Millennium Line - Broadway Extension: Planning & Pre-Construction

[mrjauk]

I just had lunch with my sister, her husband, and my father. They all live in Coquitlam and are excited about the eventual construction of the Evergreen line. They, like most residents of Greater Vancouver, don't follow news/discussion about transit projects nearly as closely as we do here on this forum. So this was a nice way of assessing the level of knowledge and insight of the average Vancouverite.

There was a consensus amongst them that "if they build it, we will use it." Combined, I would say that they--my sister has a family of five (three teenage girls), while my mother and father live in a different household a few blocks away north of Como Lake Road--use their cars for greater than 95% of all trips that they make. They decry the poor bus service in Coquitlam.

Interestingly, they noted--without my prompting--that the M-Line should be extended to Cambie in conjunction with the completion of the Evergreen line.

Is there any possibility whatsoever of this happening? Do the transit planners not also see how much more useful it would be to extend the M-Line to at least meet up with the Canada Line?

[deasine]

Well it all depends on the result of the study, but I'm quite definite it's going to be SkyTrain at the end of the day.

[splashflash]

Will the Evergreen Line extension even occur? Zweisystem continues to deride any Skytrain extensions, using the false logic that since Skytrain is more costly, and if it is rejected, then light rail will follow. If the Evergreen Line doesn't get built, then the Millennium Line extension surely will not.

I have concerns about the high cost of both the Evergreen and the Millennium Line extensions, but the lrt/streetcar/tram alternative(s) is worse, and is shown to have a much poorer benefit-to-cost ratio, as probably everyone on this forum knows. So instead of gnashing your teeth at Zweisystem, sharpen your claws on him.

His Evergreen Line lrt would somehow shave hundreds of millions by avoiding a tunnel, but somehow the professional engineers missed this when the multiple account was made. They overlooked rack-and-pinion systems - common on every street in Europe. They must have been secretly in the pay of Bombardier or pawns of the federal government (which always favours Bombarder, except somehow when Skytrain was not chosen for the Canada Line).

Oh, and construction would last just two weeks on Broadway. All the rich students who now eschew transit to UBC would be attracted to the Broadway streetcars, now enabling the stores along the route to be magnets for their student loans which would have been sitting idling in oil stocks.

[mooks28]

There's a reason why that guy has time to write a blog instead of, you know, working as a transportation engineer

[mr.x]

^ loll...i love the sarcasm.

As for Evergreen, the LRT mode would require the same length of bored tunnel as SkyTrain...though for some reason, zwei claims otherwise because funicular trams can go up steep grades. :p

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by deasine

Well it all depends on the result of the study, but I'm quite definite it's going to be SkyTrain at the end of the day.

I pray you're right ... (and being an astute person, you probably are) Hope for the best: skytrain metro.

[flight_from_kamakura]

yeah, i wonder how many of us went over and did the survey. when i read that only ~150 people had responded, the first thought i had was that i ought to do it again.

[huenthar]

I got that email too.

Extension of the SkyTrain has been the recommendation of every previous study on the corridor, and especially once the Evergreen Line goes ahead I don't see that it will be any different this time. I don't think we need to convince anybody in planning - just need to demonstrate that there is public support for the expense of extending the Millennium Line. Honestly, the only reason the existing Millennium Line makes any sense, is if it extends down the Broadway corridor - in which case it's a good route. If it doesn't, then the whole existing line is really a poor second to an E-W route along Hastings and under the mountain, straight downtown...

Re. Evergreen getting built at all... we have had several prominent politicians go on record repeatedly that it's being done, it's getting built, etc... I guess it wouldn't be the first time the politicos backpedal on promises, but in this case it would have to be a complete 180º... or maybe I'm just optimistic

[NetMapel]

Some people I know are absolutely convinced that the Evergreen line has been scrapped... arguing with them about how wrong that is were absolutely tiring.

[Spork]

Originally Posted by NetMapel

Some people I know are absolutely convinced that the Evergreen line has been scrapped... arguing with them about how wrong that is were absolutely tiring.

I am getting the same. I also get things like "Isn't the provincial government not funding anything?"

[nname]

Originally Posted by NetMapel

Some people I know are absolutely convinced that the Evergreen line has been scrapped... arguing with them about how wrong that is were absolutely tiring.

If that happens, I will be gone from Tri-cities, gone from Metro Vancouver, gone from this stupid country, and gone from this forum

[racc]

http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/90757569.html

How the Expo Line defined its route

The Expo Line started service 25 years ago, though its official opening won't be celebrated until next year.
MARIO BARTEL/NEWSLEADER


By Andrew Fleming - Burnaby NewsLeader

Published: April 13, 2010 10:00 AM

Twenty-five years ago, few people probably would have predicted Burnaby would someday be home to the second largest mall in the country or that New Westminster, the oldest city in Western Canada and looking it, would eventually see shiny high-rises towering overhead or a futuristic, one-of-a-kind bridge spanning the Fraser.

Much has changed over the past quarter century in the neighbouring cities, and much is due to the construction of the SkyTrain, which radically changed both the urban landscape and how people choose to get around.

It was a different era in British Columbia. Bill “Mini-Wac” Bennett was premier, Bryan Adams was on top of the charts and the Canucks still sported their infamous Flying Vee jerseys when the SkyTrain made its 1985 maiden voyage of a few hundred metres westward towards what is now known as Main Street-Science World station.

Built in advance of the Expo 86 world fair, the rapid transit service first began as a demonstration project to showcase new linear induction propulsion technology to Vancouver and other prospective cities. Movers and shakers of the day agreed it seemed a fine idea and the SkyTrain Line (known as the Expo Line since 2002 to differentiate it from the Millennium and Canada lines built since) was eventually extended nearly 30 kilometres from the Vancouver waterfront to inner Surrey.

If all goes according to plan, the Expo Line will soon stretch six kilometres further into Guildford and possibly even into Langley Centre by 2030.

Communities along the way haven’t been the same since, after condo and office towers began sprouting around the stations, boosting the number of transit users and greatly reducing regional sprawl.

Douglas Cameron Aitken, an architect who wrote a book entitled Three Faces of Vancouver profiling area development, says the affect of the Expo Line on Burnaby and New West is immeasurable.

“The SkyTrain essentially helped turn what was urban sprawl into urban civilizations,” he said.

Aitken, who lives in an apartment one block from Patterson station, can remember a time when you could walk for a kilometre along Kingsway and not see another person out on the street.

“People would always drive everywhere back then. But now what used to be nothing but endless parking lots and roads has been transformed into town centres with SkyTrain stations as the focal points for new urban societies. People are walking more and shopping at local businesses more and getting to know their neighbours more because of it.”



Aerial view of Metrotown SkyTrain Station, November 1986. There wasn’t much more than a Sears and a bowling alley in the area then. Today, the houses in the background are all gone, replaced by shopping mall.


Courtesy BCRTC/TransLink

•••••

Gordon Price, the director of the City Program at Simon Fraser University and a former Translink board member, agrees.

“The SkyTrain fundamentally changed the DNA of the entire area,” he said. “You had a generation of architects and planners who basically built everything around the automobile after the Second World War.

The suburbs were all about the car because trollies were basically seen as a second-class method of transportation and busses were very intermittent. People drove everywhere for everything and they built to meet that expectation. But because we never built freeways here, we’ve maintained a transit-centric nature and what the Expo Line did was extend that out into the region.”

Not everyone was convinced the automated transit system would catch on. Price gave the example of the crowded pedestrian walkway that links the Metrotown mall to the station.

“What they should have done is build right around the station but obviously the mall people weren’t convinced shoppers were really going to use it.”

Metrotown station is now the busiest one in the entire 68-kilometre system, but back in day there wasn’t much there but a bowling alley and a handful of retail outlets with no shortage of available parking.

New Westminster has been slower to see much new development from the line, but this is set to soon change with the completion of the three Plaza 88 towers, a project Mayor Wayne Wright said is poised to provide “New Westminster’s biggest transformation since the British army first got here in the early 1800s.”

•••••

In a classic episode of The Simpsons (itself nearing the quarter century mark), the city of Springfield decided to build a monorail with disastrous results. For Burnaby, New Westminster and other cities located in Metro Vancouver, the decision so far has been anything but.

“We probably wouldn’t have been able to hold the Olympics without it,” said Price. “We moved 1.6 million passengers a day during the peak, which is almost like the entire regional population using it.”

25th year, but not officially

The Expo Line had its official launch on Jan. 3, 1986, meaning TransLink won’t be celebrating its 25th anniversary until next year. But the service actually started in a few months prior, in 1985.

[SpikePhanta]

^^^^
I read that article a couple days ago and is there anyway of finding the picture of the Metrotown station before The mall was created?

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by SpikePhanta

^^^^
I read that article a couple days ago and is there anyway of finding the picture of the Metrotown station before The mall was created?

Try the archives of this page: http://www.globalairphotos.com/gallery/BC/Burnaby/Metrotown

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by nname

If that happens, I will be gone from Tri-cities, gone from Metro Vancouver, gone from this stupid country, and gone from this forum

If the Evergreen Linehad been scrapped, I think it would have been formally announced by now. Hang in there.

[Spork]

Photo of Metrotown area before the mall: http://www.globalairphotos.com/large/BC/Burnaby/Metrotown/1985/025/1

I found this quite interesting, as to me, Metrotown has always existed. I had no idea it was so desolate before.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by trofirhen

If the Evergreen Linehad been scrapped, I think it would have been formally announced by now. Hang in there.

I heard there was an announcement coming last week, now I hear late April. Which makes me think they are scrambling for something... not promising.

[jlousa]

Well there hasn't been an announcement on who purchased Lougheed Centre. It would certainly be huge if it turns out it was Translink or the MOT or the even the province. Of course this is just speculation and I have no reason to believe it was them, although it's curious why there hasn't been a press release from the new owner.

Shape is apparently looking at doubling the commercial space at Brentwood from 500K sqft to a million as well as introducing residential. They plan on starting in 2012.

[SpikePhanta]

Originally Posted by jlousa

Well there hasn't been an announcement on who purchased Lougheed Centre. It would certainly be huge if it turns out it was Translink or the MOT or the even the province. Of course this is just speculation and I have no reason to believe it was them, although it's curious why there hasn't been a press release from the new owner.

Shape is apparently looking at doubling the commercial space at Brentwood from 500K sqft to a million as well as introducing residential. They plan on starting in 2012.

I guess that would make Brentwood much more busy?
it seems like Brentwood and Lougheed is empty most of the time except during back to school and holiday

Oh and a tween talent competition helps Brentwood sometime (some YTV show)

[mezzanine]

Originally Posted by jlousa

Well there hasn't been an announcement on who purchased Lougheed Centre. It would certainly be huge if it turns out it was Translink or the MOT or the even the province. Of course this is just speculation and I have no reason to believe it was them, although it's curious why there hasn't been a press release from the new owner.

Yeef, missed this one. Good eye jlousa; this will be godzilla-huge if translink or victoria bought lougheed mall, for prospective development and resulting financing of the evergreen line.

Brentwood is on the block for $100 million in a sale to Vancouver-based Shape Properties and a large Ontario-based pension fund, Avison Young said in its report.

Lougheed, Avison Young added, is under contract for a $135-million sale to an undisclosed buyer.

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Bre...roperty+market+report/2774927/story.html