Posted May 25, 2009, 2:09 AM
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Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Vancouver
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Quote:
Column: Subway to UBC still a financial pipe dream
By Miro Cernetig, Vancouver Sun columnist - May 24, 2009 6:37 PM
One of the next big megaplans the provincial government is contemplating is tunneling a subway under Vancouver’s west side, stretching from near City Hall to the University of British Columbia. It’s a bold, forward-looking idea that will cost $3 billion.
But it’s also an idea far too ahead of its time.
The government — and its public transit agency, TransLink — needs to be looking in the other direction when it comes to public transit. The next major infusion of public transit money needs to be directed toward the outskirts of Metro Vancouver, where a population boom is underway that will transform the city.
But first, let’s get back to that $3-billion tunnel through Vancouver’s west side to the University of British Columbia.
It’s hard not to like a pipe dream like this. In theory it will take thousands of cars off the roads, we’d get rid of the crowding on buses and perhaps stimulate higher-density condo building. It will supposedly help reduce our carbon footprint.
Here’s a little-heard reality check, though.
Aside from the occasionally stop-and-go traffic on Broadway between Cambie and Granville streets, there are no real traffic jams out to the university. Vancouver’s west side is a slow-growth area when compared to the other areas of Metro Vancouver.
A subway to UBC is also a questionable economic deal.
Let’s suppose 100,000 people would use that $3-billion rail line — a ridership figure far, far in the future. If it was financed at five per cent a year for 30 years, the actual construction cost to the taxpayer would be $5.8 billion.
That means about $58,000 per rider. Put another way, those 100,000 riders would have to ride the rails every day, seven days a week, for $5 apiece, for more than 30 years to pay down the investment. And that wouldn’t even begin to pay for the system’s operating costs.
But aside from the humongous bill, it’s the population growth statistics that don’t support this megaproject.
Metro Vancouver’s population was estimated at 2.2 million people in 2006. By 2031, 25 years from now, the population will grow to 3.2 million. That’s about a 45-per-cent increase.
But you have to ask yourself where that growth will be. It’s certainly not spread out equally. And it’s not going to be on Vancouver’s expensive west side.
Statistics show the City of Vancouver, which would be the biggest beneficiary of the UBC rail line, will grow from a population of 607,000 to 709,000 by 2031. That’s a modest 17-per-cent increase.
Contrast that to Abbotsford, Coquitlam, Langley Township and Surrey. According to an analysis from the office of Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts, those four “high-growth-communities” will grow collectively at a rate of approximately 20,800 people per year, meaning an additional 520,000 by the year 2031.
The current population of those communities in 2006 was about 770,000. It will reach 1.29 million people by 2031. That means a 67-per-cent boost in population.
It means in less than a generation, we will have the equivalent of Canada’s fourth-largest city sitting on the edge of Metro Vancouver. That means more cars, more traffic jams and more greenhouse gas emissions that will erode our standard of living.
Yet there’s little talk amongst our megaplanners of extending a rapid-rail system out to those fast-growing communities.
But ask them these questions: Should the City of Vancouver — which will grow by 17 per cent in 2031 — get a $3-billion public-transit rail line? Or should we be thinking of putting that public infrastructure in an area growing four times faster than the City of Vancouver and save us from turning into Los Angeles north?
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Source: Vancouver Sun
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