Millennium Line - Broadway Extension: Planning & Pre-Construction

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by Overground

Broadway using Google Earth is pretty much the exact width of St Clair West too.

Google Streets shows the construction mess.

[nname]

Originally Posted by jsbertram

I was reading through the “Getting it Right” (Kelman and Soberman) report about the St. Clair streetcar project when it came out, and it estimates that $106 Million was spent refurbishing 6.8 KM of streetcar track. This is up from the original 2003 estimate of $35 Million, which was later revised to an estimate of $65 Million when the project started in 2005. The project was substantially finished in 2010, but only after 8 months of court battles & reviews, so actual construction time was 4 years - with work stoppages that left parts of St. Clair street and sidewalks as an idle construction zone.


Using that number we get $ 15.5 Million per KM, so the 12.9 KM Broadway line to UBC would work out to $201 Million.

Note that the platform length there is only 32m, which is good for 1-car train

[deasine]

Expect the cost of LRT to be at least $35 million/km as we need new track, new OMC, and new vehicles.

[jsbertram]

Reading about the new LRT in Calgary heading West from downtown, they will be spending $1 billion for 8 KMs ($125 Million per KM), but that also includes building a new high school to replace a 60 year-old one that has to be knocked over, and the extra costs of building elevated structures.

However, they don't have to build a new OMC, and the extra trains for this route are already included in another route expansion.

If 1/3 of the cost is for the new HS and land acquisition, that lowers the estimate of LRT construction to $83 Million per KM. Applying that estimate to Broadway, we get $1.075 Billion, plus the cost of trains and OMC.


This is an interesting exercise, but we're all just second-guessing each other based on previous construction in other cities. We'll get better cost estimates in the fall at the end of Phase II planning.

[GeeCee]

This is probably a dumb idea, but what about SkyTrain to Blanca Street and then enhanced bus service into the UEL? I'd prefer taking it all the way up to the university, but would stopping it at Blanca Street provide any kind of meaningful cost savings?

[MalcolmTucker]

^ The Calgary cost includes vehicle cost, and a fair amount of above and below ground infrastructure, including stations. Without utility relocation, LRT can be pretty cheap (relatively), but you don't really know the cost from an outsider point of view it is hard to 'spit ball'.

[Zassk]

The UEL part of the line is certainly the cheapest section to build, since it will be travelling through mostly non-residential land and along wide rights-of-way. It doesn't make sense to stop the line just short of UEL. That would be like stopping Canada Line at Templeton.

[metroXpress]

Again, no matter what the plans are on Broadway, we should at least have the SkyTrain M-Line extended to City Hall station on Canada Line. This is a crucial transit connection!

1st Stage: M Line to City Hall
2nd Stage: City Hall to Arbutus
3rd Stage: Arbutus to UBC >>>

[Zassk]

^ I agree completely. What do you think, $900 million per leg probably? Open one leg every 3 years after Evergreen, with construction starting the moment the Evergreen TBM finishes its dig? Great, let's get started!

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by metroXpress

Again, no matter what the plans are on Broadway, we should at least have the SkyTrain M-Line extended to City Hall station on Canada Line. This is a crucial transit connection!

1st Stage: M Line to City Hall
2nd Stage: City Hall to Arbutus
3rd Stage: Arbutus to UBC >>>

The problem with building SkyTrain only to City Hall is it becomes too easy to say "meh! good enough. Why spend any more money on the SkyTrain tunnel when buses / lrt / trams / streetcars can go the rest of the way?"

Once you've spent a billion bucks putting in streetcar tracks, it will take a generation or more to admit it was short-sighted, when in 2040 a SkyTrain tunnel needs to be built to UBC anyhow (and shoulda been done instead of streetcar tracks in 2020)

We recently saw how a robust and well-designed SkyTrain system built in the mid-80s handled the Olympic crowds on the Expo/Millennium lines by simply adding more cars to trains and running the trains closer together. Some people may have complained that SkyTrain was over-built at the time, but with the massive numbers of passengers that were handled during the Olympics, we now know the Expo / Millennium and Canada lines will be able to handle the expected growth of transit for the next few decades without needing to replace tracks and guideways and stations to add capacity to the current SkyTrain infrastructure.

If you build it right the first time with 50-year forward thinking, you will end up saving money in the long term by not having to replace lesser infrastructure two or three times again in subsequent decades.

I'm reminded of the new East London Line that is opening in May. Most of this surface commuter railway is reusing ROW abandoned decades ago when the railroads couldn't compete with the new highways, but the connection under the Thames is reusing the original (first) Thames tunnels built by Brunel and opened in the 1840s. Say what you want about the excesses of Victorian Engineering, because of the robust engineering and construction of this tunnel it is still usable today - although Brunel would be amazed at technology like electric commuter passenger trains running through them that we take for granted today. When he built the tunnels, they were meant to be used by horses & wagons to move goods between docks on either side of the Thames.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by nname

Note that the platform length there is only 32m, which is good for 1-car train

It isnt an LRT line in any way. It is a dedicated lane for streetcars, which are little larger than busses. It is a monsterous waste of money.

I can tell you after riding these things for quite some time now taht thehy are definitely now a replacement for any sort of rapid transit, they literally are just busses on steel wheels. Often I will take the subway which runs parallel to many of these lines and walk the rest of the way.

here is a good example:

The red line is a "LRT line" also known as a dedicated streetcar lane. Identical to the systems proposed to "blanket the region"
The yellow line is a heavy metro subway line, with frequencies similar to skytrain.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

From the blue station (spadina staion) which has both a streetcar platform and a subway platform, I can take the metro line south parallel to the red spadina line and walk over to spadina ave faster than the streetcar can travel straight down Spadina... it's a complete joke. It's no better than a bus with bus lanes, and is a complete waste of money.

And anyone who tells you that ambiance is worth more than time is full of s*it... or unemployed (which is in all probability zwei's employment status). I work a lot and my free time is really valuable to me. I dont want to spend it sitting on a streetcar admitring the same view i admire every day as i go to and from work or school, I'd rather be doing what I want where I want.

[jsbertram]

I haven't heard much about the decision that the multi-billion dollar order for new TTC streetcars includes a change to have the new cars run on Standard Gauge track.

However, the streetcar tracks and subway tracks have been built since the 1860s (before standardization) on a track gauge that is about 3 inches wider than today's Standard.

Just wait for the howling to start when every streetcar track has to be ripped up & replaced with new Standard Gauge track before the new streetcars can be run on the old lines. This includes the new St Clair line that was just rebuilt over the last five years (and still isn't quite finished) at a cost of over $100 million.

At least the new Transit City lines will be built as Standard Gauge, so they'll be able to use these new streetcars as soon as they arrive.

Oh yes, I almost forgot about the other multi-billion dollar order for new subway trains "Red Rockets" that will be running on the old non-standard gauge, so the subways won't be converted to Standard Gauge track for another few decades (likely when these new subway trains need to be replaced in 2050).

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by Zassk

The UEL part of the line is certainly the cheapest section to build, since it will be travelling through mostly non-residential land and along wide rights-of-way. It doesn't make sense to stop the line just short of UEL. That would be like stopping Canada Line at Templeton.

Or having Bridgeport as the only Richmond station (on the way to the airport), and saying "meh! good enough. You can use regular buses and B-Line buses to connect to the rest of Richmond. No sense spending all that money on a new elevated train track over Number 3 Road, after we've just spent millions on renovating Number 3 for bus lanes.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

It isnt an LRT line in any way. It is a dedicated lane for streetcars, which are little larger than busses. It is a monsterous waste of money.

I can tell you after riding these things for quite some time now that they are definitely now a replacement for any sort of rapid transit, they literally are just busses on steel wheels. Often I will take the subway which runs parallel to many of these lines and walk the rest of the way.

And anyone who tells you that ambiance is worth more than time is full of s*it... or unemployed (which is in all probability zwei's employment status). I work a lot and my free time is really valuable to me. I dont want to spend it sitting on a streetcar admitring the same view i admire every day as i go to and from work or school, I'd rather be doing what I want where I want.

Regarding subway rail transit, it amazes me that a city as big as Toronto (5.5 million), which covers such a large area, and has pockets of density similar to, though larger than, Vancouver's town centres, has not progressed much other than the addition of the Sheppard spoke line, and the northern lengthening of the Spadina Subway north. If things keep going the way they're going, we'll outstrip them in rail transit capacity fast enough to make them stop their arrogant strutting dead flat. Montreal's Metro is more comprehensive than Toronto's by a long shot. If we build the UBC Line and the Evergreen Line, we'll probably have the longest rail transit system in Canada, and we're only the third city.

[cabotp]

Originally Posted by jsbertram

Or having Bridgeport as the only Richmond station (on the way to the airport), and saying "meh! good enough. You can use regular buses and B-Line buses to connect to the rest of Richmond. No sense spending all that money on a new elevated train track over Number 3 Road, after we've just spent millions on renovating Number 3 for bus lanes.

I do feel if YVR had not offered the money they did. The airport section most likely would not have been built. So you can thank YVR for that section.

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by cabotp

I do feel if YVR had not offered the money they did. The airport section most likely would not have been built. So you can thank YVR for that section.

I don't think people are saying "THANKS" when they have to pay the extra $5 to use the Canada Line to get out of the airport.

[Zassk]

Originally Posted by jsbertram

I don't think people are saying "THANKS" when they have to pay the extra $5 to use the Canada Line to get out of the airport.

Agreed, but that $5 isn't by/for the airport or that leg of the line, it's Translink trying to cover its shortfall for the Translink portion of the overall Canada Line bill. The airport paid its full share and can't be happy to be singled out by the surcharge.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Zassk

Agreed, but that $5 isn't by/for the airport or that leg of the line, it's Translink trying to cover its shortfall for the Translink portion of the overall Canada Line bill. The airport paid its full share and can't be happy to be singled out by the surcharge.

Are you sure that money isn't going back to YVR? That was my understanding.

[TransitJack]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Are you sure that money isn't going back to YVR? That was my understanding.

It's not.. it goes to Translink.

[nname]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Are you sure that money isn't going back to YVR? That was my understanding.

No, it goes to Translink, to pay for the lower ridership and revenue (compared to Richmond branch), the fare-free zone between the three YVR stations, and also, like the previous post said, part of the main line.