Quote:
Originally Posted by paradigm4
A little harder? Come on. Expansion options are minimal at best. Once we hit maximum headways, there'll be very little we can do to alleviate congestion.
|
Very, very little they can do for little cost. We'd probably have to throw well over a billion to expand the line, but where is that money going to come from? Around in this forum, people have said that it'll simply mean there will be an initiative to build a parallel Arbutus Line. But when and with who's money? The queue for funding for other projects is quite long. Evergreen, Broadway/UBC, Surrey....at this rate, we probably won't see the Broadway extension happening until well into the 2020's at the very earliest.
As for Canada Line capacity issues: Not just in the long-term, beyond maximum headways and train lengths, but in the short-term as well. The current fleet of 20 trains won't be enough to keep up with the demand we're seeing, perhaps not even for two years...will Translink scrape enough money to buy the system more trains? (to put it to perspective, the new West Coast Express cars are in jeopardy and the refits for the existing two Seabus ferries have been axed) Each two-car train came at a price of $6-million.
Ideally, we should have bought 25 trains for
today...
Quote:
I agree with mr. x on this. The Canada Line was woefully underbuilt and will likely remain the only rapid transit corridor for the North-South for a very long time. Not only was ridership seemingly underestimated, but, due to a determined effort to stay in budget as costs escalated (as they always do), the Line was reduced. That partially has to do with the ideology and politics of the provincial government (P3s must be on time, on budget, blah blah).
If there's one nice aspect to a fully public project, it's that we build to spec - which, for major investments, are usually designed to last generations. The Millennium Line will ultimately stand the test of time, unlike the Canada Line.
|
Thank you! Finally, someone on the same wave length.
I don't think there's anything wrong with a P3, but rather there was a problem with the P3 set for the Canada Line. Far too much of the design responsibility was given to the private sector, which clearly looked out for its own financial interests rather than regional ones (can we blame them? no, they're a business afterall and it would be asinine of them to set themselves up to lose money...it certainly isn't due to incompetence: SNC-Lavalin is one of the world's most well known engineering companies, and they designed our first two SkyTrain lines under the direction of the provincial government). As well, too much of the capital financial responsibilities were handed over to them.
Rather, if there were to be a P3 it should've been a much smaller collaboration than what we have today. Like doing a P3 for a select stations, having Cadillac Fairview (owners of Pacific Centre and Richmond Centre) to do some sort of maintenance/capital cost P3 for City Centre and Brighouse stations....similar deals could also have been made with Fairchild (Aberdeen Station), Ivanhoe Cambridge (Oakridge), and River Rock Casino (Bridgeport). For the latter one, we got River Rock to do a P3 for building the car park facility.
The provincial government should also have forked out more money, on top of relieving the P3 of its financial commitments, for a better long-term design. But there was just far too much opposition to this line from so many fronts - they campaigned hard against the project. There were city councilors in Vancouver that wanted more buses instead, some regional mayors/politicians also wanted to serve their own interests instead (Evergreen), and then there were those that thought we would be building a white elephant (and how horribly wrong they were). These people were complaining how the project cost escalated from "$1.3-billion when it was first proposed to $1.72-billion (and ultimately, $2.05-billion)", yet there wasn't a single mention about maintaining the quality of the project all the while ignoring rising labour and material prices locally and around the world.
Getting Translink to approve the Canada Line was like having a to-be-mom go through 60 hours in labour.
I've been saying the same thing for the last 5 years now....and unfortunately, it's all becoming true. At the end of the day, while a certain type of P3 would have worked (not the one we have today), I would have preferred a public project. At the end of the day, the Canada Line seemed to have been Campbell's flagship P3 project - to prove that P3's do work. His speech at opening day had much more to do with the success of the P3 rather than the new train. I get the impression that all they wanted was any train that works with the P3 model.
I've used the
convention centre example several times over the last few years. It's a public project. There were certainly some mishaps with how the design/construction process went ahead, which partially contributed to the project's escalating costs, but
at the end of the day the scope of the project was never cut. Now just imagine if we had applied this to the Canada Line. The new convention centre is an amazing project, we didn't go cheap on it, and it'll stand the test of time (though i do wonder sometimes how we'll expand the convention centre a few decades from now when we're back to having a facility that is fully booked all the time).
And of course, there was RAVCO which had set the design standards for the Canada Line far too low...whether it was because they had grossly underestimated ridership projections and/or it was because of financial reasons, w/e...and then, their rejection of Bombardier's integrated SkyTrain infrastructure (with Expo/M-Line) proposal which would have had only cost about $100-million more than SNC-Lavalin's $1.72-billion non-integration proposal (which again, eventually cost $2.05-billion). RAVCO of course rejected the Bombardier bid, as they were more interested in a fair bidding process rather than what actually mattered: giving taxpayers a bang for their buck and the actual design of the line. And it appears that the same was on the verge of happening for the Evergreen Line when the project office said it would be "SkyTrain-like" (in other words, different technology like the Canada Line) and might require passengers to transfer at Lougheed rather than a seamless one-train ride into the city.
Quote:
I'm really interested in this. Why do you not have confidence in TransLink? What are they really doing so wrong in your opinion?
And what operating style do you wish them to change to?
From my experience, ProTrans customer service is not extraordinary. In fact, they are usually standing around, watching the trains go by as they chew gum - nothing too different from the SkyTrain attendants (except they tend to travel in groups).
Only other thing I've seen ProTrans staff do is ask for everyone's friggin tickets all the time - they don't even check them tho.
|
Customer service is far better (or even
amazing, in my opinion) with ProTransBC, but it obviously doesn't outweigh the negatives of the Canada Line project.
The staff I have encountered are quite friendly, usually happy looking. I've seen them answering questions from passengers in a rather very polite and detailed manner. And the staff presence along the line is massive, very much unlike SkyTrain staff. I've seldom seen them in groups. There's also A LOT more fare checks! Me likey when cheaters and evaders are turned away.
Although the system is of course new, it's relatively garbage-free compared to SkyTrain. There was a huge contrast after hopping onto a SkyTrain car, there must have been at least a dozen newspapers on the floor of the train (days old) as well as other garbage.
The quality of service ProTransBC is stirring up has really created a new standard for SkyTrain to set...some competition is always good. There was a memo sent out a few weeks ago (coincidentally just before the Canada Line opened) that said quite a few things would be improving on SkyTrain, including:
- if there are two or more staff at one station, one will be at ticketing concourse and the other(s) platform. Staff will also be pro-active and assist passengers rather than passengers coming to them.
- extensive scheduled cleaning of trains
Of course, there's one huge difference between the SkyTrain and ProTrans staff. One is unionized, the other isn't and workers are paid based on performance...the cheque amount that Translink cuts for InTransitBC every year is determined by the quality of service (maintenance, system reliability, customer service) it provides.
Prev
Linear Mode
