Expo Line - Surrey Langley Extension: Planning & Pre-Construction

[go_leafs_go02]

Originally Posted by Zassk

With only 1% usage in Chilliwack, and I'm guessing not much better in Abbotsford, $10m is a hell of a lot of money spent per rider.

Living in Chilliwack - transit is an absolute joke. You have routes running on the worst possible schedules and they don't connect very well. Heck, a few months ago, some student/resident drafted up a whole city plan to re-do the transit network. The City actually invited them in for a meeting. That's awesome to say the least, that they are doing it, but the fact that a residents plan may supercede the official planners - that's a joke.

Oh, and I'd definitely take the train from Chilliwack to get into Vancouver if it worked.

[DKaz]

No not $10m per rider... $10m for the entire system. But I don't get how $10m = only $9 per capita. I calculated about $50 per capita.

Abbotsford and Mission's transit system is a joke too. Lousy routes and poorly maintained vehicles. The route displays don't work on half of the buses and some buses pull in some direction when brakes are applied, it's horrible. I'm surprised there hasn't been a safety audit done on ValleyMax.

[dubsH]

Originally Posted by DKaz

No not $10m per rider... $10m for the entire system. But I don't get how $10m = only $9 per capita. I calculated about $50 per capita.

lol, that's because it's not $10 million divided by population of the Fraser Valley... according to that article, Chilliwack property owners (through property taxes) only PAY $9/per capita towards transit (with the rest coming from other sources, ie. higher governments).

How many people actually commute from Chilliwack to Surrey on a daily basis to warrant rail service? The more "logical" route would be to extend the current West Coast Express to Abbotsford and have bus feeder service from Chilliwack.

[splashflash]

Cost per ride for extension to Abbotsford from Mission of WCE: $68.75
Cost per ride for connector coach with 10 minute headway: $4.75

Ridership on coach would be 1,800 per day while on the rail extension only 650.

As with the Interurban line west of Langley, the extension of the WCE does not make any sen$e, in spite of what the Valley rail hobbyists say.

[splashflash]

The report may be found at: http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/FraserValleyTransit/publications.htm

The review of passenger rail in the east and central Fraser Valley may be found on page 53 to 73 of Foundation Paper #4.

[go_leafs_go02]

Originally Posted by dubsH

lol, that's because it's not $10 million divided by population of the Fraser Valley... according to that article, Chilliwack property owners (through property taxes) only PAY $9/per capita towards transit (with the rest coming from other sources, ie. higher governments).

How many people actually commute from Chilliwack to Surrey on a daily basis to warrant rail service? The more "logical" route would be to extend the current West Coast Express to Abbotsford and have bus feeder service from Chilliwack.

Look at GO Transit in the GTA - You have access to/from Toronto from Oshawa to Hamilton, every hour, by either bus or train. and rushhour trains service from just about any corner from the GTA

This isn't to warrant Chilliwack to Surrey, but a vast combination. Surrey to Abbotsford, Langley to Scott Road, Chilliwack to Abbotsford.

[CLC]

Vancouver Sun: Surrey looks to light rail to ease huge growth

SkyTrain is too expensive, Mayor Dianne Watts says

BY KELLY SINOSKI, VANCOUVER SUN APRIL 13, 2011 12:59 AM


Surrey is exploring the potential of building at-grade light rail on three of the city's major corridors, saying an extension of the SkyTrain line is not financially feasible.

Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts said Tuesday the city will actively advocate for TransLink to build light rail across the city and is already investigating three routes: 104th Avenue between 152nd Street and City Centre (near the Surrey Central SkyTrain); King George Highway from City Centre to Newton (and eventually South Surrey); and Fraser Highway between City Centre and Langley.

"I don't want to have SkyTrain cutting our communities in half -that is going to destroy our city," Watts told nearly 500 people at her state of the city speech at the Sheraton Guildford Hotel.

"It's not just about moving people as far as you can from A to B; it's about moving people but also building a community.

"If we don't put in proper measures for transportation we're going to have a mess."

Watts argued the city, which pays $164 million into transportation each year, has seen its population double in the past 17 years, but hasn't had any expansions to its rapid transit line.

As Surrey develops into the region's second downtown, she added, the city needs a cost effective and efficient transportation system to accommodate the growth.

Another one million people are expected to move to Metro Vancouver in the next 30 years with 70 per cent of those settling south of the Fraser River. Building a SkyTrain connecting Surrey with Langley, she said, would be cost-prohibitive, compared with light rail and street cars, which would complement the existing SkyTrain and buses already in place.

TransLink has estimated the cost of light rail at $27 million per kilometre versus $127 million per kilometre for the Evergreen Line and $233 million for the UBC/Broadway line.

"To get around the city of Surrey by SkyTrain is not feasible. It [would cost] billions and billions and billions of dollars," Watts said.

The Canada Line, linking Vancouver and Richmond, cost $2 billion to build, while the Evergreen Line is set at $1.4 billion. TransLink had tentatively proposed building a sixkilometre SkyTrain from City Centre to Guildford and is now undergoing studies for the Surrey route.

TransLink spokesman Ken Hardie said Watts's comments mirror what's been heard in the community so far. More public consultation sessions on rapid transit in Surrey will be held in the next month-anda-half, with a feasibility plan likely expected by the end of the year.

"It's very productive to have those concepts on the table," Hardie said.

The Surrey rapid transit project is part of a transportation strategy for the Metro Vancouver region, which includes the Evergreen Line connecting Burnaby, Port Moody and Coquitlam, and a proposed rapid transit along the Broadway corridor to the University of B.C.

Transit officials, the province and regional mayors continue to wrangle over ways to pay for future transit projects, including the long-awaited Evergreen Line, without raising property taxes.

Watts, who met with Trans-Link Tuesday afternoon, said she wants a funding strategy to be developed within the next few months, with design plans for light rail in place by next year.

"I think the general public is fed up with all of us sitting around a table trying to cobble our pennies together to pay for [transit]," she said. "I would like to see it done within a month or two. You need a sustainable transportation plan."

Light rail is the only option for Surrey and Langley, she insists, adding that White Rock Mayor Catherine Ferguson and Langley City Mayor Peter Fassbender agree. Unlike Vancouver and Burnaby, which are tight-knit communities with no more land base, Surrey is so vast and open that it needs more inter-modal types of transit, she said.

Watts argued light rail would help connect Surrey's town centres and boost economic activity, while creating a "vibrancy" in the city, which aims to develop 150 kilometres of new bicycle and pedestrian trails and paths by 2016.

"Transportation is critically important as we shape growth in our town centres. In order to create healthy communities, we need to provide safe and accessible walking and cycling opportunities," Watt said in her speech.

"At-grade rail is cost-effective and efficient, and would not only create a new transportation option, but also increase economic development and improve quality of life."

Watts added light rail is considered a key plank in the city's attempts to boost economic development.

Surrey is continuing to complete significant infrastructure projects in its Surrey Build program, which involves $2.8 billion in construction, including $800 million in new community projects and $2 billion worth of facilities being built in partnership with other levels of government.

The program is being funded through infrastructure fees, secondary suite fees, contributions from the Surrey City Development Corp., gambling revenue, grant money, leaseholds, parking fee revenues from the city's new parking authority and reserve money.

"We are redefining Surrey and creating B.C.'s next metropolitan core by fostering a strong investment climate and implementing innovative social, economic and community initiatives for our residents and businesses," she said.

Watts noted the city has seen more than $1 billion in construction activity in 2010, the crime rate is at a 10-year low, and since 2009, Surrey has helped 356 people get off the street and into permanent housing.

[email protected]

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

[Millennium2002]

I wonder if this was the news xd_1771 was complaining about.

Frankly I think:
a) her comments seem to be more of a political "standing up for Surrey" statement than anything that would be productive, given the TransLink funding issues and other priority demands for transit improvements
b) not all corridors are suitable for LRT as much as she'd like them to be. The corridors linking Scottsdale, Nordel, Newton, Fleetwood, Guildford and the City Centre all seem to be very busy routes and therefore RRT seems like the better solution, then anything to the suburbs of Surrey should be built with LRT.

[Zassk]

I think Watts is right on the money, and LRT can serve SoF very well without breaking Translink financially. Now we just need Christy to make a big announcement...

[cabotp]

I still maintain that Surrey needs some B-Line bus service first. Get some established routes that are frequent with limited stops on them. This should happen before any kind of LRT or ALRT system is built.

[logan5]

Light Rail is definitely more compatible with Surrey than with Vancouver.

According to Translink from the article, light rail would cost 27 million/km in Surrey. Does anybody have any insight as to why the big price difference quoted here vs the 85 million/km quoted for a UBC light rail line. Maybe there's a tunnel section included in the UBC proposal?

[Gordon]

I think the Government's Transit Plan included Rapid bus routes in Surrey.

Mayor Watts has the right idea Surrey's larger landmass & less densely developed areas will work well with LRT and Translink will get a far better bnag for the buck.

[golog]

For routes within Surrey, if bus routes and b-lines don't work then LRT won't do any better.

Translink has the buses, and it does try pilot projects to develop new ridership but eventually it has to allocate its resources to where the demand is.

That demand isn't reaching a critical mass because of the pattern of development in Surrey. Watts & Council is responsible for that. The space between community nodes is just as important as the richness of the nodes themselves in terms of acting as a source or destination of trips. So long as the giant blocks remain, you aren't going to develop that bottom pedestrian tier to support local buses, which in turn support BRT, which in turn support RRT.

Trying to boost income by pocketing development fees in volume does incur costs later, it's not a magic trick. Roads, bridges, sewers, garbage, and other basic infrastructure or services eventually needs to be built or maintained from property taxes and not one-time income streams. Label that however you want as being eco friendly or nanny state, but cutting corners to grow faster hurts us all for the benefit of a few council members and developers. It should lower the purchase price, but most of the savings in lower development costs will accrue to the seller and taxes will go up eventually.

Intra-city commuting is niche unto itself, but it seems where people live and work are too scattered for now. The WestCoast Express is a good start. I don't really know. It would be nice to see a giant survey that mapped the regular commute of every respondent. There's too much couched in politics

It's easy to drum up populist sentiment, particularly because most of the growth is from people moving to Surrey and share the viewpoint of being a first time homebuyer starting a family.

If Surrey were so aggrieved, it wouldn't be growing like it is. People are complaining because they don't want to accept that there is a cost associated with cheaper houses and cheaper property taxes. Heck, based on the growth in the last decade, that constituency are probably at their limits having over-extended on a mortgage, having to spend a lot of time and money driving everywhere, and are on the bottom rung in a bad economy.

This is all a a roundabout way of people finding a way to unite and complain about not having enough income to build up wealth. That's why arguments never come to a consensus, it's confusion caused by speaking indirectly due to shame or embarrassment. They shouldn't be embarrassed, but they're never going to make progress avoiding their problems.

[aberdeen5698]

Can anyone point to a real-world example of LRT usage in the kind of commercial sprawl typical of Surrey where you have block after block of malls and big box stores hidden behind acres of parking lots?


[Google Street View image]

[go_leafs_go02]

Well, I know slowly but surely, City Centre in Surrey is getting denser and denser, and slowly those surface lots will be minimized or put under gound...

[logan5]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Can anyone point to a real-world example of LRT usage in the kind of commercial sprawl typical of Surrey where you have block after block of malls and big box stores hidden behind acres of parking lots?

Calgary has about the same density as Surrey, although I don't know if a Surrey LRT would be nearly as successful as Calgary LRT.

[Joat]

Will this have any affect on the priority of the Broadway line Vs. Surrey's?

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Can anyone point to a real-world example of LRT usage in the kind of commercial sprawl typical of Surrey where you have block after block of malls and big box stores hidden behind acres of parking lots?


[Google Street View image]

Portland - once you leave downtown the suburban routes of the max are all amidst big box stores and such


mazama.canvasdreams.com


upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons

[golog]

Originally Posted by Joat

Will this have any affect on the priority of the Broadway line Vs. Surrey's?

I don't take this Watts' council LRT bent seriously, and I suspect Translink is only entertaining her.

She never gives a justification for it, beyond LRT can be run at grade with a lower cost per km than Skytrain; an extremely limited argument.

Capacity, speed, flexibility, reliability, capital cost, operational cost, lifetime demand study,... ???

There is a glaring omission of bus service, suggesting that it's all about optics and being seen to be building something. If it were really about streetcars being more inviting to new riders, they would be installing TVs on buses and Skytrain already.

As someone who thinks LRT/streetcars have a definite niche without an ulterior motive or subjective criteria, I haven't seen the justification for spending hundreds of millions on LRT in Surrey. Especially since Watts still brings up her misleading characterization of population growth. If Surrey is growing so fast, will the LRT's costs make sense if the capacity gets maxed out or the demand for transit ends up developing along a different route in the not too distant future.

When she says Translink doesn't spend money on Surrey, she is deliberately misleading the public into believing Translink doesn't pay anything towards things like bridges, highway exits, etc. I think bus service has increased too, but every time they try new routes the ridership never materializes. Absolutely no mention of the fare subsidy for a rider in Surrey compared to other jurisdictions.

For the record, the Translink memo said a project in Surrey would be an equal priority to a Broadway line. It counts for nothing, but was trumpeted loudly and spun by a few columnists into placing Surrey next in line after Evergreen.

If Watts was earnest in her intentions, she would be proposing permanent school buildings instead of sports stadiums, and b-lines instead of streetcars.

[aberdeen5698]

The thing about Calgary and Portland is that their LRT systems are filling the role that our Skytrain does - a backbone for commuters to the Central Business District. That's not the role being proposed for LRT in Surrey - it would function as a feeder to the Skytrain and for movement within Surrey. There's really no distinct "Central Business District" in Surrey that these lines could serve. I'm really wondering whether the kind of ridership levels this sort of service could attract would justify the cost of LRT.

I really think that before spending $27M/km on a permanent LRT solution we should be testing the waters with B-lines.