Millennium Line - Broadway Extension: Planning & Pre-Construction

[BCPhil]

Originally Posted by CLC

Not recommended reading... Yet another Vancouver sun author wrote about transit , including this statement for Broadway corridor

http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/Vancouver+makes+timely+transit+pitch/2620821/story.html

I hate it when the whole argument boils down to simple total cost. No thoughts given to the impacts of going cheap.

I would bet it would be a heck of a lot cheaper to offer free state cremations for everyone single person who dies instead of offering public healthcare, but that would never be considered an option.

Originally Posted by Canadian Mind

I'd love to see a cobblestone commercial street lined with aged Maple, Oak, and Arbutus trees, a streetcar running down the middle. Dunno if the Broadway corridor and parrellel streets are the appropriate location for this though. Thoughts?

Commercial or Main. Both are very high volume bus lines with frequency approaching the max, and are both fairly lively, but not major thoroughfares.

Of corse, nothing would be better than having a streetcar running through Gastown on the cobble stone Water Street.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by BCPhil

Of corse, nothing would be better than having a streetcar running through Gastown on the cobble stone Water Street.

How about Comercial, Water and Powell Street as well?

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by Canadian Mind

I thought I was simply spitting out the no-brainer solution. Stick both Skytrain and Streetcar down the Broadway corridor over time.

Question is, where the hell you gonna fit the streetcar? Broadway is too narrow and it is surrounded by small residential streets... Unless one of them is gentrified and turned into a bike/walk/streetcar only lane...

I'd love to see a cobblestone commercial street lined with aged Maple, Oak, and Arbutus trees, a streetcar running down the middle. Dunno if the Broadway corridor and parrellel streets are the appropriate location for this though. Thoughts?

I think West and East Boulevard might be a place. Also, as People say, Commercial, Main, and Powell Streets. Broadway is really too major and urban a thoroughfare for this concept, most of it. I think we could do it well in other streets.. We need to request participative input.

People might like to leave ideas in sort of an idea bank

[Alex Mackinnon]

You need to remember that Broadway still needs to be able to handle some truck traffic to keep all the businesses on the corridor going. Past Granville it also serves as the corridor for the Lougheed Hwy.

[CLC]

Zweievilsystem is having some fun at Jarret Walker's blog again:

http://www.humantransit.org/2010/02/vanc...ngers-of-interrupted-grids.html#comments

[DKaz]

My goodness talk about sounding like a broken record. People don't like speed, they like ambience, blah blah blah.

1. People value time, either from a monetary standpoint or for other things they value such as personal time, family time, etc. Not many people want to waste time commuting, it needs to be fast.
2. People value convenience, transit has to go from the user's origin to the user's destination in a reasonable amount of time with as few transfers as possible or painless transfers.
3. Transit has to be cheaper than gas and parking, I know you factor in car payments, insurance, maintenance, etc., transit is way cheaper than driving, but the bottom line is that if someone needs to spend $3.75 on a fare when they only need $2 in gas, they will drive. It's way too cheap to drive in North America.
4. Ease of use and ambience probably falls here.

[cabotp]

Originally Posted by DKaz

My goodness talk about sounding like a broken record. People don't like speed, they like ambience, blah blah blah.

1. People value time, either from a monetary standpoint or for other things they value such as personal time, family time, etc. Not many people want to waste time commuting, it needs to be fast.
2. People value convenience, transit has to go from the user's origin to the user's destination in a reasonable amount of time with as few transfers as possible or painless transfers.
3. Transit has to be cheaper than gas and parking, I know you factor in car payments, insurance, maintenance, etc., transit is way cheaper than driving, but the bottom line is that if someone needs to spend $3.75 on a fare when they only need $2 in gas, they will drive. It's way too cheap to drive in North America.
4. Ease of use and ambience probably falls here.

Thank you.

Anyone who owns a car knows it is cheaper to drive than take transit. So what is the point of taking transit. They need to make driving more expense. Whether that be through adding tolls or higher parking rates or higher fuel taxes. It doesn't matter it needs to be made more expensive

I think alot of people drive to work. Not because they want to. Because they own and need a car for other stuff besides going to work. Once you start paying insurance and maintenance. It means that it becomes cheaper to pay the gas than it is to take transit.

[WarrenC12]

I find it amusing how there is a totally reasonable discussion of the issue, then zweisystem comes out of left field with his wacky ideas and nobody agrees with him.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by cabotp

Thank you.

I think alot of people drive to work. Not because they want to. Because they own and need a car for other stuff besides going to work. Once you start paying insurance and maintenance. It means that it becomes cheaper to pay the gas than it is to take transit.

Exactly. One of the main deterrents to driving is also parking, either availability, or cost.

Another factor that needs consideration but isn't so easy to quantify, is doing what my gf and I did, which is going down to one car. She takes transit, and I usually bike, but I do drive from time to time. Transit is almost out of the question due to the connections involved. So there is a certain fixed cost savings, as we'd need 2 cars if we both drove to work.

[Mininari]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Exactly. One of the main deterrents to driving is also parking, either availability, or cost.

Another factor that needs consideration but isn't so easy to quantify, is doing what my gf and I did, which is going down to one car. She takes transit, and I usually bike, but I do drive from time to time. Transit is almost out of the question due to the connections involved. So there is a certain fixed cost savings, as we'd need 2 cars if we both drove to work.

You are definitely right.
At least if you're a student the U-Pass is cheap and lets you use both options... but not if you're a regular joe.

[Spork]

Originally Posted by DKaz

My goodness talk about sounding like a broken record. People don't like speed, they like ambience, blah blah blah.

1. People value time, either from a monetary standpoint or for other things they value such as personal time, family time, etc. Not many people want to waste time commuting, it needs to be fast.

Perfect counterpoint to this: Trains vs. Airplanes. If you've been in some of the old passenger trains from the 1930's-1950's, they are exquisitely nice. However, they are slow. How do people travel now? Plane. Fast, uncomfortable, inconvenient, polluting, and about the same price.

[cabotp]

Although now in short hop corridors HSR has taken over for airplanes. Because now it becomes the quicker option.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by cabotp

Although now in short hop corridors HSR has taken over for airplanes. Because now it becomes the quicker option.

Exactly. I like the idea of taking the train to Seattle, but at double the time currently, I'll drive every time.

[cabotp]

In simple terms

As the speed of one form of transportation becomes faster to another more people will chose that form of transportation.

But at the same time as the cost of using a form of transportation increases compared to another form less people will use and revert back to another form.

It all comes down time vs money. People will choose the fastest form of transportation that they can afford. When talking about normal commutes. Because there is the odd person that will do something different. Those people though are most likely tourists or some idea of that.

[racc]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Exactly. I like the idea of taking the train to Seattle, but at double the time currently, I'll drive every time.

Point taken but time driving is pure wasted time. Time on the train can be put to good use with a laptop, or a nap or a meal. Sure it takes longer but all the time can be productive time.

[BCPhil]

Originally Posted by racc

Point taken but time driving is pure wasted time. Time on the train can be put to good use with a laptop, or a nap or a meal. Sure it takes longer but all the time can be productive time.

That's only true if you have unlimited spare time. If you are going to Seattle or Portland for the weekend and leave Friday right after work, then spending 5 extra hours at your destination (and checking in before the next calendar day so you can get a good night sleep and full day the day after) is worth a lot more than a few hours doing work. Yes it can be "productive" but if it is your weekend, then it is worth more personally to have more free time than trapped time.

It's the same for transit. If Skytrain on Broadway were to save an extra half hour a day, then that half hour a day would be much more valuable as completely free time at home than time trapped on Transit reading or napping.

[DKaz]

My wife and I share one car... to her she mostly just sees the cost of gas going in unless I ask her to chip in for the cost of say tires or other maintenance items... for me I recorded $12,000 (between the two of us) in car payments, insurance, maintenance, gas, etc. on the car in 2009. Luckily thanks to transit, we don't need a second car. I could think of a lot of things I'd like to do with $12,000.

[CLC]

If anyone knows more example of Medium capacity (light metro) system. Please add them to the wiki page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-capacity_rail_transport_system

We need to show that it's popularity transportation option (contrary to whatever Zwei-like people says) for many advanced cities in the world.

[CLC]

Zwei (railforthevalley) 's tactics may have more effect than I previously thought...
Found a blog by a senior Hawaii journalist, who seems to be fooled by what Zwei wrote about the "skytrain myth"
http://ilind.net/

[Metro-One]

Be sure to contact that journalist and send him our infor and history with zwei then.