Millennium Line - Broadway Extension: Planning & Pre-Construction

[Vancity]

ridiculous. a tram to UBC - are these people nuts or somethin'? there's no way. Skytrain all the way to UBC - a more sufficient, and efficient way of traveling, and getting places in and around the city.

[Alex Mackinnon]

Its kind of annoying how this is during exams, I probably would have gone otherwise but I'm book bound right now.

[clooless]

I don't see how a tram would be any better than the B-Line and trolley buses that currently run to UBC. Isn't the Broadway corridor currently at capacity with regard to buses?

Something with a lot more capacity is needed.

[mr.x]

Originally Posted by racc

I was there. It was pretty bad. A lot of misinformation flying around. Condon seems to think it is OK to have a tram to UBC that would take 15 minutes longer. The reality is that people would just continue to drive. I'm not sure why anyone would suggest spending money on a tram to UBC that would likely be slower than the b-line.

wow....sad. what else went on there?






Folks in Kitsilano worry about SkyTrain construction
TransLink says it will be consulting with public
Dave White VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) | Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 10:00 pm

About 100 people in Kitsilano gathered to voice their concerns about the proposed UBC SkyTrain line.

Many who came out to the meeting on Tuesday night want to see the budgeted $2.8 million for the project spent elsewhere. They would rather see more buses, a modern tram system or streetcars. In any case, business owners and neighbours along the Broadway Corridor say they don't want a repeat of Canada Line cut-and-cover construction where a number of businesses had to close up shop. They say they are worried construction will tear apart the community.

But, TransLink says it has no final alignment or construction method in place. It adds that the public will be consulted throughout the planning process.

[metroXpress]

^ yes, I've heard about this. There will be stations along Broadway in the future and in the long run it would bring them more people.

However, we can understand that they don't want this to happen right now because of the economic recession.

[The_Henry_Man]

LOL, we just discovered some of the dumbest folks on the planet, by the name of Patrick Condon!!

#1 dumbest person on earth = Patrick Condon
#1 dumbest organization on earth = West Broadway Merchants Association

Congrats guys!!

PS- Seriously, how could Condon be a UBC prof/researcher? He should go back to kindergarten!!
PS- BTW, Condon IS NOT EVEN a transportation systems designer. He's a professor in landscape architecture of School of Architecture. Go figure.....(just checked out his webpage)

[racc]

The speakers also implied the construction impact for tram and rapid bus would be minimal then showed slides of streets that had been completely rebuild. Something that would result in months of construction.

While this might be the case for a slow tram, it is definitely not the case for LRT which would more likely be the surface option. He also used the example of the Portland tram, which is free downtown and is more of a local circulator than regional transit and doesn't have massive amounts of ridership. Once you start adding ticket machines and longer platforms for the long trains required for the expected ridership on Broadway, there is a lot more disruption.

To be fair to the West Broadway Merchants Association, they are mainly concerned about the construction impacts of whatever system is chosen. As it is early in the process, this is hard to say. After what happened on Cambie, they are smart to organized. Unfortunately they have been mislead by advocates of particular systems pretending to be experts.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by racc

To be fair to the West Broadway Merchants Association, they are mainly concerned about the construction impacts of whatever system is chosen. As it is early in the process, this is hard to say. After what happened on Cambie, they are smart to organized. Unfortunately they have been mislead by advocates of particular systems pretending to be experts.

Yes, the government and Translink has to get the ball rolling and get the merchants on side. Hopefully by the time this is under more serious consideration, many of the Cambie merchants will be doing better than ever thanks to the Canada Line.

I agree that the M-Line link to the City Hall station is a painfully obvious extension that should happen ASAP.

Was the point raised that the line would probably not go along Broadway anyway?

UBC students out there you have to get organized and demand grade-separated RAPID transit when the time comes. Skytrain is the obvious choice, but let that come later.

[racc]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Was the point raised that the line would probably not go along Broadway anyway?

Yes, I did.

Many of the people there, including ones who should have known better, implied the decision has already been made when the reality is that the process has just began and that many options, including surface rail and bus will be examined and discussed with the public.

Although, to be fair, there has been little info made public about the process so it is not surprising there is confusion.

[twoNeurons]

Although it should be stipulated that extending the M-Line to Cambie (or Granville) should not be optional, I think we should at least be open to other proposals which would require a transfer after that point.

[WarrenC12]

I hate to ask this in here, but I will.

What is Carole James' opinion on the $14b transit plan, will she keep those promises? (her opinion today anyway.)

[racc]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

I hate to ask this in here, but I will.

What is Carole James' opinion on the $14b transit plan, will she keep those promises? (her opinion today anyway.)

It is always hard to tell what either party is actually committing to in there platforms but it seems they are proposing additional investment in transit beyond what is currently in the budget.

From http://www.bcndp.ca/files/u108/BCNDP09_Platform_2009-_Final-April9_last3.pdf
page 55:
Retrofits, Green Technology, Transit
2009-10 $330 million
2010-11 $480 million

From:
http://www.vancouversun.com/Entertainment/propose+billion+bond+help+environment/1281197/story.html

There is $3.5 billion over 10 years for transit. Not sure if this is above and beyond the $14 billion transit plan. This may just be covering the unfunded portion of the plan that TransLink is trying to figure out how to pay for now. This could reduce the some of the need for TL to find additional funding.

Anyway, probably the best thing to do is ask your NDP candidate. The advantage of elections is that politicians are particularly keen to talk to people.

All this said, even with the $14 billion transit plan and whatever additional the NDP is proposing if they are actually proposing anything additional, it is still way short of what we need. Both parties need to step it up.

[Metro-One]

Maybe we should all stop whining on these forums and actually form a pro-skytrain to UBC group that attends all these meetings. I am sure we could easily get loads of support from students at UBC.

I hate to use profanity on these forums because it weakens one's point, but i really feel this needs to be said



Fuck Patrick Condon. The bastard probably drives a BMW from a million dollar house and then thinks he can relate to the needs of the average student/commuter.

A prof i talk to often at SFU, Owen H. tells me that the majority of these UBC profs only live a few blocks away from work, because they can afford to amazingly high real-estate prices in the area, and have no clue what so ever about region to region transit needs of the average commuter who can not afford such luxuries.

[WarrenC12]

Ya, time to ask these ivory tower eggheads how much they really use transit.

The problem is they are preaching to the choir. How many of those west side residents drive similar BMWs to wherever they go.

[racc]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Maybe we should all stop whining on these forums and actually form a pro-skytrain to UBC group that attends all these meetings. I am sure we could easily get loads of support from students at UBC.

Great idea. A good time to start because I think the stakeholders and public meetings are soon. There was a student rep. there whose main position was better transit now, which is a reasonable position.

Originally Posted by Metro-One

A prof i talk to often at SFU, Owen H. tells me that the majority of these UBC profs only live a few blocks away from work, because they can afford to amazingly high real-estate prices in the area, and have no clue what so ever about region to region transit needs of the average commuter who can not afford such luxuries.

To be fair, there was a lot of talk at the meeting about the need for affordable housing for students although even with that, many will find it cheaper to live with their parents and commute across the region so regional transit is needed.
It is probably even more sustainable for students to live with their parents and commute by SkyTrain rather than getting a place of their own.

On the other hand, many were opposed to increased density. They were also concerned about the development of the UBC farm but ironically. Condon's trams all over the place plan would bring rail transit far closer to the farm than the proposed SkyTrain. All and all, the meeting was rather confused and nobody really took the effort to create any clarity.

[Metro-One]

Exactly, i have countless friends who live in Coquitlam with their parents while attending UBC because they can not afford the cost to live near or on campus and they can only dream of a seamless ride on skytrain from Coquitlam Center to UBC, which the Evergreen Line and the UBC extension would accomplish!

Maybe we should make a separate thread for creating a pro UBC skytrain group?

[mezzanine]

I feel strongly about patrick condon too just because as a UBC professor, he might sway significant opinion towards tram/LRT on broadway, which IMO is a poor long-term choice. His views align themselves with a lot of the small businesses on broadway who focus manily on markets within their neighbourhoods and not care about long distance commuters to UBC, which might metastasize to a POS tram/LRT link to UBC. He tends to be fuzzy about quoting details wrt tram vs LRT, leading to very, very optimistic numbers.

The whole compensation thing will also wind up getting sh** on everyone. They didn't do it to the M-line, In seattle, where they did do it - amounts are small at best, insulting at worst. If they do offer compensation, guaranteed it will be too small for anyone.

WRT the canada line problems - they were not clear up front ( i suspect to sell the novel 'P3' idea) and although i think the cambie merchant lawsuit will fail, translink has to do a better job of being clear wrt plans. hopefully, as the success of the canada line begins, people will see this positively for the broadway tube.

[mr.x]

I'd say invite Mr. Cordon to this forum for a friendly, controlled, intelligent discussion-debate on this whole issue.

[DKaz]

The BC Liberals estimated $2.8 billion to allow for the higher costs of boring, what's all this hee haw about cut & cover about? Maybe they're just being pessimistic because Canada Line was supposed to be bored as well. Gordon Campbell lives there, they're going to bore.

[amor de cosmos]

if you consider how far a tram can travel in a given time compared with a private vehicle or skytrain in the same length of time I think a tram to UBC could be ruled out. The bottom line with transit in general is whether people can get from door to door in a time that's competitive with a private vehicle & a tram wouldn't do that, not to UBC anyway & especially not if it shares the road with other vehicles. according to you guys condon himself says a tram would add 15mins to the trip, which is already fairly long.