 5 81 M Platforms.
Being the first system being fully automated with a rolling block signal. Has its own risk and reward for the public. But there are adjustments of capacity during the day or on the fly. Comfortable capacity for users of the system throughout the day. Adding additional trains during non peak times for people prefer to be squished.
Operational Average speeds.
North America Commuter: 60 kmh
EU Commuter rail: 50 kmh
Skytrain(EXPO,M line) 40 kmh
Light rails and metros 30 kmh
Local bus 20-23 kmh
(There are some operations faster or slower than Listed above)
The speed of skytrain operations allows easy regional trips and to feel a whole lot smaller. Making Metro Vancouver feel like one big city.
ART= Advance Rapid Transit.
LIM= Linear motor.
Overkill traction effort with no sand.
Low maintenance cost and Low to comparable power usage to electric motor.
Buy ART.
1 Transit agencies.(Vancouver)
2 City transit agency.(TTC,Detroit)
1 Government operator.(China transport)
1 New York port authority
2 For-profit transit operator.(Dubai and Kuala Lumpur)
Skytrain 40 years of automated operations in december of next year. Started the revolution of automated metro and subway operations.
Why no one bought art?
1.Because it was Canadian.
2. Overkill traction
3. Can’t be Integrate with existing lines.
4. Not compatible with existing suppliers.
Skytrain is about not wasting time.
So stop wasting time on something that won’t happen!
Zwei replies: I guess your Translink masters are getting worried.
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So many errors; so much fake history.. Actually the first driverless railway stated operations in 1927 in London, UK. The Victoria line is considered the first automatic metro in the world.
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Simply, no one bought ART because it was a crappy system, too expensive for what it did. ICTS/ALRT/ART has been one of the most studied new build transit systems in the world, yet no one bought the system and in fact the system has never been allowed to compete directly against light rail and for obvious reasons, LRT would win!
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The Chinese built on to obtain technology and they have never built another one.
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The NY Port Authority built one because the Canadian government funded it because it failed an American peer review, being too expensive for what it did.
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Kuala Lumpor built one because SNC Lavalin and Bombardier bribed politcans and bureaucrats to build one AND transit authorities in KL thought they were buying a monorail!
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Your operational speeds is, again more fake news because the higher commercial speeds come at a cost, fewer stations and fewer stations attract fewer customers. Given an identical route with the equal amount of stations, the commercial speed would be slightly higher for light rail because of shorter dwell times.
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TransLink’s higher capacities for the future is based on a lot of expensive rehab and i doubt the system will carry more than 17,500 pphpd simply because the system, because of demographic change, is not servicing the destinations where customers want to go. This is reflected by the millennium line which after re-signalling, will have a maximum capacity of only 7,500 pphpd!
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The trouble with the Skytrain Lobby is that they reside in the realm of pixie dust and sparkle ponies and not the reality of real transit.
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The real embarrassment will start soon because there is no money for any SkyTrain expansion, as the province is anteing up $16 billion to extend the E&M Lines a mere 21.7 km and they are short, at least $4 billion and that shortfall is rising due to inflation. The word I am getting is that, if Trump imposes 20% tariffs on import goods and stops foreign companies from bidding on US transportation projects, unless they have manufacturing plants in the USA, Alstom will abandon all SkyTrain production because as Vancouver is now the only customer and the system is very dated and expensive, it is not worth the cost of keeping the production line open.
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Your last comment seals the deal that you work for TransLink and are showing how desperate TransLink is becoming.
We find it more than interesting that your politcans and planners still plan for your proprietary light metro, because as Mr. Zwei points out, the system is now beyond obsolete. Cost can make a transit system obsolete far faster than technological change and your SkyTrain fails on both counts.
When we worked on the RAV/Canada line we tried to tell your planners and engineers that using trams would be not only cheaper, but obtain higher capacities and there was plenty of scope to use other manufacturers products if desired.
We were kicked from the process because of our desire to build a better system, than what was being planned at a cheaper cost.
We would have liked to be the <> when your politcans were told that the RAV/Canada line was not compatible in operation with the rest of the system, because they denied that the ART system was proprietary and could operate on all railways.
On our side of the pond the tram is now considered the only rail mode to be built, except for major Stadtbahn or U-Bahn routes carrying more than 20,000 to 25,000 persons per hour.
I have very little time.
1. When I was at Bombardier people treated the technology and system as a like a joke. The main problem could be expressed in a single statement, It wasn’t scalable and the design (especially the vehicle) was unadaptable even when that was desirable for the customer.
You couldn’t buy a basic version and work up to the “Full Monty” later. If you wanted one part or feature but not another, as a customer, you were out of luck, you had to take everything. This is what primarily killed it. Want an extra feature like a drivers cab, ala the Scarborough RT, the design back flips that had to be done were stuff of legend. The design was set and that’s it, too bad if the customer wants or needs a change.
1 (a) The extreme corporate and institutional resistance against it, when it was forced on Bombardier buy a corporate purchase. it wasn’t a Bombardier product. It also directly compeated against other Bombardier products, making all of them including the Skytrain, harder to sell.
As an employee of Bombardier, god help you if you were given a position in that department and its various sub sections which promoted and sold it. ALRT, Skytrain, Scarborough RT, whatever you called it, you had just been demoted, almost as bad as being banished to the Monorail and People Mover Department. The most commonly heard phrase was, “a duck making a lateral career move to, a l’Orange!” It wasn’t liked and it wasn’t easy to promote due to it being very complicated and considering its capacity, really expensive.
2. Half the capacity of a full Metro (because it’s a Light Metro) but 80%+ the cost to build.
3. It’s automation wasn’t scalable either. One single line, one isolated line could save money for an operator however multiple lines in a network actually increased its operating costs.
4. Contrary to what your Translink people said, you could only buy the technology from Bombardier because we made it legally difficult and expensive to use anything but Bombardier technology. Plus you the operator, signed legal agreements banning any vehicle or principle operating technology outside of Bombardier’s products. These included NDA’s banning a list of topics for outside public information consumption. Don’t blame Bombardier this is actually very common in most of today’s industry agreements.
4 (a) The more you invested in the system the more you became more dependent on Bombardier. You might get cheaper off the shelf or easy to design and build replacement vehicles using the Mk 1 Skytrain, Mk 2 Skytrain levels of technology. However, finding a builder with the technological capacity to replace or build another version of the Mk 5 Skytrain with the same specs and capabilities designed from scratch to fill this niche market vehicle mandate, all for a comparable price, forget it. We designed it that way. All modern railway vehicle manufacturing companies do this to some extent. The odd mixtures of technology with the Skytrain vehicles made it easy to do that.
5. The odd nature and location of its propulsion equipment makes using nearly all of the easily available (cheap) 3rd party auxiliary track devices, virtually impossible. Thus forcing you to use either a far less common (more expensive) 3rd party alternative equipment or Bombardier’s (and its corporate partners) design specific equipment. This was common in maintenance equipment as well.
Sorry got to go!
So many errors; so much fake history.. Actually the first driverless railway stated operations in 1927 in London, UK. The Victoria line is considered the first automatic metro in the world?
NO
The Story of London’s Underground
pg 46
The extension used an improved signalling system which had also been applied to the ‘main line’. Electric lamps had replaced oil and gas in the signals, and the original long block sections, which extended from the starting signal at one station to the starting signal at the next (or the buffer stops at the termini), were shortened by adding an outer home signal to the home signal which protected a train at a platform — really only an emergency signal. To make sure that a section was clear, an ingenious form of ‘last axle’ indicator was used. This consisted of an insulated plate mounted on each side of the tunnel and a special brush on the last car of each train. When the brush touched the plate it completed a block release circuit through the rails. This was the first apparatus of this type on an underground railway. The effect was that as soon as a train was known to have come within the protection of the outer home signal, that signal could be put at danger and the starting signal at the station in rear could be lowered to allow another train to follow. There were no distant signals on the line. Repeaters were provided for the signals where necessary, and there were some minor changes, but broadly this form of signalling lasted until replaced after the 1914-18 war by automatic signalling.
pg 91
Passimeter booths were eventually to appear at most stations on the system, and only finally disappeared when ticket issuing went fully automatic at the end of the 1980s. A few stations, including Sudbury Town, have preserved examples in situ.
pg 162
Work on the new line quickly gathered pace. On 12th December tests began with a two-car unit of R stock fitted for Automatic Train Operation (ATO) which was to be an important feature of Victoria Line trains. ATO enabled the train, controlled by an operator, to drive itself, taking instructions from pulses received from the track. The system fitted to the R stock unit (Nos 22681-23580) was in two basic parts, one controlling normal running and braking, and the other, emergency braking. A train running on the ATO principle would ‘know’ if the line ahead was clear, as well as when to stop, and start, by the coded signals picked up through the track. A stretch of track between Acton Town and South Ealing was used to test the system, which was soon working satisfactorily. On 8th April 1968 trials of ATO in passenger service began on the District Line between Stamford Brook and Ravenscourt Park (eastbound), car 22682 replacing 22681 as the test vehicle.opening windows fitted.
Different Levels of rail automation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications-based_train_control#CBTC_and_moving_block
London Underground is Semi-automatic Operation (STO), starting and stopping are automated, but a driver who sits in the cab operates the doors and drives in emergencies
03 Aug 2015 Thales to modernize 40 per cent of London Tube network
https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/canada/press-release/thales-modernize-40-cent-london-tube-network
Communications-based train control skytrain 1986 is Unattended Train Operation (UTO), starting, stopping and doors are all automated, with no required crew member on board
“From this order, the Expo Line and Millennium Line’s capacities are slated to increase to 17,500 passengers per hour per direction (pphpd) and 7,500 pphpd, respectively. These increases represent a 32% and 96% boost in carrying capacity, respectively, over existing capacities.” https://www.railjournal.com/technology/translink-awards-thales-skytrain-train-control-contracts/
M line 2002 5,000 ppdph or 20 Trains an hour(One train set of MK 2) or 1 train every 3 minutes.
Addition of 9 more trains an hour
Up Grade 7,500 pphpd or 29 Trains an hour Or One train every 122 sec or increases 96%
EXPO
2010 15,000 pphpd 37 Train an hour or 1 Train every 108 sec(3 set MK 1)
Addition of 5 more trains an hour
Up Grade 17,500 pphpd 42 Trains an hour or 1 Train every 85 sec or increases 32%
Trying to make up information Mr zwei?
Still don’t work for translink, CMBC, BCRTC, InTransitBC or Transdev.
Zwei replies: Around and around the mulberry bush we go. you are spinning your tires sunshine with classic “man of straw arguments” which the SkyTrain types like to do to confuse the real issues.
Look, London’s Victoria Line is considered the first automatic metro in the world and yes it had a driver but he was there for: 1) Union reasons; 2) saftey concerns as a train carried over 2,000 customers in peak hour service and if a problem happened, they needed someone there to deal with it (TransLink has little care for customer safety); 3) All the drive did was make sure the doors were clear and pressed a button to start the service with everything else being automatic.
So your history is somewhat correct but very dated.
Translink claims that Skytrain carries 15,000 pphpd in peak hours and yes it has done on occasion, but my contacts tell me that 15,000 pphpd is almost unworkable because dwell times extend past 30 to 40 seconds due to people trying to get on and off, which then reduces overall capacity. I have been told that it is not uncommon for a train to be stuck at a station for over 90 seconds due to overcrowding and the doors being held for people getting off. The same will be true for higher capacities.
The 15,000 pphpd is mainly for media releases and nothing more. The trains are crowded because they are small, especially the MK.1’s and TransLink, like BC Transit before vastly overstated capacity of the cars to fudge the numbers up and the practice still continues today. Oh yes, the cars are also packed because Translink often takes two or three trains out of service for media reasons, giving the impression of overcrowding except they are not running the full diagram of trains. As their is no authority to oversee this and that the provincial government is in full agreement with this practice, the public are being bamboozled.