Metro Vancouver Transit Discussion II

[mcj]

The transit related portion of the agreement in principle between the BCNDP and BC Greens:

Government will commit, in collaboration with BCGC, to implement frequent, reliable, affordable regional transit on key interregional routes on Vancouver Island, along Highway 16, and along Highway 1, with a focus on Sea to Sky corridor transit in 2025.

Finally getting regional public transit service

[ilikeredheads]

clearly NDP and the greens are living in fantasy land.

[seamusmcduff]

Why? If we focus our money on building transit instead of expanding highways and interchanged, we can definitely find a way to afford it.

No one bats an eye at the billions we spend on road infrastructure, but as soon as a fraction of that money is considered for transit, every dollar is put under the microscope

[Migrant_Coconut]

Depends on the cost/benefit. It's not a secret that trains in BC start making less and less sense beyond the major cities.

The last Sea-to-Sky upgrade was $600 million for 19,000 commuters a day; commuter rail needs at least twice that cost for hopefully half that ridership... and that's assuming we can even negotiate with CN to restart passenger service in the first place. Might end up "just" being a provincial coach bus route.

[ilikeredheads]

Whistler population 13k
Squamish 24k
It's about 100km from west van to whistler through a mountainous area with vast forest.
CN has ROW.
It's a long windy path that means many slow speed sections.
Good luck convincing west van NIMBYs about running more trains.

Current bus between vancouver and whistler costs $30+ one way. If the province runs their own bus service, how much money do we have to burn to compete and be "affordable", as they have stated?

[Alex Mackinnon]

Originally Posted by ilikeredheads

Whistler population 13k
Squamish 24k
It's about 100km from west van to whistler through a mountainous area with vast forest.
CN has ROW.
It's a long windy path that means many slow speed sections.
Good luck convincing west van NIMBYs about running more trains.

Current bus between vancouver and whistler costs $30+ one way. If the province runs their own bus service, how much money do we have to burn to compete and be "affordable", as they have stated?

FYI, the temporary population of Whistler is about 5x that. From tourism Whistler "Whistler has capacity for about 30,000 overnight visitors."

The mountains take about 30,000 visitors daily without too much strain.

So the daily pop up there tops out around 50K.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by seamusmcduff

Why? If we focus our money on building transit instead of expanding highways and interchanged, we can definitely find a way to afford it.

No one bats an eye at the billions we spend on road infrastructure, but as soon as a fraction of that money is considered for transit, every dollar is put under the microscope

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Depends on the cost/benefit. It's not a secret that trains in BC start making less and less sense beyond the major cities.

The last Sea-to-Sky upgrade was $600 million for 19,000 commuters a day; commuter rail needs at least twice that cost for hopefully half that ridership... and that's assuming we can even negotiate with CN to restart passenger service in the first place. Might end up "just" being a provincial coach bus route.

I'm pretty sure I haven't seen the words "rail" or "train" anywhere in the press announcements for Sea to Sky or Highway 16 transit service. The obvious choice, and the sensible first step even if the end goal was rail, is a bus service.

[cganuelas1995]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

I'm pretty sure I haven't seen the words "rail" or "train" anywhere in the press announcements for Sea to Sky or Highway 16 transit service. The obvious choice, and the sensible first step even if the end goal was rail, is a bus service.

Railbus?

[madog222]

Blimp train?

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

I'm pretty sure I haven't seen the words "rail" or "train" anywhere in the press announcements for Sea to Sky or Highway 16 transit service. The obvious choice, and the sensible first step even if the end goal was rail, is a bus service.

Yes, this obviously is bus transit, not sure where anyone get the idea this means rail based transit.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

I'm pretty sure I haven't seen the words "rail" or "train" anywhere in the press announcements for Sea to Sky or Highway 16 transit service. The obvious choice, and the sensible first step even if the end goal was rail, is a bus service.

Originally Posted by madog222

Yes, this obviously is bus transit, not sure where anyone get the idea this means rail based transit.

I have yet to see the general public hoping for bus service up to Squamish or Whistler - whenever somebody mentions "Sea to Sky transit," they almost invariably mean "restart BC Rail."

Ergo there'll probably be a couple of pages in the study where they spell out what a bad idea that would be at the moment.

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

I'm pretty sure I haven't seen the words "rail" or "train" anywhere in the press announcements for Sea to Sky or Highway 16 transit service. The obvious choice, and the sensible first step even if the end goal was rail, is a bus service.

People have been advocating for years for any sort of safe bus service along Highway 16, the western half of which is known as the Highway of Tears because of the high number of women, particularly Indigenous women, who have been killed or gone missing along it. A bus service is extremely overdue and it's about damn time the provincial government did something to bring it in.

[dpogue]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

People have been advocating for years for any sort of safe bus service along Highway 16, the western half of which is known as the Highway of Tears because of the high number of women, particularly Indigenous women, who have been killed or gone missing along it. A bus service is extremely overdue and it's about damn time the provincial government did something to bring it in.

BC Bus North (which the provincial government introduced to fill the gap left by Greyhound) provides service along that route twice a week since 2018. Would be nice to see that run more frequently, and maybe on days where it doesn't duplicate the (cheaper) VIA rail service.

[ahdede]

Originally Posted by madog222

Blimp train?




Yes, this obviously is bus transit, not sure where anyone get the idea this means rail based transit.

FWIW the NDP platform committed to the following.

We’ll develop a business plan to evaluate commuter rail options, including Vancouver to Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton to help address crowding and traffic in this fast-growing corridor.

While the Greens platform commits to regular bus service on key routes.

Most likely a business plan will show rail as unviable, and bus somewhat viable by expanding BC Bus North to include the corridor.

[Metro-One]

The Vancouver to Squamish / Whistler / Pemberton should start out as bus, but become rail one day in the future.

The island however should start off as rail.

[Changing City]

It’s a perfect opportunity to start using battery electric coaches. MCI / New Flyers coaches already offer over 500km of range on a single charge – enough for a round trip from Victoria to Courtenay, or Vancouver to Pemberton. It’s just enough to travel from Victoria to Port Hardy on a one-way charge, if they’re thinking of offering a service all the way up the Island (maybe twop or three times a week, initially).

Bus service could be introduced as soon as the buses and chargers could be acquired. Rail on the Island would take years to introduce, and hundreds of millions in capital costs, and a much greater continuing subsidy to operate.

The Snaw-naw-as First Nation have been given their land back, and already removed the tracks, and are seeking compensation for the contamination of the land, so rail service couldn’t be reintroduced to Courtenay anyway.

Putting some sort of service between Langford and Victoria may be worth considering, but that’s a separate exercise from putting a transit service up the Island.

[Migrant_Coconut]

I for one fully support SkyTrain (or some other kind of light metro) to Langford. But that's well outside the scope of the thread.

[logicbomb]

Ultimately you need to drive people out of their vehicles but there's too much resistance with governments and the oil/gas industries to allow that to happen in North America. There's a segment of the population in this country now that associate mass transit and rail with "the left" and now see any pedestrian/public transportation improvements as an invasion of their rights.

[Migrant_Coconut]

In BC's case, it's more financial limits than political ones - take the $55+ billion Doug Ford wants for his underground 401 and give it to Eby, and we'd have 2WAD to Squamish by 2030.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

In BC's case, it's more financial limits than political ones - take the $55+ billion Doug Ford wants for his underground 401 and give it to Eby, and we'd have 2WAD to Squamish by 2030.

man if we got the money the east did, we would have the purple SkyTrain line, the Hastings SkyTrain line, some loop through the West End - UBC along 41st - Metrotown, and whatever other lines we can dream up.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

man if we got the money the east did, we would have the purple SkyTrain line, the Hastings SkyTrain line, some loop through the West End - UBC along 41st - Metrotown, and whatever other lines we can dream up.

And if we had the population that the golden horseshoe does then we'd be in desperate need for them.