Canada Line | Completed

[The_Henry_Man]

Originally Posted by amor de cosmos

20 years – A study to determine the need and viability of a rapid transit line in the Richmond-Vancouver corridor began about 20 years ago.

Originally Posted by DKaz

I remember reading some old rapid transit studies from the 70s at the library when they were identifying the Expo Line corridor and the Richmond Line was definitely included in that study! So more like almost 40 years ago!

20-40 years? Not exactly a stat to be proud of.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by ravman

its the BC liberal insurance policy... quote a higher budget and longer timeline and then boast that it is ontime and on budget... but yeah... drove over the oak a few days ago and it looks neat

Any good project manager will take a given time and price and multiply it by 150%.

Are you saying your NDP friends will just lie about times and cost, because when the real costs are revealed, the original people in power will have been forced to resign, arrested, etc?

[amor de cosmos]

Originally Posted by The_Henry_Man

20-40 years? Not exactly a stat to be proud of.

maybe not, but better late than never I say

[officedweller]

$2 billion – The Canada Line is funded by the government of British Columbia, TransLink, and the Vancouver International Airport Authority and is supported by the cities of Vancouver and Richmond.

This is actually incorrect - unless "funded" being "public funding".
InTransitBC is financing / funding a large part of the project. The above statement just fuels the fires of opponents saying that government is on the hook for the entire capital cost - which it isn't.
This pie chart from the presentation below is more accurate:




http://www.air-rail.co.uk/resources/09-Mehr+-+Vancouver+Air+Rail.pdf

[racc]

It is financing from the private partner, not funding. TransLink and the province pay the private partner through "performance payments" to allow the private partner to recover its $720 million investment and make a profit. These payments are at least $70 million a year. In the end, the project is pretty much entirely publicly funded except for small amounts of ad revenue.

[officedweller]

But that's misleading in respect of the capital costs of a project because it incorporates an operational cost component. i.e. for a rapid transit line, you don't include any operating cost losses in the calculation of the initial capital cost.
The private partner would take revenue derived from fares - it's that revenue that will pay back the bulk of the $720M it is investing in the project.
If you go to the Operations and Maintenance Schedule of the Concessionaire Agreement (link below) - in Section 8 (Page 16), RAVCO (Canada Line Co.) is responsible for all fare collection - so that revenue has to come back to InTransitBC through Canada Line Co. (i.e "government") in form of the performance payments. So I wouldn't really characterize those funds as government funds - they are only being paid by government so that government can exert control over the amounts received by InTransitBC (i.e. you would never structure it so that InTransitBC collects revenues and "promises" to pay a percentage to Canada Line Co. - you want to keep the upper hand in controlling the flow of money.)

http://www.canadaline.ca/files/uploads/docs/doc453.pdf

[racc]

Much of the fare revenue will come from passes and prepared fares which TransLink will collect. The cash fares which InTransit collects will be passed on to TransLink. TransLink then gives InTransit their payment from fares and other revenue sources including "savings" resulting from replacement of bus by the Canada Line.

I believe TransLink is taking 90% of the risk if ridership revenue falls short and I think 90% of the benefit if ridership revenue exceeds projections, so in reality, since inTransit will receive most of their payment regardless of whether or not TransLink receives the fare revenue, this is a liability on the TransLink books thus it is really government money.

[officedweller]

I think we both agree on how the money is treated.

The question is whether passenger fares are characterized as "government" money. Sure, it flows through "government", but it wouldn't necessarily be considered "government" money if it were paid by passengers directly to InTransitBC.

I don't necessarily think that money should be considered "government" money just because under existing or alternate scenarios that money (or equivalent) would otherwise flow to government. Here, you're essentially contracting out a service, so there is an element of the new service replacing the old service. If you say that payments derived from passenger revenue are taken from government, then you also need to factor into that the savings by government for not providing the services that have been replaced by the contracted out service.

i.e. hypothetically, if a route was replaced by a fully contracted out service (without the flow of money so that all money went directly from passenger to the contractor), would that be a "loss" of the revenue that was previously collected by government? What if the route that was replaced was losing money (had to be subsidized), would that be a net "profit" to government since there's no longer a subsidy?

I know there's an allocation of risk associated with various performance factors and payments - whether ridership, on-time performance, availability of trains, cleanliness of trains, passenger satisfaction, etc., but in general terms, the bulk of (if not all) payments made to InTransitBC would be coming from passenger fare revenue.

So it's really a question of whether you characterize passenger fare revenue as "government" money or not, particularly within the context of a contract where the reason it flows through government is for accountability (i.e. it's not the same as general government revenue derived from income tax, property tax or transit levies, because fare revenue is paid in exchange for a service being provided to the customer).

[djmk]

this 720million is just a fancy form of debt financing. the money could come from the bank and the gov't would do the services itself, or the money could come from the contractor in the form of services. either way and in some form, the 720million gets repaid.

ownership of the asset belongs to the gov't as well as any risks (ie lack of ridership, earthquake...) therefore, all revenue and expenses belong to the gov't. consequently, the payments of 70mil to the "private sector" really is interest and principle.

well, that's the way i see it

[officedweller]

Yeah, I think it depends on whether the relationship is characterized as:
(1) equivalent to a straight subontracting situation under which TransLink/Canada Line Co. is just paying InTransitBC for work performed (including providing services and financing (interest + principal)); or
(2) a situation where InTransitBC in operating a venture that earns revenue from customers through operation of the service (so as to pay its costs and expenses (including interest and principal)), but that revenue is flowed through/ controlled by TransLink/Canada Line Co. with certain guarantees (minimum payments) provided by TransLink/Canada Line Co.
I'm not an accountant, so I don't know which would really apply.

[officedweller]

Interview with Tafryn and Seamora Palecloud at the Buzzer Blog:

http://buzzer.translink.ca/index.php/200...-canada-line-construction-photographers/

[zivan56]

Pfft, they had nothing on me in 2005
Congrats to them for keeping interest in the project...I check the blog daily.

[mr.x]

Originally Posted by ravman

btw the press release is more govt propoganda

Do you even know what the word "propaganda" means?

It seems you haven't realized that all those press releases you posted, directly from the NDP website, were propaganda at its finest.

[mr.x]

More updates by Tafryn:
http://canadalinephotos.blogspot.com/


2009-01-15 - Broadway/City Hall Station

[Vancity]

station is coming along very nicely thanks for the pics!

[Spork]

Thanks for posting those photos here. Glad to see that they are finally moving along with the station entrance - the snow slowed them down significantly it seems. Does anybody have any idea what is going between the large concrete wall and the next building? Will it be a structure or just some sort of open area?

[jlousa]

I believe either the city of translink owns that building next door, it's possible any future development might include the space that's been left.

[racc]

Originally Posted by jlousa

I believe either the city of translink owns that building next door, it's possible any future development might include the space that's been left.

It is the city. There is talk about building a new city hall on this site at some point

[Vancity]

Originally Posted by racc

It is the city. There is talk about building a new city hall on this site at some point

What would they do with the current city hall, then? how large is the building beside the station?

[mr.x]

Originally Posted by Vancity

What would they do with the current city hall, then? how large is the building beside the station?

It wouldn't be a new city hall, it would be more like an expansion of the existing one. Meanwhile, the main building from the Great Depression era is in need of major seismic upgrades.