Metro Vancouver Transit Discussion

[Alex Mackinnon]

Pretty simple. 3% Interest on $3B in Cap. Ex is $90M/yr. It all depends on what kind of interest rate the gov't gets. If we issue bonds now it might be somewhere around that though. Loans are cheap right now.

[usog]

Hmm if the operating costs for a mid-sized bus scale like that, it would probably be worth it to invest in a fleet of them for Surrey and other areas with lower ridership. I've ridden them in the Bay Area before and from what I remember they should be just the right size for many suburban routes. And if they only cost 75% as much as a full size bus to operate, that means an additional 25% in operating costs is freed up to put towards more service hours. I'd hope they have someone looking into it for their next, far off I'm sure, round of bus purchases.

[dleung]

If Vancouver is anything like Toronto these days, we'd scrap the Broadway line completely, extend skytrain as subway to Langley and tunnel the Evergreen line to Westwood Plateau Hopefully it will be logistics trumping politics here...

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

Pretty simple. 3% Interest on $3B in Cap. Ex is $90M/yr.

But Translink doesn't have to finance the whole line, only its share, right? For example, Translink has to come up with $400M for Evergreen, and it's the financing on only that portion that it needs to fund, as far as I know.

Of course it all comes out of the pockets of us taxpayers one way or the other, but it seems like it's Translink's ability to pay that usually seems to end up being the sticking point.

[invisibleairwaves]

Originally Posted by dleung

If Vancouver is anything like Toronto these days, we'd scrap the Broadway line completely, extend skytrain as subway to Langley and tunnel the Evergreen line to Westwood Plateau Hopefully it will be logistics trumping politics here...

Funny, but to be fair, the Toronto subway extensions are more like an elevated Skytrain extension to Fleetwood. Necessary, but they should probably come after the long-overdue downtown relief line.

Of course, if we were like Toronto, we'd be delaying our transit expansions forever because of funding issues. Oh, wait...

[LeftCoaster]

No if we were like Toronto we would be scrapping any transit expansion entirely becuase we just elected a fatass half retarded dinosaur from the suburbs as mayor.

[twoNeurons]

Originally Posted by Spork

Translink had, or was piloting, mini busses around 2001, I would say. There was a route in front of my old house in White Rock that had them that was converted to community shuttles when those were introduced. I think that the operating costs on those mini busses weren't much better than diesel (something like $60/hr vs. the full $80/hr).

Partly because there is far less training to teach someone to drive a community shuttle. They're a different class of vehicle if I'm not mistaken. (Surely there must be a translink bus driver on SSP who can clear this up)

[golog]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

Pretty simple. 3% Interest on $3B in Cap. Ex is $90M/yr. It all depends on what kind of interest rate the gov't gets. If we issue bonds now it might be somewhere around that though. Loans are cheap right now.

Eye balling bus route ridership & Canada Line opening, I would guess a Broadway Line completed today would be ~130,000 ppd annual average

Operating costs of Skytrain are ~$1 per passenger cheaper (assuming these bus routes are above average and profitable)

If you go along with these numbers, that's ~$47mn in freed up annual cash flow. Divide that by your chosen interest rate to guesstimate of how much financing the line could support at opening.

Transit in general doesn't even aim to cover its capital costs, similar to how roads aren't expected to pay rent on the real estate they occupy. At least it's my understanding their quoted cost per route does not include any capital cost.

The two key points for financing the project would be:
- growing ridership, so that breaking even today is sufficient and growth and pay off the debt
- revenues are strongly hedged against inflation, allowing them to offer real return repayment

There are other considerations:
- what happens to the B-line busses after
- what happens if they don't build it, to transit and road congestion
- presuming gridlock isn't an option, what the alternative solutions would accomplish and cost
- what the benefits accruing to others are
- how an east-west line will affect ridership of existing nearby transit lines, that either feed in to or lose passengers to the new line
- whether the new service offers a greater value riders are willing to share with higher fares, this would tie in to the smart card system

[golog]

Originally Posted by usog

Hmm if the operating costs for a mid-sized bus scale like that, it would probably be worth it to invest in a fleet of them for Surrey and other areas with lower ridership. I've ridden them in the Bay Area before and from what I remember they should be just the right size for many suburban routes. And if they only cost 75% as much as a full size bus to operate, that means an additional 25% in operating costs is freed up to put towards more service hours. I'd hope they have someone looking into it for their next, far off I'm sure, round of bus purchases.

Driver's salary is the biggest cost of operating a bus. Don't know about any increased cost to requisition, support, train, or maintain an additional model. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a slight advantage, but that is still dwarfed by the big gap between cost and revenue from these routes. They should focus on committing to the routes they do serve, once an hour is useless and self-defeating. Most people living in these areas are prepared to drive everywhere, so offer park & ride lots and let them help lower the cost of the trip -- that's one success Phoenix has had. This also passively encourages, but fairly without intervening in local planning, the kind of development where transit has a role to play.

[CLC]

Originally Posted by satishreddy

......

Second, at the scatter plot of ridership by route. The top 10 routes in terms of ridership are

99 - Vancouver - B line Broadway station to UBC
20 - Vancouver - trolley bus along Victoria/Commercial/Hastings/Dowtown
9 - Vancouver - trolley bus along Broadway/10th Boundary to UBC
98 -Vancouver/Richmond - B line from Richmond to downtown (no longer exists)
41 - Vancouver - Diesel bus along 41st from Joyce station to UBC
3 - Vancouver - trolley bus along Main/Hastings/Downtown
22 - Vancouver - Diesel bus along Knight/Dowtown/MacDonald
8 - Vancouver - trolley bus along Fraser/Kingsway/Main/Dowtown
17 - Vancouver - trolley bus Oak/Dowtown/Granville/Broadway/10th/UBC
16 - Vancouver - trolley bus Arbutus/Dowtown/Hastings/Renfrew/29th Street Station

......
In my opinion, based on ridership statistics, the highest priority for rapid transit (skytrain) should be the UBC line. In my opinion, there is little or no justification for the Evergreen line or skytrain extension in Surrey/Langley. Build up transit ridership in these areas by slowly increasing bus service, as demand warrants, just as was done for the 99 route.

Overall, I agree with much of what you said. However it must be noticed that the #22 and #16 out of the top 10 routes (from 2007 data) did not deserve in top 10, they have good ridership because they are ultra long route!

If today stats is revealed by Translink, I'm sure #49 is in top 5 and #135 or #25 in top 10. Your illustration is still valid.

I also want to add that frequency means convenience for many riders. I would personally say 10 minutes minimum (rather than 15) should be regarded as frequency service. I am too lazy to check how many routes in Surrey already have 10 minutes minimum or better frequency for whole daytime.

[SpikePhanta]

I think several Burnaby routes would be in that!

106,130 to name a couple.

[golog]

from Translink pack of PDFs, http://www.mediafire.com/?5w1ztwjo1fl. via nname @ http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=171443

Went to look for a table including revenue per hour of bus routes, thought I would share some of figures from one of the documents (report is ca. 2008, data 2007)

there's a lot more in the documents, everything from route expansion capacity, station usage over 24h, ridership over 24 by region

[BCPhil]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

Pretty simple. 3% Interest on $3B in Cap. Ex is $90M/yr. It all depends on what kind of interest rate the gov't gets. If we issue bonds now it might be somewhere around that though. Loans are cheap right now.

Not only are loans cheap, but this project is a bit different than many of the others we've done recently. There are no pressing reasons to finish this project as fast as possible. Proper construction can have a minimal impact on everyday life. The $3billion needed on this project would be spent over 6 years of construction or more. On average, that's about $500 million a year in cost. There is no reason that spread over 3 levels of Government (or 4 depending on how you looking at it) most of the cost can't be financed directly from public coffers instead of borrowing it.

Right now we have to borrow because we are operating in deficit and building many projects across the province. But we will be closer (if not passed) to having balanced budgets by the time construction starts, and there won't be as many competing infrastructure projects needing financing (or at least they won't be on the same scale as Gateway).

[cabotp]

Originally Posted by twoNeurons

Partly because there is far less training to teach someone to drive a community shuttle. They're a different class of vehicle if I'm not mistaken. (Surely there must be a translink bus driver on SSP who can clear this up)

Don't quote me on it. But I believe you need a Class 4 for the community shuttle bus. While a regular bus you need a Class 2 with the Air Endorsement.

The difference is that the Class 2 is for 40 passengers and up. With a Class 4 you can't have over 40 passengers.

[officedweller]

Backgrounder Report on the 2011 Funding Supplement - the vote that's going to the Mayor's Council as to whether to raise property taxes:

http://www.translink.ca/~/media/Document...Supplement%20Funding%20Backgrounder.ashx

[DKaz]

Derek Corrigan is a selfish bastard, he's nothing more than a cold sore in this region. His city has two lines going through it and yet again he's blockading another municipality from getting a rapid transit line. I wanna write him a letter and give him a piece of my mind.

[officedweller]

YUp - that about sums it up.

[mr.x]

Originally Posted by DKaz

Derek Corrigan is a selfish bastard, he's nothing more than a cold sore in this region. His city has two lines going through it and yet again he's blockading another municipality from getting a rapid transit line. I wanna write him a letter and give him a piece of my mind.

I'd like to see such a letter when you're done with it.

[Millennium2002]

Well... when you think about the politics of the situation... he (and all the other mayors in Metro Vancouver) are doing what mayors do best... vigorously defending their city's interests. Undoubtedly this leads to all of the unnecessary "I want that I want that... and no you cannot have that!" sort of talk... and I don't see that ending anytime soon with the board's current structure.

That being said, I'm not sure if even a change in the structure (e.g. an elected board of representatives like Greater London Council) will make things better, because if not designed properly an electoral system can favour constituents who may just repeat everything. =S

[jlousa]

Seeing mayors defend their own cities over the regions best interests is exactly why I love Vancouver's at large system and would hate to see a ward system implemented. It will boil down to each person looking after their own interests, and forming alliances to screw over unpopular wards.