When Idiots Run For Election, They Promice Anything!
So the Federal Liberals are promising $2.1 billion for Surrey’s ill designed and poorly thought out proposed LRT and the Conservatives are planning to do the same as well.
Don’t these idiots realize that the regional taxpayer rejected this very same LRT line in the plebiscite held last spring? I doubt it as both federal Liberal and Conservative parties desperate to win seats and will sell their first both, or in this case an ill designed LRT for Surrey, to be elected.
The Surrey LRT is in reality a poor man’s SkyTrain in drag, poorly thought out, poorly planned and will not offer the transit customer any benefit, except higher transit fares and a consumer unfriendly transit system. That is why the TransLink vote failed, TransLink is held in such high odor, the taxpayer wants to be rid of it.
By promising to fund Surrey’s LRT without anyone actually vetting the project to see if it is at least cost effective, is like throwing money into a fire, but then federal politicians never cared much about the taxpayer.
Please don’t point to a business case, because business cases for transit projects are a dime a dozen in BC.
Sadly, once again a political vanity project becomes transit policy; no wonder TransLink is held in such high disrepute.
A pox on both their houses.
Federal Liberals pledge $2.1 billion for Surrey light rail
Conservatives had been expected to make a similar promiseBy Kelly Sinoski, Vancouver Sun September 9, 2015
Surrey-Newton Liberal candidate Sukh Dhaliwal said the Liberals were committed to providing an additional $20 billion in public transportation funding over the next decade for the countryai??i??s top regional priorities.
Photograph by: DARRYL DYCK, THE CANADIAN PRESS
The federal Liberals rushed to announce transit funding for Surreyai??i??s $2.1-billion light rail project Wednesday, beating out Stephen Harperai??i??s Conservatives, who were expected to make a similar pledge last week before they were derailed by the Syrian refugee crisis.
The move, made by Surrey-Newton Liberal candidate Sukh Dhaliwal, said the Liberals were committed to providing an additional $20 billion in public transportation funding over the next decade for the countryai??i??s top regional priorities, and ai???Surrey is well placed to secure B.C.ai??i??s first funding commitment under the Liberal plan.ai???
ai???Under a Liberal government, Surrey would receive more attention and consideration than has ever been offered by the Conservatives,ai??? Dhaliwal said in a news release.
The announcement comes a day before Liberal leader Justin Trudeau was slated to hold a press conference on Vancouverai??i??s West Broadway, which is earmarked for a $2.1-billion subway line to Arbutus Street. Both Vancouver and Surrey have been championing the transit projects, which are cited as priorities in TransLinkai??i??s 10-year transportation plan.
Dhaliwal noted the City of Surrey in 2013 applied to the federal government for funding under the Building Canada Plan to build three LRT lines and in 2014, the request was designated with a ai???screened inai??? status, meaning that the project had been shortlisted.
Yet Surrey has still not received any further word on receiving federal funding, he said.
ai???For two years now, the Conservative government has ignored Surreyai??i??s requests, even though the city will become B.C.ai??i??s largest city over the next 30 years,ai??? Dhaliwal said. ai???We have 1,000 new residents moving to Surrey every month, and effective public transit is an important part of ensuring that our local economy continues to grow.ai???
Dianne Watts, former Surrey mayor and Conservative candidate, would not say whether Harper had planned to announce transit funding in Surrey last week, or if he expected to do so, saying it was up to him.
However, she maintains the federal government has invested heavily in infrastructure in B.C. in the past and Surrey has been a significant recipient of that money. As mayor, she said, she worked hard to get federal dollars for the city.
ai???I wouldnai??i??t presume to speak for the prime minister,ai??? Watts said. ai???Suffice to say the plan is to invest more dollars in infrastructure. We will continue to work on investing those dollars in infrastructure, as we have before.ai???
Earlier from Mr. Haveacow.
……….Trying to convince people in Surrey that, their LRT plan is useful, Translink used a Skytrain option as well as a surface BRT option to compare to LRT capability, pointing out the superiority of LRT in this case. The Skytrain option had many problems cost and general usefulness being the main ones. The BRT example they used is actually an LRT line using buses operating on a layout and design which is not even close to what a real BRT line in a on-street environment would or should be using. Its not even close to the best Canadian practices, let alone best practices used in the rest of the world, with BRT systems in a on-street environment. Did the staff doing this know enough to do this purposely or were they ignorant of the differences of what good BRT design is or is not. Their example of LRT also displays a either a serious lack of knowledge about best surface LRT operating practices in the US and Canada. More importantly it shows to me, how committed or in this case not committed, Translink staff really are to studying LRT technology at all. In fact, I don’t blame the people who supported Skytrain technology for this area, like Daryl from Skytrain for Surrey, he had a point, on the surface this study definitely made it look like that to me that the Skytrain Light Metro was the superior technology choice. The difference as a professional is that, I know the real differences in all the technologies that were studied. I also have no belief that, I am the be all and end all of studying these things in the world and would also ask for much help in studying these technology choices from other friends and companies I am familiar with, whom are experts at it. To me a whole new study should be done using the actual best practices for all technologies not just the preferred LRT technology, you should seriously question major aspects and assumptions that were made in this particular Translink study.
Maybe someone should send a memo to the Liberals and conservatives.
One of the first things that you have to be aware of in election posturing is the modern understanding of how politicians and their parties claim support for an idea, whether that Idea is cat and dogs living together or a rapid transit line. The content of the idea doesn’t matter as much as that it is either completely different than what the other political candidates/parties want. Or you sell your idea as more important and or relevant to society as a whole than the other candidates/parties ideas. Lastly, the idea is just common sense and everybody wants it but yours is the best way of doing it and getting the job done. The proposed Surrey LRT System, was picked as a political alternative by a candidate who wanted a different idea than her political rival whom probably wanted a Skytrain extension, this unfortunately is the basis for the system. This approach then forever frames the idea in a certain way and therefore, key assumptions are never seriously looked at and other key questions are never really studied or asked until its too late. The real problem of the Surrey LRT Line is what is the reason for having it? More simply put, what is it supposed to do and what problems does it actually solve?
When a politician proposes an idea for political reasons like the Mayor of Surrey’s LRT idea as an alternative to the Skytrain it frames the question in a certain way. Surrey is growing and looks like its going to be a really big city in the future, so what is the best rapid transit technology for it? The Mayor says LRT! Is she right? She could be? But by saying all this she has side stepped the process that the local transit operator has for determining what is actually the best route and technology. In this case, a transit operator like Translink’s regional (multi city) focus for public transport planning is actually a good thing! They would study the whole area south of the Fraser River not just Surrey! Very little effort has been put forward as to where this line should go and what it should do? This is because the mayor of Surrey was able to frame the question and has been able to steer all of Translink’s studies away from studying anything but Surrey, very little effort was made to look outside of that boundary. Therefore, possibilities like much longer lines that connect many different places aren’t given their fare examination. So Translink looked at connecting the high traffic areas inside Surrey together with rapid transit and they did, just that. So there is little investigation of the line going outside of Surrey to downtown Vancouver or anywhere else south of the Fraser River for that matter. The heavy reliance of just studying Surrey only, limits where any higher capacity transit can go. Thus the shape or directions of the system’s lines limit it severely towards certain locations. It also limits the total amount of passenger traffic that rapid transit line would get when it opens or at any time in the future. Politically, this focus on Surrey only builds resistance to the line from anyone else who just simply disagrees with the line or people who will not benefit from it directly. I am not saying that Surrey should not have LRT but because of the way the question was framed originally and by a politician, other foci on other possible areas of service are completely ignored. The scale or in this case, the lack of service scale, concentrating on a single municipality instead of multiple municipalities, decides line design and layout, good or bad! This LRT line then forever becomes a feeder to the Skytrain. Thus, if one wants to go beyond Surrey you are forced into a transfer instead of having a single seat route to downtown or somewhere else south of the Fraser River, which is never studied or even remotely looked at.
The need to focus on a particular technology too early in the process then guides the process when technology is chosen. If the scale of the service was increased to include areas outside of Surrey, Commuter Rail (Regional Rail) would suddenly become a possibility to be studied and likely, Skytrain technology is down graded because of the distance involved. This can have both positive and negative effects on capital and operating costs. However, the larger scale means more people are now being served by the line or lines increasing service possibilities and densities (vertical and or horizontal). In simple terms, if the line goes to more places and includes more potential passengers, you can not only have longer lines but greater frequency of service. With a little creativity, the greater scale also increases the types of service. Local as well as express service is possible to offer on the same line. The greater distance or service scale makes the separation of these 2 basic operating types possible, maybe even skip stop service if needed. Zwei’s Tram-train proposal in my opinion, has certain issues of its own to be addressed but its one of the few technologies that really understands the concept of service scale and the variation of services that can be made possible with even a slightly larger area of service. The main issue is that, you actually have to study a larger area than just one municipality to get the point that, allows you to think of greater possibilities in the design of the rapid transit operation.