Millennium Line - Broadway Extension: Planning & Pre-Construction

[Canadian Mind]

Originally Posted by deasine

Same here. I think a LRT subway would be a great addition to the downtown core and properly connect the Kitsilano with downtown. Passengers on the Millennium Line would have a variety of transfer choices going to downtown, whether that's via the Expo Line, Canada Line, or Arbutus LRT. With a LRT subway, you can also have LRT from UBC to Downtown, LRT Arbutus, and Streetcar Granville Island/False Creek Flats, all in one.

The only problem with any LRT subway idea is the fact we aren't saving any money at the end of the day.

So if there is no cost savings, why not make it another skytrain line? Something that would form a loop connecting Kits to downtown through the West End, passing up by Stanely Park before running along Coal Harbour to Waterfront Station, with a future extension along E. Hastings to Burnaby.

[deasine]

Originally Posted by Canadian Mind

So if there is no cost savings, why not make it another skytrain line? Something that would form a loop connecting Kits to downtown through the West End, passing up by Stanely Park before running along Coal Harbour to Waterfront Station, with a future extension along E. Hastings to Burnaby.

Just to clarify, I meant we aren't saving money with a LRT subway in comparison to the RRT option. To be honest, I believe there is nowhere within the City of Vancouver needs any RRT except for the Central Broadway district.

What you are proposing automatically limits what could be built in the future.

And I can't imagine the West End needing RRT service. Everyone in the West End stays in Downtown, and only local service is needed for that.

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by trofirhen

It seems to go in the same tunnel as the Canada Line on the map, but putting it UNDER Burrard Street is what I think is what jsbertram had in mind.

Mr. Bertram, you DID mean for it to go underground downtown, didn't you?

Absolutely! Portal can be where 2nd Ave meets Molson Brewery, and follows the curve around the Credit Union building.

Imagine trying to run on-street trains along Robson or Granville during the Olympic street parties. Granted, that's an extreme example, but anyone jumping off the SeaBus and taking the C-Line to the airport were happily oblivious to the Granville street party going on above them.

Translink was smart enough to give up trying to run buses on Robson during the Olympics, and even the streets parallel to Granville had problems getting traffic through the Robson Party Zone.

Keeping the trains separated from the streets downtown allows them to run despite whatever chaos is happening on the streets.

[racc]

Originally Posted by Canadian Mind

I'd rather not see the continueity of the line from PoCo to UBC broken up like that. I would have thought that the streetcar would have made up for those overburdoned sections.

The majority of passengers on the Millennium Line are heading downtown. It really makes sense to design a system where the majority of people do not have to transfer. If not, at some point, they are going have to spend tens of millions to upgrade the ped capacity of the links between the Expo and Millennium lines at Broadway Station.

Originally Posted by Canadian Mind

Or, why not have longer platforms under the busiest section along broadway (120 vs 80), and short-turn longer trains where the capacity demands it? Or outright build an extra pair of rail lines for that section, so you have a Broadway local line (Arbutus to Commercial-Broadway), and a UBC to PoCo line. Could even make one of the lines an "express" line during peak periods to allow even quicker commutes along the corridor.

This was really not the issue I was talking about. It was the overloading of the Expo Line from Broadway to Main that is the issue.

[Canadian Mind]

Originally Posted by racc

The majority of passengers on the Millennium Line are heading downtown. It really makes sense to design a system where the majority of people do not have to transfer. If not, at some point, they are going have to spend tens of millions to upgrade the ped capacity of the links between the Expo and Millennium lines at Broadway Station.



This was really not the issue I was talking about. It was the overloading of the Expo Line from Broadway to Main that is the issue.

Pardon my ignorance.

Why not rebuild part of the Millenium Line so that an arm splits off the current line west of Commercial and merges with the Expo before Main Street/Science World? Could this be a solution for those using the Millenium Line wishing to go downtown and help deal with capacity issues at peak times on the Expo Line (from more trains)

[Alex Mackinnon]

It doesn't help when we're approaching the minimum headway of existing expo line.

With regards to streetcar over the Burrard St. Bridge, it's a bad idea to sink a lot of money into the bridge considering its probably nearing the end of it's service life. Unless of coarse we make it a huge retrofit.

As was said before, what's the advantage to making another crossing when if you had just connected the rest of the line with skytrain directly to the Canada line it would likely be the same price and be just as fast, while providing faster service for east west traffic.

[LeftCoaster]

I hope we do a huge retrofit. That bridge is absolutely beautiful and worth saving as long as we can.

[mr.x]

It would be a travesty to lose the Burrard Street Bridge (and the Lions Gate too for that matter)...it definitely needs to be saved, surely you wouldn't tear down the Brooklyn Street Bridge either just because it's past its prime - unless the Cloverfield monster or Godzilla had its way with it.

[paradigm4]

Originally Posted by Canadian Mind

Pardon my ignorance.

Why not rebuild part of the Millenium Line so that an arm splits off the current line west of Commercial and merges with the Expo before Main Street/Science World? Could this be a solution for those using the Millenium Line wishing to go downtown and help deal with capacity issues at peak times on the Expo Line (from more trains)

Doing so would put the downtown tunnel into close to peak headways during rush hour. I suspect a better solution would be to run the West Coast Express throughout the day, and add an express at-grade train along the BNSF route. This would keep the suburbanites in the Tri-Cities and South of Fraser off congested SkyTrain, while still whisking them conveniently and quickly into downtown.

[racc]

Originally Posted by Canadian Mind

Pardon my ignorance.

Why not rebuild part of the Millenium Line so that an arm splits off the current line west of Commercial and merges with the Expo before Main Street/Science World? Could this be a solution for those using the Millenium Line wishing to go downtown and help deal with capacity issues at peak times on the Expo Line (from more trains)

They looked at this when they were building the Millennium Line. It still would not solve the capacity issues on the Expo Line. You can only have so many trains per hour on the line.

If the other part went to UBC, it would also limit the capacity on the Commercial to UBC segment although I guess you could have some trains that only do the UBC-Commercial segment but then you ad a transfer for some people anyway or make them wait for another train.

[nname]

Originally Posted by racc

The majority of passengers on the Millennium Line are heading downtown. It really makes sense to design a system where the majority of people do not have to transfer. If not, at some point, they are going have to spend tens of millions to upgrade the ped capacity of the links between the Expo and Millennium lines at Broadway Station.

Yes, the majority of passenger on the Millennium Line are heading downtown right now, but it doesn't mean it will stay that way once Evergreen and Broadway Line opens. The main reason for this is that:
- Many people who go from Tri-Cities to Downtown would continue to take WCE. Routing M-Line to downtown would mean a duplication of service.
- There is no rapid transit line on Broadway meaning lower transit ridership, which also means that many of the potential riders bounded for Broadway isn't riding the train yet.
- To go to Vancouver northwest (kitslano) or southwest (kerrisdale, marpole, etc), it is actually faster to go via downtown than taking the 99 snail-line. People may or may not know this, but many would prefer train-train-bus transfers than train-bus-bus.

The difference is actually not that big. If Broadway obtain similar ridership increase compared to Canada Line once the extension opens, the passenger going straight on Millennium Line would be much much greater than the one who transfers!

[deasine]

I'd be curious if there are anyone that actually takes the train to downtown, then take the bus down to Kitsilano/Central Broadway just to avoid the 99 B-Line.

[Vonny]

Originally Posted by mezzanine

IMO, i am very happy about the response to the broadway plans. Compared to the canada line, and even the evergreen line, the blogosphere is has a much more global thought to the proposed network. ppl are talking about mobility, frequnency and bus options and potential transfer problems, speed and planned ridership. people are also realizing how the evergreen line and canada line will affect this. we aren't talking about some polar discussion about LRT versus skytrain and overall response is more careful and measured, and not devolving into regionalism, marathon mode discussions and nazi-accusing.

and i want to reserve special thanks to human transit. IMO that blog and its theads have helped keep this discussion civil and fruitful. If you are reading this jarrett, many thanks!

As well, i'm glad to see a lot of the ssp'ers out on the blogosphere writing and posting. I would despair if the only public input was from patrick condon and mayor corrigan. thanks for all the effort, civility and keep up the advocacy!

as you have seen, keeping civil and polite doesn't prevent your comment as well as others to be discarded as soon as they try to challenge to directly Patrick Condon or Zweisystem numbers on the http://www.livableregion.ca blog

That is unfortunate, and I believe people need to be aware of those less than commendable method of debating.

for the record, I have voiced my opinion on it directly on the concerned blog:

[CLC]

Seems like PC no longer bothers to response to any blog as soon as the flood of comments arrived. He even only sent a private email response to HumanTransit blog, but Jarrett made his response public

I don't see PC ideas to have any chance of wide support since his proposal is actually slow rail transit (i.e. tram, though glorified as "modern streetcar"), it is certainly against the basic principle of providing rapid transit on Broadway.

[cabotp]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Hmmm, instead of the "L" shaped line (along Arbutus/ along Broadway) I suggested earlier, if we end up with a phased-in Combined Option, I would rather see this (my modification of the TransLink Combined Option map)
- rather than using the streetcar RoW for LRT feeding into the already congested Expo Line.
The LRT would cut from the Arbutus RoW near Fir St. to an underground station at the Granville Bridge's SW cloverleaf loop and emerge from a portal in the centre lanes of Granville Bridge and continue into downtown.
The streetcar plans would continue, providing local service as planned (except for the Arbutus corridor).

While the idea is nice. My biggest concern, assuming they built both lines at the same time. Is that we have now locked ourselves into having an LRT line west of Arbutus. Without having any idea if that would cause a problem with ridership.

Assuming we can't afford to build skytrain to UBC. It would probably be better to build it to Arbutus. But don't build the LRT line to UBC. Wait 5 years and see what ridership is like. Although on your map we could build the line from Downtown and south along Arbutus.

[Canadian Mind]

Originally Posted by racc

They looked at this when they were building the Millennium Line. It still would not solve the capacity issues on the Expo Line. You can only have so many trains per hour on the line.

If the other part went to UBC, it would also limit the capacity on the Commercial to UBC segment although I guess you could have some trains that only do the UBC-Commercial segment but then you ad a transfer for some people anyway or make them wait for another train.

So what if they have to wait 3 minutes to catch the right train instead of 1 and a half?

Wouldn't there enough potential users of the Broadway/Commercial - UBC segment of the whole Douglas College - UBC line (evergreen, millenium, etc) line to warrant a shortchanging train anyways?

Or, here is another concept. Whatever Millenium Line trains that currently run along the Expo Line to Columbia would now switch onto the current north arm of the Millenium Line via the new connector between Main/Science World and Commercial, and continue to run until Columbia.

The same number of dedicated Expo Line trains leave Waterfront for King George as they did before.

The new Evergreen Line, including both the new Evergreen and New Broadway segments of track, is one continueous Line that shares the Lougheed-Commercial portion of tracks with the Millenium Line, and would either:

1. share the UBC-VCC Clark portion with a short-turned local Broadway Line;

2. eventually share an extension of Millenium Line west of Columbia that continues to share trackage with Expo line until before Commercial station (or after, depending on alignment), that then turns west using a new arm built into the Expo line tracks along the new Broadway portion of track to UBC;

3. or share the same UBC-VCC Clark portion with a whole new named line that, using the same alignment arm as the above Millenium Line to connect to Expo Line, would travel from UBC to King George (my perferred option).

With options 2, and 3, the Broadway segment of line could split in the east, both to help with alignment issues and would provide a slightly broader transit footprint in the SEFC area. So essentially the Evergreen Line would make an S-turn south west of VCC station (like it will already have to), and the connection arm would continue east along E Broadway, then southeast towards Naniamo, possiblyy with 1 or 2 of it's own stations built along the way.

Here is a diagram I did of suggestion 3 with the Broadway split:


With this setup, everyone who presently uses the Expo Line between Commercial/Main Street and Columbia would have frequencies to downtown reduced by half. However, those between Naniamo and King George would have new equivilent frequencies that take them to the Broadway corridor/UBC. Aswell, this route connects to the the Broadway/City Hall station with transfer to Canada Line. This would greatly reduce the overall impact of the current Expo/Millenium line frequencies to downtown being cut by half along the Naniamo-Commercial portion.

I percieve this, in conjuction with new one ride access to the Broadway corridor/UBC for those boarding the system between Naniamo and King Geroge, to make the change in routing and frequencies to be of zero negative impact on the average transit user, if not make it more positive. In addition, those between Nanaimo and King George who want to use the Canada Line to go south, wont have to go all the way into downtown to catch the Canada Line, and would probably save 5-10 minutes from their commute.

Due to the WCE already providing non-stop and direct service between the Tri-cities and Downtown, having a single transfer on the Skytrain system to get downtown from the tri-cities using only the Skytrain system is a non-issue.

However, the Millenium Line would provide service to downtown for those along the Evergreen line who do not have convinient access to downtown via the WCE (ie all those west of Lougheed in north Burnaby and northeast Vancouver).

Overall, only the Expo Line Commercial/Main Street station would see reduced service. However, with Millenium line users no longer using the station to transfer downtown, the number of people who use the station daily should be reduced overall.

Maybe this should have gone in the transit fantisies thread, but I only did it to highlight what can be done with the Broadway corridor to improve Skytrains efficientcy. To deserve going in the fantisies thread would require a few more lines.

[nname]

Originally Posted by deasine

I'd be curious if there are anyone that actually takes the train to downtown, then take the bus down to Kitsilano/Central Broadway just to avoid the 99 B-Line.

Everyone I know of is doing that when they take transit (but most already gave up and are driving now)... And for me, I don't think I've taken the 99 since u-pass began... I always took the 2, 4, 44, 84, 10, 16, 17, 22 instead... just like how I've avoided the 97 B-Line

[trofirhen]

[QUOTE=Canadian Mind;4806750]

With this setup, everyone who presently uses the Expo Line between Commercial/Main Street and Columbia would have frequencies to downtown reduced by half. However, those between Naniamo and King George would have new equivilent frequencies that take them to the Broadway corridor/UBC. Aswell, this route connects to the the Broadway/City Hall station with transfer to Canada Line. This would greatly reduce the overall impact of the current Expo/Millenium line frequencies to downtown being cut by half along the Naniamo-Commercial portion.

In addition, those between Nanaimo and King George who want to use the Canada Line to go south, wont have to go all the way into downtown to catch the Canada Line, and would probably save 5-10 minutes from their commute.


Overall, only the Expo Line Commercial/Main Street station would see reduced service. However, with Millenium line users no longer using the station to transfer downtown, the number of people who use the station daily should be reduced overall.

QUOTE]

Another option is to route Millenium Line trains back on the the main axis at Columbia, and have them share that trackage with Expo Line trains, heading back into and out of Vancouver in a "Loop" pattern. The current western extension of the Milllenium Line to VCC would be taken over by the Evergreen Line, and there would be no reduction in frequency from Commercial / Main Street. It would be a "seamless web." A side-effect would be even increased frequency between Columbia and Nanaimo, with the now-looped Millenium Line able to go in and out of downtown Vancouver in its large circular "Loop" configuration. Nothing to lose that way, and nobody could sqwawk about reduced train frequencies.

[jsbertram]

I think we're getting too distracted by the desire to have a single-seat SkyTrain ride to a destination.

I would rather think of the original Expo SkyTrain as the diagonal (Vancouver - Metrotown - New West - Surrey) rapid transit line, and the new UBC line and Evergreen line as the completion of the horizontal (UBC - VGH - Lougheed - Douglas College) rapid transit line - lets call it "Horizontal Millennium".

The Millennium 'loop-around' that goes from Vancouver - Metrotown - New West - Lougheed - VCC would disappear because it's replaced by the new horizontal Millennium line (UBC - Douglas College), and increased frequencies on the diagonal Expo line.

These would operate as separate SkyTrain lines, and the Commercial - Broadway station would be the hub where transfers between them are made.

If there is a problem causing one line to be shut down, the other line will still operate as normal because they aren't co-mingling their trains.

I can already hear the cries of "what about Braid and Sapperton?"
1/3 of the Expo trains can have Lougheed Station as their terminal, where the train heads to Lougheed instead of Scott Road after leaving Columbia. This can be done because the unfinished 3rd platform at Lougheed can be completed and used as the terminal platform. These Expo trains terminating at Lougheed will return to Braid and Sapperton, and re-join the Expo 'mainline' at Columbia where they continue their journey to Vancouver.

If there was a 3rd platform at Columbia that could be used, it would be easy to implement a Lougheed - Columbia shuttle as a connector between the diagonal Expo line and the horizontal Millennium line.

[Zassk]

I"m surprised at all of the effort being expended on this thread to try to eliminate transfers. Transfers are a fact of life in a rapid transit network, and I don't see why we should make the system hopelessly complicated just to eliminate them. The first priority should be to make the network easily understood in order to encourage as many people to try the system as possible; the only way to make it easily understood is to completely segregate the system into three distinct lines.

After the UBC line is built, I'm sure many Expo riders will happily transfer twice in order to get onto Canada Line without going downtown. People in other big-metro cities do multiple transfers routinely, and they tend to have much worse frequencies than we are blessed with. Of all cities, transfers are the least problematic for us thanks to our terrific frequencies. Some people who are spoiled with the current interlining will have to give up their seat and transfer; but rather than make the system convoluted in order to let them keep their seat, we should focus on making their transfer as efficient as possible.

And to follow on with this thought, the best way to funnel Millennium passengers into downtown IS to put as many of them as possible on the Canada Line. It's silly to contemplate a new Millennium track split to downtown or yet False Creek crossing, when we have a 1-year-old tunnel just built that has tons of capacity. Spend ~$500 million or so to connect Millennium Line to that tunnel, and reduce Expo Line's load that way.