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

[xd_1771]

You haven't been around town much if you think traffic in Surrey is bad. I live here and I drive around Surrey because there IS NO TRAFFIC. It gets congested for about an hour around peak times, but it is just congestion. Unless there is a major accident, I have never seen gridlock.

Then you obviously don't have much experience in the areas of Surrey that need expanded transportation options the most. There are many major throughfares of the city that are absolute hell for the majority of the day (a great example would be Whalley-Guildford's 104th). I am often forced to use alternate roads or transit routes as a result.

I can definitely agree with building expanded Broadway transit over most everything else, but there is definitely a serious traffic situation in Surrey that is being overlooked. If there was no traffic and movement throughout the city was perfect both traffic and transit-wise, not a soul would even be considering immediate & major transit expansion for Surrey.

It seems the purpose of Clayton is similar to Calgary: to provide big homes in a suburban community for cheap, and it seems to be working. Perhaps the designs and density have improved this time around, however, it is not going to change the fact that Clayton was designed to be a suburb, and unless major rezoning and re-planning of the city happens it may never grow past this. Where there is no one to serve but residents, this cannot be used an excuse to build rapid transit wherein there are other areas that have significant developments of residential, commercial and industrial that need it way more than these new communities do. To be honest, I would've rather seen the development money go to building new and much higher condos around the Guildford & Newton area, areas that are already dense and very walkable (Guildford is the most walkable neighbourhood in the entire city) and have use for transit more than just getting people to and from (with the major commercial & industrial developments nearby - as well as other amenities such as parks along the route). I would also like to see more immediate development of Whalley City Centre. If the money was put into developing Whalley rather than Clayton, in much fewer years our skyline size would have tripled. Unfortunately Mayor Watt's plans of creating an urban city aren't working. Surrey needs to stop building out in places that were formerly the middle of nowhere, Surrey needs to build up where it is already built up and promote that first. There are signs of this happening in previous times with much rezoning of residential land into higher density residential or commercial having happened in Guildford (i.e. 104th/156th area on SW and NE corners of the intersection), but it seems to have stopped lately (perhaps it is the highway construction, but that should actually be attracting way more people into this area which doesn't make sense).

[Whalleyboy]

Originally Posted by squeezied

First of all, nobody said "all people in newton are going to broadway" nor suggested so. Read carefully.

Second, regarding the comment on "same bus end up right in front and behind one and other", the exact same thing can be said about Vancouver and even worse.

Lastly, regarding the ridership on broadway being mostly people with u-passes and 1 zones, you are wrong on that. This has been discussed before. The fact is the broadway corridor is not just for students nor people who live in Vancouver. U-Pass holders only represent 38% of total transit ridership. For those who work in the Broadway corridor, about 50% of people do not live in Vancouver (you can search up the stats on that). Don't underestimate how regionally important the Broadway corridor is. Statistically speaking, a significant portion of the Newton source is destined to Broadway, you can bet on that.

Frankly this converstation is getting quite tiring, but I can't let ignorant comments go like that.

I would easily bet every dollar i havethat a significant portion of people in newton arent going to Broadway. Look on a map and you'll see a huge industrial area right there where most people in that area work. I'm also willing to bet the fact that most of those people on broadway still dont hold a three zone pass. since most are likely coming from richmond and burnaby to work there with few from the tri cities and Surrey. The fact is though majority of SoF doesnt take transit since we dont want to go to Vancouver work. What we want is transit so we can live and work in our own communties.

You seem to think everyone want to go to Vancouver and work. Where this is far from the truth

Originally Posted by squeezied

To be fair, Broadway has been well established long before the TODs you see in PoMo and Coquitlam.

One more setback about having TODs in PoMo, Coquitlam or Surrey is that they're at the ends of the region. While TODs are a great incentive to build rapid transit, it isn't very financially viable since it's so far away and usually surrounded by low density developments. What you have seen and will see is improved bus service to the TODs compared to those of just sprawling areas. While it may not seem like much it is still sufficient for it's area especially when there are other routes in the region that are over-capacity. When you have TODs in a sea of sprawling neighbourhoods, don't expect high-capacity service when current buses are nowhere near full.

People need to understand translink needs to optimize it's resources (money and buses). Unfortunately not all areas of our region can have equal service, and that goes for every other metropolitian region in the world. Central areas always have better transit because that is where people need to go.

If you've made the choice to live in far-flung area of our region, you've indirectly accepted the fact that transit isn't going to be great. There are areas across the region that are affordable with good access to transit, you just have to make compromises.

Have you looked at a map Surrey central is central to the region heck when it come to surrey you can easily even include places like Abbotsford in to the picture. Plus take the fact over the next couple years SoF is gonna being where the population of the whole metro vancouver/fraser valley will be seeing growth. Well not denying that NoF is still growing its numbers will most likely bein the north eastern areas of the tri cities and maple ridge. Which by the way is pretty damn close to surrey instead of Vancouver.

If you do believe me here look at a map i made showing distance to most main areas around the lower mainland.
http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl...122.651367&spn=0.63545,1.234589&t=h&z=10

Originally Posted by BCPhil

You haven't been around town much if you think traffic in Surrey is bad. I live here and I drive around Surrey because there IS NO TRAFFIC. It gets congested for about an hour around peak times, but it is just congestion. Unless there is a major accident, I have never seen gridlock.

Buses group together for 2 reasons. Usually it is because the first bus is very busy. It is making stops at all the stops, picking up everyone waiting, while the second bus doesn't have to stop at any stops. This results in them being bunched up near the end of the usually very long routes. Sometimes it is due to WCMBC adding unscheduled buses to peak times, usually doubling up an existing bus. This allows Translink to manage demand without committing to doing it every day, just as staffing allows. And sometimes it is just because a driver is behind. They have a tight schedule, and need to take breaks, so if one of their routes gets slowed down by heavy passenger volume, they'll be behind the rest of the day, and sometimes it just keeps getting worse until the bus is basically as slow as the scheduled bus behind them.

If it was because of traffic, they wouldn't be behind each other. They would be separated by car volume. If one bus was slow because of traffic, the bus behind would be too, no? So if the buses were separated in schedule by 15 minutes, and heavy traffic kept them from being on time, the buses would actually be separated by 15 minutes worth of collected car traffic.



Your reasoning here defeats your argument.

If riders on Broadway are not worth the spending because they are 1 zone, then why are riders in Surrey? In your other post you talk about the importance of providing Rapid transit to improve travel inside Surrey. Both would be 1 zone riders. The difference is that the zone in Surrey is a lot larger and has less riders on its corridors. There are currently 100,000 boardings a day on the Broadway Corridor, and that is only about 20-25% of all trips in the area. Whereas there are about 100,000 residents in all of Newton. The only way you could match ridership on a Newton line was if EVERYONE in Newton worked in Whalley and at least 50% rode the new line there. And that requires a significant bump from the about 10% transit ridership now to 50%, whereas the 100,000 boardings on Broadway will be eclipsed on day 1.

On top of that, if you are valuing Surrey travelers more because they leave Surrey and paying higher fares then you also have to take into consideration where they are going. If Skytrain doesn't deliver them to their destinations, they are unlikely to get on in the first place. By first adding Broadway, you increase the number of jobs served by rapid transit in Vancouver by 20 to 30%, thus increasing potential ridership along the entire line by almost as much.

Look at the travel times from places like Newton. Leaving the Newton exchange, I can get to VGH in 1:10 (not counting the walking). The bus ride on either end of Skytrain ride are almost the same length (17 vs 12). But here are the differences: The 99 is more likely to get stuck in bad traffic, The 99 is more likely to pass you up, The 99 is busier. You can still add far more buses on routes in Surrey; Broadway is traffic saturated and buses cannot be fit into the Schedule anymore. Sending Skytrain down Broadway will have a larger impact on the whole transit network than a token extension of Skytrain in Surrey.

I'm not saying Surrey shouldn't get transit. Surrey needs it to build a sustainable future. But Vancouver needs rapid transit on Broadway about 15 years ago. When completed with the Evergreen line, you can think of this as Vancouver's version of the Bloor-Danforth in Toronto. It cuts across the city, passing through an undeserved part of the Metro Core, crossing 2 other Downtown bound lines providing convenient transfers. I couldn't imagine people getting around Toronto without it, much like I can't imagine how we have gone so long without it in Vancouver.

Newton has actually a population more like 120,000 while whalley has a population of 95,000 So expanding out transit between just those two alone you dealing with a population close to burnaby which is in smaller area. But it perfectly fine to push all the population to 4 stations? This isnt even include the fact your pushing rapid transit closer to alot more people in the area make it more accessible to a huge area. Also who to say if we push a line more into surrey more people wont start coming into surrey instead to work since they'll have the connections? I'm not saying Broadway shouldnt be done its just people in Vancouver need to learn to wait there turn. Vancouver is the L.A. Canada it thinks its always the centre of attention.

[Millennium2002]

I acknowledge that yes, shaping future growth in Surrey via rapid transit is a very good priority. Frankly the arguments for both growth-serving and growth-shaping are roughly evenly matched. In that case, however, the question then becomes one of whether we should focus on that first or the overcrowded Broadway corridor.

Surely the regional growth strategy avoided the "objection bullet" by placing both as equal priorities (which I think was a bad political move), but we all know that TransLink is barely surviving by a thread... so that is impossible from any standpoint unless the whole region agrees to more taxes or drastically cuts needy service, which at this point is arguably political suicide and would result in riots all over the place.

We also know that the region gets angry either way... the Millennium Line was scorned for being under-utilized for the first few years due to its "growth-shaping nature", the UBC Line is being scorned in Surrey for being another "only-in-Vancouver project", and yet people like me in Vancouver will be angry at Surrey if it gets the go-ahead for something like LRT or RRT so "early" in the game compared to everyone else. (Can't recall what reaction the Canada Line got though.)

In retrospect, the idea of splitting the transit in two seems more appetizing now than ever... the differences of opinion between the two sides of the Fraser River are quite dramatic and maybe even irreconcilable at this point. However, if we forget that for a moment... if the province decides that the region should stick together as is, then what should the second priority be then with regards to rapid transit?

To me, at least, it seems logical to patch up the bottlenecks as a priority before we head out on expansion projects elsewhere. If need be I'm tolerant of having the Broadway extension cut back to Granville as a temporary cost-saving and face-saving 6-year measure. But again, that's only my view, and I agree with the reasoning behind both sides of the debate.

[squeezied]

Originally Posted by paradigm4

I'd agree that it is dense sprawl, in essence. However, you obviously have neither been to Clayton nor looked at it on a map. Had you, you'd realize there is an urban, compact street grid in place, something suburbs didn't do twenty years ago.

Again, to give context of its density, there are roughly 7000pp/km2 in Clayton, higher than the average density of the City of Vancouver, which is at 5,000pp/km2.

Actually I have been to Clayton and have looked at it on a map. In fact, I've looked beyond Clayton and guess what? It's all agricultural lands and sprawl. Is it really puzzling to realize that a compact street grid neighbourhood in the middle of nothing transit-friendly is very hard for transit to service?

But let's go back to Clayton, sure there are areas that have a compact street grid, but I still see cul-de-sacs and winding streets, similar to that photo of Las Vegas from the previous link I provided.

And you can't compare the density of a neighbourhood in Surrey to that of the entire city of Vancouver. You need to look at the entire picture. Clayton is a dense neighbourhood surrounded by agricultural lands and sprawl and located in the far-flung areas of our region. When you consider all that, it isn't surprising transit is very poor.

You can always play with density figures to make something look dense. I could be in a living room of 100m2, that would translate to 10,000pp/km2. It wouldn't be anywhere as high if I considered the whole house or the entire block or the neighbourhood or the entire city. Likewise you can't just look at Clayton itself; the bigger picture needs to be looked at.

[paradigm4]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

To be honest, I would've rather seen the development money go to building new and much higher condos around the Guildford & Newton area, areas that are already dense and very walkable (Guildford is the most walkable neighbourhood in the entire city) and have use for transit more than just getting people to and from (with the major commercial & industrial developments nearby - as well as other amenities such as parks along the route). I would also like to see more immediate development of Whalley City Centre. If the money was put into developing Whalley rather than Clayton, in much fewer years our skyline size would have tripled.

I'm not sure if you understand how development works. A private company applies to the City to develop a piece of land. The City then either accepts it or declines it, though typically most are accepted with some variations.

What is built is dictated in large part by what people want. The reason people move Downtown is because they want an urban community with all the amenities. The reason people move to Clayton is because they want their own home and their own property and generally cannot afford other areas. Why do you think Surrey is the City of Families? Because we have the space to accommodate them, and the price points in Vancouver have driven the middle class out.

The City does not have a magical means of changing market demands. With time, Surrey and Langley will be built out, the costs of a "home" will be too much for any ordinary family, and developments will become increasingly multi-family and dense. They already are headed in that direction. Most new developments are either rowhomes or townhomes, which, with basement suites or coach homes attached, achieve densities comparable to a traditional apartment building. It's just a different and more culturally acceptable form.

I don't really see what else Surrey could be doing to help drive demand for the City Centre. They provided tax breaks, created a new vision and plan, have engaged developers closely in the process, have developed a great marketing and media strategy, obtaining senior government funding for new jobs facilities with the RCMP and Hospital expansions, not to mention the Library and City Hall. If that's not a major investment in infrastructure then I don't know what is.

[Millennium2002]

In my mind Clayton Heights is sort of dense. Maybe the problem at this point is transit delivery in that area... which is oriented in an unreliable community shuttle that winds all over the place. I sort of wonder in that case whether it's better to straighten out the routes a bit in a grid fashion + bump up frequency slightly since Clayton Heights implements the grid reasonably well compared to the rest of Surrey.

[squeezied]

Originally Posted by Whalleyboy

I would easily bet every dollar i havethat a significant portion of people in newton arent going to Broadway. Look on a map and you'll see a huge industrial area right there where most people in that area work. I'm also willing to bet the fact that most of those people on broadway still dont hold a three zone pass. since most are likely coming from richmond and burnaby to work there with few from the tri cities and Surrey. The fact is though majority of SoF doesnt take transit since we dont want to go to Vancouver work. What we want is transit so we can live and work in our own communties.

You seem to think everyone want to go to Vancouver and work. Where this is far from the truth.

Why do you think "significant portion" means all or majority. Significant portion can mean something as low as 10% where the other options are less than that. It is notable thus it is significant. It's just english. I still stand by the fact a significant portion is destined to the Broadway corridor.

You seem to think people live close to where they work. That is a dream. Especially in Vancouver's expensive real estate, you don't have a lot of options in where you can live. I don't remember the stats, but I believe only about half of people in Surrey actually work in Surrey. A significant portion will be commuting to Vancouver.

You are probably right that most people in Broadway don't hold a 3-zone pass. But so what? It's still of regional importance. And while most of those people don't hold 3-zone passes there's still a large amount of those people who need to go there.

While most people in Surrey stay within Surrey, well guess what? That a 1-zone trip. So using your prior reasoning, transit in Surrey isn't financially worth it as people are only paying for 1-zone.

Have you looked at a map Surrey central is central to the region heck when it come to surrey you can easily even include places like Abbotsford in to the picture. Plus take the fact over the next couple years SoF is gonna being where the population of the whole metro vancouver/fraser valley will be seeing growth. Well not denying that NoF is still growing its numbers will most likely bein the north eastern areas of the tri cities and maple ridge. Which by the way is pretty damn close to surrey instead of Vancouver.

If you do believe me here look at a map i made showing distance to most main areas around the lower mainland.
http://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl...122.651367&spn=0.63545,1.234589&t=h&z=10

Surrey may be geographically centre, but in terms of financial, cultural, institutional, medical and etc, Surrey is far away. And that is reflected by the region's commute patterns. Adding Abbotsford into the picture doesn't add to your point. Most people people in the fraser valley don't commute to metro vancouver or vice versa.

Newton has actually a population more like 120,000 while whalley has a population of 95,000 So expanding out transit between just those two alone you dealing with a population close to burnaby which is in smaller area. But it perfectly fine to push all the population to 4 stations? This isnt even include the fact your pushing rapid transit closer to alot more people in the area make it more accessible to a huge area. Also who to say if we push a line more into surrey more people wont start coming into surrey instead to work since they'll have the connections? I'm not saying Broadway shouldnt be done its just people in Vancouver need to learn to wait there turn. Vancouver is the L.A. Canada it thinks its always the centre of attention.

Vancouver has been waiting it's turn. Broadway has established long before the upcoming Whalley or Newton. And who are you to suggest that build a line to Broadway wouldn't encourage more employment density? The Broadway corridor is intensely attractive for office space as evidenced by office vacancy rates lower than downtown Vancouver. Meanwhile in Surrey, you have vacancy rate in the double digits. That suggests that most companies still prefer to be in Vancouver.

[Whalleyboy]

Originally Posted by allan_kuan

In retrospect, the idea of splitting the transit in two seems more appetizing now than ever... the differences of opinion between the two sides of the Fraser River are quite dramatic and maybe even irreconcilable at this point. However, if we forget that for a moment... if the province decides that the region should stick together as is, then what should the second priority be then with regards to rapid transit?

Personally I'm for this option since Surrey could look into joining up with Abbotsford and i did the math a while back and the numbers are actually good to be able to support its area.

Originally Posted by paradigm4

I'm not sure if you understand how development works. A private company applies to the City to develop a piece of land. The City then either accepts it or declines it, though typically most are accepted with some variations.

What is built is dictated in large part by what people want. The reason people move Downtown is because they want an urban community with all the amenities. The reason people move to Clayton is because they want their own home and their own property and generally cannot afford other areas. Why do you think Surrey is the City of Families? Because we have the space to accommodate them, and the price points in Vancouver have driven the middle class out.

The City does not have a magical means of changing market demands. With time, Surrey and Langley will be built out, the costs of a "home" will be too much for any ordinary family, and developments will become increasingly multi-family and dense. They already are headed in that direction. Most new developments are either rowhomes or townhomes, which, with basement suites or coach homes attached, achieve densities comparable to a traditional apartment building. It's just a different and more culturally acceptable form.

I don't really see what else Surrey could be doing to help drive demand for the City Centre. They provided tax breaks, created a new vision and plan, have engaged developers closely in the process, have developed a great marketing and media strategy, obtaining senior government funding for new jobs facilities with the RCMP and Hospital expansions, not to mention the Library and City Hall. If that's not a major investment in infrastructure then I don't know what is.

Also it should be mentioned that a while back there was a 3 tower proposal for guildford area that just seem to have never happend

Originally Posted by squeezied

And you can't compare the density of a neighbourhood in Surrey to that of the entire city of Vancouver. You need to look at the entire picture. Clayton is a dense neighbourhood surrounded by agricultural lands and sprawl and located in the far-flung areas of our region. When you consider all that, it isn't surprising transit is very poor

You can always play with density figures to make something look dense. I could be in a living room of 100m2, that would translate to 10,000pp/km2. It wouldn't be anywhere as high if I considered the whole house or the entire block or the neighbourhood or the entire city. Likewise you can't just look at Clayton itself; the bigger picture needs to be looked at.

One flaw in your thought with surrey's density arguemnet is surrey isnt fully looking to get rapid transit to the area where it goes through the ALR right now. Its looking in dealing with North surrey right now and have better connections to those areas. North Surrey(whalley, newton, fleetwood, and guildford) alone holds well over 300,000 people in an area smaller then Burnaby(if you stop at the ALR boarders) and to top it of for that whole area it only has 4 skytrain stops. Tell me how is it far place like burnaby with less population gets to have way more station then a much more populated area in a much smaller space?

[Whalleyboy]

Originally Posted by squeezied

Why do you think "significant portion" means all or majority. Significant portion can mean something as low as 10% where the other options are less than that. It is notable thus it is significant. It's just english. I still stand by the fact a significant portion is destined to the Broadway corridor.

You seem to think people live close to where they work. That is a dream. Especially in Vancouver's expensive real estate, you don't have a lot of options in where you can live. I don't remember the stats, but I believe only about half of people in Surrey actually work in Surrey. A significant portion will be commuting to Vancouver.

You are probably right that most people in Broadway don't hold a 3-zone pass. But so what? It's still of regional importance. And while most of those people don't hold 3-zone passes there's still a large amount of those people who need to go there.

While most people in Surrey stay within Surrey, well guess what? That a 1-zone trip. So using your prior reasoning, transit in Surrey isn't financially worth it as people are only paying for 1-zone.



Surrey may be geographically centre, but in terms of financial, cultural, institutional, medical and etc, Surrey is far away. And that is reflected by the region's commute patterns. Adding Abbotsford into the picture doesn't add to your point. Most people people in the fraser valley don't commute to metro vancouver or vice versa.



Vancouver has been waiting it's turn. Broadway has established long before the upcoming Whalley or Newton. And who are you to suggest that build a line to Broadway wouldn't encourage more employment density? The Broadway corridor is intensely attractive for office space as evidenced by office vacancy rates lower than downtown Vancouver. Meanwhile in Surrey, you have vacancy rate in the double digits. That suggests that most companies still prefer to be in Vancouver.

okay so 10% going to broadway counts for you but the 15-20% of people that come thsi way from abbotsford dont? and gues where majority of the 15-20% work not vancouver but surrey

Also In surrey its alot easy to live where you work.

[squeezied]

Originally Posted by Whalleyboy

One flaw in your thought with surrey's density arguemnet is surrey isnt fully looking to get rapid transit to the area where it goes through the ALR right now. Its looking in dealing with North surrey right now and have better connections to those areas. North Surrey(whalley, newton, fleetwood, and guildford) alone holds well over 300,000 people in an area smaller then Burnaby(if you stop at the ALR boarders) and to top it of for that whole area it only has 4 skytrain stops. Tell me how is it far place like burnaby with less population gets to have way more station then a much more populated area in a much smaller space?

Ummm... the only flaw here is that you don't fully read my posts or you take things out of context. Never have I said you need to look at the density of the entire city of Surrey. What I said was that you can't look at the density of a neighbourhood, rather you need to look at the bigger picture (which could include density of the surrounding areas, location of the area, etc).

But apparently you don't get my point in that you're misleading with density figures to suit your cause. You are selectively picking neighbourhoods and comparing that with an entire city which includes large areas of parkland and reserves. I can also compare a neighbourhood in Burnaby and compare that to the entire city of Surrey. It's very easy to play with density figures but density alone isn't the prime factor for transit.

Why is Burnaby more well-served with Skytrain than Surrey? That question alone say a lot about how much you know about transit... First of all, Burnaby is more central to the metropolitian core. Considering much of the population lives east, it is only logical to extend skytrain from downtown eastwards through... Burnaby. It's not rocket science... I think you really do underestimate the importance of the metropolitian core.

The problem here is that you consider cities within Metro Vancouver as completely separate entities with no dynamic relationships to each other or the entire region. Think of cities as part of the entire region functioning together as a whole and then maybe you would understand why transit is the way it is here.

Also you need to understand transit isn't a one-dimensional linear relationship with density. LA is denser than NY, how is it then that NY has better transit than LA? I suggest you read this post by Jarrett Walker:http://www.humantransit.org/2010/09/the-perils-of-average-density.html

[BCPhil]

Originally Posted by Whalleyboy

Personally I'm for this option since Surrey could look into joining up with Abbotsford and i did the math a while back and the numbers are actually good to be able to support its area.

My own simple numbers would put that in doubt. The entire SoF population (counting Abbotsford) is less than that of just Burnaby + Vancouver. 312K jobs, of 900K metro jobs, are located in the City of Vancouver. Housing values are higher in Vancouver therefore the average person pays higher property taxes, and there are more people. Surrey might have the edge in gas taxes, but they also have the edge in more KM of roads to maintain. Almost every single bus route in Surrey loses money. Many bus routes in Vancouver break even or make money. While it is not the majority of Surrey residents, many do leave Surrey on Skytrain. How would you reconcile the cost of a 2 system trip?

Some of the taxes collected in Surrey do go towards transit improvements elsewhere, but that benefits the riders from Surrey too. I live in Surrey but find myself on the Canada Line all the time around Downtown and Broadway, or to the airport; shouldn't my taxes go towards supporting infrastructure of regional benefit, even if I don't live right next to a station? A Broadway line would be a huge benefit to many Surrey riders. Shouldn't their taxes go towards paying for it?

Providing rapid transit to UBC would give more young Surrey residents the opportunity of attending post secondary without having to borrow money to move closer to school. One of the challenges of the future will be contending with Suburban slums, caused by disenfranchised youth who are unable to attend post secondary for financial reasons caused by their isolation from the institutions of learning. Having efficient rapid transit into schools and work will keep young people from feeling detached from society. That isn't just a Surrey problem, but a regional (and provincial) one, which rapid transit to UBC could go a long way to alleviating.

Originally Posted by Whalleyboy

One flaw in your thought with surrey's density arguemnet is surrey isnt fully looking to get rapid transit to the area where it goes through the ALR right now. Its looking in dealing with North surrey right now and have better connections to those areas. North Surrey(whalley, newton, fleetwood, and guildford) alone holds well over 300,000 people in an area smaller then Burnaby(if you stop at the ALR boarders) and to top it of for that whole area it only has 4 skytrain stops. Tell me how is it far place like burnaby with less population gets to have way more station then a much more populated area in a much smaller space?

Your flaw is not in considering if there is a mass benefit for the amount of money spent in Surrey on Rapid Transit. Those 300,000 people are spread out, with at least a good 1/2 of Whalley and Newton residents living West of 128. How much of a benefit is a Newton or Guildford line to them? To adequately hit that 300,000 people we are talking about needing 3 or 4 lines.

On Broadway, in 2006, 97,000 people lived withing reasonable walking distance of Broadway (500m). There were 86,000 jobs along Broadway. And that is only from the Vancouver study so it does not count UBC. The study goes on to predict a demand for 30% population growth and 22% job growth on Broadway by 2041.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the stations and track in Burnaby aren't just serving Burnaby residents. They also serve Surrey residents. There are people from Surrey who get on Skytrain every day and ride to Burnaby or ride through Burnaby. Without the track going through Burnaby, the existing track in Surrey and New Westminster and future track in Coquitlam would be pointless.

And the stations in Burnaby aren't lagging behind either. Lougheed and Production Way are just as busy as King George and Surrey Central. Metrotown is almost as busy as all of Surrey's stations combined. Brentwood and Edmonds move a lot of traffic, and the growth around Gilmore, Brentwood and Holdom is amazing.

[squeezied]

Originally Posted by Whalleyboy

okay so 10% going to broadway counts for you but the 15-20% of people that come thsi way from abbotsford dont? and gues where majority of the 15-20% work not vancouver but surrey

Sign... again, you need to read carefully and not take things out of context. Never have I said 10% is going to Broadway. That figure was just an example. But nevermind, you're just detracting from the point. The point is that the Broadway corridor is of regional importance and people throughout the region commute there, including Surrey. The fact is central Broadway and UBC account for the 2nd and 3rd highest transportation destinations. That counts a lot more than the few people who commute from Abbotsford to Surrey or those who live and commute within Surrey. I don't understand how that's so hard to understand.

Also In surrey its alot easy to live where you work.

Well yeah... that is if you have a job in Surrey. The thing is there are less jobs than the number of working residents in Surrey. You have more people leaving Surrey than entering Surrey on a work day. And a significant portion of those leaving will be heading to downtown or central Broadway.

Lastly please try to edit your posts before you submit; it can be sometimes hard to understand what you're trying to get at with grammatic and sentence structure errors.

[xd_1771]

Originally Posted by Whalleyboy

Also it should be mentioned that a while back there was a 3 tower proposal for guildford area that just seem to have never happend

I would like to see Guildford emerge as a secondary town centre similar perhaps to Brentwood, but the way Surrey has been developing makes it seem like it will never happen and the only real town centre will be Whalley - the rest of Surrey will quite effectively remain a suburb.

The problem with developing in Clayton is that the city somehow supports it. Creating an entire new area like this is just creating more problems. It's an area that's not really viable for access to the rest of the city, drives costs up because such improvements towards this area have to travel over long distances, and would also cost a majority of the rest of the city's population.

There are many empty areas in Newton (mostly between 64th & Hwy 10, lots of room and would be a great place for family homes and some have appeared but so far only few such developments have happened in that area) that are sitting there undeveloped, and there are also various empty lots in Guildford (one of those lots being the perfect place for a tower condominium, and being right across from the west side of the Guildford Mall) or lots that are supposed to be redeveloped but not done? These areas have way more potential, accessibility, and much better distance to city centres.

[tybuilding]

The centre of Clayton is 3.5 km to the centre of Langley city.

The area of Newton that will be developed (around 60 ave and 140st) is 2.5 km.

They are both regional centres so I do not see them as so different from each other.

[xd_1771]

Unfortunately that's where the nonsense comes in. Clayton is a part of the City of Surrey, not Langley, but it is being designed as a node to the City of Langley. I can see how a Skytrain continuously to Langley juts might work for that city, but if you're expanding to Clayton and missing Langley (something that seems popular around the members here), it's a huge waste of an investment. Clayton supports mostly residential, which supports Langley's commercial and industrial, but doesn't really support that much within the actual City of Surrey. You would perhaps be supporting a single community's ability to travel, but would be excluding many others, and not providing transportation support based on all 3 frontiers of residential, commercial and industrial. 60th & 140th is within Newton and the City of Surrey on the other hand, it seems smarter to develop around there esp. with the prospect of transit expansion to Newton, and yet it is not happening. Surrey doesn't seem to be very well interested in redevleoping existing areas either to create closely connected and more urban centres.... there are many many empty lots or supposedly being rezoned lots in the Guildford area that haven't flourished.

[paradigm4]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

Unfortunately that's where the nonsense comes in. Clayton is a part of the City of Surrey, not Langley, but it is being designed as a node to the City of Langley. I can see how a Skytrain continuously to Langley juts might work for that city, but if you're expanding to Clayton and missing Langley (something that seems popular around the members here), it's a huge waste of an investment.

Hmm I haven't heard that argument from anybody here. If rapid transit were to be extended down Fraser, obviously it would go all the way to Langley. If it was split into phases, then the first phase (as proposed by the Province's Transit Plan mind you) would likely end in Fleetwood before the ALR.

Also, arbitrary municipal borders have little effect over physical geography. Cloverdale is isolated from other parts of Surrey by the ALR, making it effectively a bedroom community of Langley. Most major stores locate there, and since it is closer than Guildford or Newton, why not shop in Langley? I'm not saying Cloverdale should become part of Langley - it's not that simple - but there's nothing particularly wrong with development in Clayton within a regional context.

[GMasterAres]

^ exactly.

[go_leafs_go02]

Originally Posted by paradigm4

Hmm I haven't heard that argument from anybody here. If rapid transit were to be extended down Fraser, obviously it would go all the way to Langley. If it was split into phases, then the first phase (as proposed by the Province's Transit Plan mind you) would likely end in Fleetwood before the ALR.

Also, arbitrary municipal borders have little effect over physical geography. Cloverdale is isolated from other parts of Surrey by the ALR, making it effectively a bedroom community of Langley. Most major stores locate there, and since it is closer than Guildford or Newton, why not shop in Langley? I'm not saying Cloverdale should become part of Langley - it's not that simple - but there's nothing particularly wrong with development in Clayton within a regional context.

When I lived in Clayton two years ago, I did all my shopping in Langley, minus grocery shopping, because there was a PriceSmart on Fraser Highway near 188 Street - which was ALWAYS very quiet.

But yes, it has alot more in common with Langley even compared to Clovrdale in some ways. Crossing 196 Street is seamless along Fraser Highway, 64 Avenue, 68 Avenue - without signs, you wouldn't really have a clue you're entering a different municipality.

[xd_1771]

Originally Posted by go_leafs_go02

When I lived in Clayton two years ago, I did all my shopping in Langley, minus grocery shopping, because there was a PriceSmart on Fraser Highway near 188 Street - which was ALWAYS very quiet.

But yes, it has alot more in common with Langley even compared to Clovrdale in some ways. Crossing 196 Street is seamless along Fraser Highway, 64 Avenue, 68 Avenue - without signs, you wouldn't really have a clue you're entering a different municipality.

This. They're very integrated communities despite being spread across different cities, and it works out that way. Linking them to the rest of the metro might allow them better access to the rest of the metro, but where urban communities of Surrey such as Guildford and Newton are concerned, they will be totally excluded, not connected, and perhaps not given any improvements; likewise connecting these centres, via the central city of Whalley, would benefit all 3 in various different ways because there is all 3 types of main backbone (res, com, ind) and other places of interest such as parks.

[BCPhil]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

Unfortunately that's where the nonsense comes in. Clayton is a part of the City of Surrey, not Langley, but it is being designed as a node to the City of Langley. I can see how a Skytrain continuously to Langley juts might work for that city, but if you're expanding to Clayton and missing Langley (something that seems popular around the members here), it's a huge waste of an investment. Clayton supports mostly residential, which supports Langley's commercial and industrial, but doesn't really support that much within the actual City of Surrey. You would perhaps be supporting a single community's ability to travel, but would be excluding many others, and not providing transportation support based on all 3 frontiers of residential, commercial and industrial. 60th & 140th is within Newton and the City of Surrey on the other hand, it seems smarter to develop around there esp. with the prospect of transit expansion to Newton, and yet it is not happening. Surrey doesn't seem to be very well interested in redevleoping existing areas either to create closely connected and more urban centres.... there are many many empty lots or supposedly being rezoned lots in the Guildford area that haven't flourished.

I can't help but feel this is directed at me but....

I've never said that Skytrain shouldn't be extended to Langley. That was in fact my whole thesis. Skytrain should be extended from King George to Langley City: It helps the most people possible.

You might be confused because in one or two of my posts I focused on the Clayton Area. But that wasn't to infer that I thought the line should end there. I was just countering the common argument that sending Skytrain across the ALR divide between Cloverdale and Surrey would be a waste. I was saying that it would infact be a benefit to Skytrain riders much like how the Skybridge quickly crosses the Fraser River. No one lives under the bridge in the River, isn't that a waste? No, it is a speedy time saver that lets people avoid the congestion involved in trying to drive across a bottle neck. Speeding across the ALR in Skytrain will give train riders a time advantage over driving.

Just because I was talking about the benefits of a station at 184 street doesn't mean that is where I want the final terminus to be. I was comparing a station there to Scott Road. Scott Road WAS the terminus for a while, and while it was, it was a major benefit to the people of Surrey. Of course it was extended from there rather quickly. So if a phase of Skytrain construction ended at 184 (or better at 188) it would radically alter transit in Cloverdale as it would be a major hub, allowing a better bus network to take shape, with shorter, more frequent routes, using less buses and man power than it does now to get people into King George. But I would expect the Terminus to be temporary as the line is extended further to Langley.

It would also cut at least 15 minutes off a 30 minute bus ride on the 502 from 188 ave if it was Skytrain. From Langley it would cut a 40 minute bus ride into a 20 minute Skytrain ride.

Also in one of my posts, I talk about how Skytrain to Langley would also work for a reverse commute into the growing Langley Town Center. There are many residents in Fleetwood and Cloverdale who reverse commute to Langley, or go there to shop at local businesses.

===============

But you bring up a good point. Is Cloverdale more Surrey-centric or Langley-centric? You seem to think Langley-centric. But you need to ask why is it like that?

Because getting into Surrey is a giant pain in the ass for Cloverdale/Clayton residents. Between Cloverdale and Langley there are only a handful of connecting streets and transit is slow. Cloverdale is more geared towards Langley because it is easier to get to Langley than Surrey.

This is a problem. Whalley can't be a SoF downtown if people don't want to or can't get there. Downtown Vancouver is the downtown because it is easy to get there from Burnaby, Richmond, New Westminster. Why is it easy for so many people to get to? Skytrain.

Skytrain to Guildford would be like if in 1985 they opened Skytrain from Waterfront to as far as Commercial Drive station, or if they built the Canada Line between downtown and Broadway. It would be great for people heading downtown from inside Vancouver, but it would have done nothing to promote Vancouver as Metro's downtown core.

If it wasn't for Skytrain extending as far as New Westminster, then quickly into Surrey, Downtown would not be as "sustainable" as it is now. Without a freeway or transit downtown would have just become an isolated, small part of the city and the region would be like LA. 49% of all trips into downtown are by Transit. Without Skytrain, downtown would be a failure.

If Surrey wants to be the second downtown, it needs to copy this successful formula. And extending Skytrain a few KM to Guildford or down a deserted King George blvd only promotes Surrey as a self contained city, excluding it from the region beyond its borders. To be a downtown you need to bring people from far and wide. They need to come in from Cloverdale and Langley. And bringing people those long distances quickly and efficiently is the job of Skytrain.

Just extending Skytrain as far as Guildford or Newton only maintains Skytrain as a means of getting people into Vancouver.