Millennium Line - Broadway Extension: Planning & Pre-Construction

[spm2013]

Anyone find anything insightful from their report?

I love how they make reference to a KPMG report and don't mention that the sponsors are the City of Vancouver and UBC. Garbage in, garbage out.

[theKB]

Originally Posted by spm2013

Anyone find anything insightful from their report?

I love how they make reference to a KPMG report and don't mention that the sponsors are the City of Vancouver and UBC. Garbage in, garbage out.

I am just getting a kick out of the vision ads saying "if elected we will get a broadway subway line built"... Vision seems to love to make promises about things they really have no control over. I guess it's easier than making a promise on things they can control since they can scapegoat another level of government or organization. Typical NDP style politics

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by theKB

I am just getting a kick out of the vision ads saying "if elected we will get a broadway subway line built"... Vision seems to love to make promises about things they really have no control over.

Control or not, it makes a difference whether they're advocating for it or against it. If a competing party came out in favour of surface level light rail for Broadway and promised to advocate for that instead, they probably wouldn't get my vote.

[spm2013]

You should advocate for that party and not vote for them in that case.

If elected Vision will create a new bikeway along the Arbutus Corridor.

If elected Vision will remove cars from Granville Island.

If elected Vision will tear down the Georgia Viaducts.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by spm2013

You should advocate for that party and not vote for them in that case.

Are you saying there's just absolutely no point in the city advocating for something? 'Cause I don't believe that to be true.

It's true that the provincial government does have this very annoying track record of parachuting transit projects down from on high. But they're political animals too, they won't do something if there's enough opposition to it, and they're more likely to do something that has a lot of support. Advocacy has it's place in the ongoing struggle to nudge the behemoth in the direction you want it to go.

[spm2013]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Are you saying there's just absolutely no point in the city advocating for something? 'Cause I don't believe that to be true.

It's true that the provincial government does have this very annoying track record of parachuting transit projects down from on high. But they're political animals too, they won't do something if there's enough opposition to it, and they're more likely to do something that has a lot of support. Advocacy has it's place in the ongoing struggle to nudge the behemoth in the direction you want it to go.

Well there's some things like advocating for no shark fin soup which seems a little absurd for things to concern a city council.

And I think that this isn't one of those "issues" but it will be interesting to see if it has much impact on things because they don't control two import pieces: the budget and the political votes to make it important to the provincial and federal government.

[jsbertram]

I happened to find this earlier in the week:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/07/18/...-problem-too-much-automobile-traffic-is/


It seems Toronto is finding that having streetcars and automobiles on the same street causes problems.

One solution?
Ban automobiles from King Street and make it streetcar-only.

This might work in Surrey with their LRT, but good luck trying to ban vehicles from Broadway in Vancouver.

[theKB]

Originally Posted by jsbertram

This might work in Surrey with their LRT, but good luck trying to ban vehicles from Broadway in Vancouver.

DO NOT GIVE GREGOR and better yet GEOFF MEGGS ANY ideas...

[dleung]

Originally Posted by spm2013

Well there's some things like advocating for no shark fin soup which seems a little absurd for things to concern a city council.

And I think that this isn't one of those "issues" but it will be interesting to see if it has much impact on things because they don't control two import pieces: the budget and the political votes to make it important to the provincial and federal government.

Shark fin soup is more important an issue than it appears. Advocacy against has the two-fold political benefit of being seen as environmental, as well as taking a stand against negative aspects of imported cultures, which resonate with more Canadians than you'd expect.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by jsbertram

It seems Toronto is finding that having streetcars and automobiles on the same street causes problems.

One solution?
Ban automobiles from King Street and make it streetcar-only.

This might work in Surrey with their LRT, but good luck trying to ban vehicles from Broadway in Vancouver.

Toronto's streetcars are not the same as a modern LRT system. I'd hate to see LRT down Broadway too, but if it were to come to pass it wouldn't run in the same lanes as car traffic and so it certainly wouldn't have the same kinds of issues as the streetcars are facing in Toronto.

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Toronto's streetcars are not the same as a modern LRT system.

Except that it's not 100% clean cut. Toronto's new streetcars are part of the Bombardier Flexity Light Rail Vehicle family and they are replacing the Canadian Light Rail Vehicles (CLRVs) and articulated CLRVs. King, Queen, Dundas, etc, routes are all classic streetcar lines, while the Spadina, St. Clair, Queens Quay, and the far western part of the Queen route are all in dedicated rights of way.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

Toronto's new streetcars are part of the Bombardier Flexity Light Rail Vehicle family and they are replacing the Canadian Light Rail Vehicles (CLRVs) and articulated CLRVs. King, Queen, Dundas, etc, routes are all classic streetcar lines, while the Spadina, St. Clair, Queens Quay, and the far western part of the Queen route are all in dedicated rights of way.

It's not the vehicle type that the issue, it's the fact that on the older downtown lines the streetcars run in the same lanes as general traffic does. That's where the big problems are, and that's where they're floating the idea to ban cars.

I grew up in Toronto and the streetcars worked terrific back then (60's). I miss those good ol' PCC cars. But now there's so much car and truck traffic downtown that it's becoming untenable.

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

Except that it's not 100% clean cut. Toronto's new streetcars are part of the Bombardier Flexity Light Rail Vehicle family and they are replacing the Canadian Light Rail Vehicles (CLRVs) and articulated CLRVs. King, Queen, Dundas, etc, routes are all classic streetcar lines, while the Spadina, St. Clair, Queens Quay, and the far western part of the Queen route are all in dedicated rights of way.

I find it funny when LRT advocates use Portland and Europe as examples of good LRT's when the best example of what will happen in Vancouver is what is seen in Toronto... too many cars getting in the way. Vancouver made the choice to convert to Trolleybusses because it would be more flexible than laying rail everywhere. GM/Car conspiracy doesn't matter. If we kept the rails, guess what, they'd still be inadequate for todays traffic.

http://www.tundria.com/trams/CAN/Vancouver-1930.shtml at it's largest
http://www.tundria.com/trams/CAN/Vancouver-1949.shtml From 1949-1955 there was like only one or two lines still running.

If you look at the map, you also notice that the Millenium Line and Expo line, are pretty much where the old interuban BCE line was. Broadway's tram went all the way to UBC, and the next version only went to Dunbar. So pretty much from a historical perspective, the Broadway corridor already had LRT in the form of a streetcar before. It already does rapidbus today, a LRT would actually be a downgrade, as it would interfere with all the cross streets road traffic. I'm pretty sure 60 years of growth since then would show the traffic has become worse, not better.

Like as far as advocating transit in one form or another, as long as it's grade separated (be it concrete pillars, or subway tunnels) it won't make traffic worse.

[WarrenC12]

Have you guys ever been to Portland? I've been there a number of times, again most recently a few weeks ago.

The streets that have LRT running on them downtown, have no parking, and very few cars on them (by driver choice I imagine). They are one way, and usually pretty empty unless a train is going by.

I don't think people here have any clue how big of a change surface level trains will be.

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Have you guys ever been to Portland? I've been there a number of times, again most recently a few weeks ago.

The streets that have LRT running on them downtown, have no parking, and very few cars on them (by driver choice I imagine). They are one way, and usually pretty empty unless a train is going by.

I don't think people here have any clue how big of a change surface level trains will be.

The issue is that the people already spoke up:
http://www.translink.ca/~/media/Document...1%20Consultation%20Summary%20Report.ashx

RRT Alternative
661 responses:
76% agree/strongly agree,
11% neutral and
14% disagree/strongly disagree

Vs all the alternatives
BRT Alternative
668 responses:
27% agree/strongly agree,
15% neutral and
58% disagree/strongly disagree

LRT Alternative 1
663 responses:
38% agree/strongly agree,
19% neutral and
43% disagree/strongly disagree

LRT Alternative 2
658 responses:
41% agree/strongly agree,
19% neutral and
40% disagree/strongly disagree

Combination Alternative 1
650 responses:
46% agree/strongly agree,
20% neutral and
34% disagree/strongly disagree

Combination Alternative 2
641 responses:
29% agree/strongly agree,
23% neutral and
48% disagree/strongly disagree

Best Bus Alternative
642 responses: 24% agree/strongly agree,
16% neutral and
60% disagree/strongly disagree

The RRT wins, while both LRT options don't have a majority in agreement or disagreement, and the Bus-only was strongly disagreed with.

But when you read the reasons, the people who sent feedback had their priorities straight:
RRT:
General comments:
- Capacity meets future needs
- Integration with existing system
- Road space benefits
- Construction impacts
- Costs

Vs the LRT:
General comments:
- Concern over pedestrian and driver
safety, road user impacts, retail
impacts, insufficient improvement
over existing service
- Opportunity for streetscape/land
use improvements

Every Metro has to be designed for the geography it serves.

My opinion, just from looking at the streetview of the Portland Max, is that they have some road sharing, and some dedicated ROW's, but it still has to cross traffic a lot, and that tells me that this would be horrible for growth as it's speed would be no different from driving. It probably only works in Portland at all because they have 4-lane 1-way streets, so that means the road arrangement is "Turn left", thru, thru, "turn right", which each turn left or right on every second road. That means people can drive around a stalled out LRT car.

IMO a LRT would never recover it's costs if it were to be built as long as there are existing roads on the same path. It would only be come cost effective if it took advantage of existing grade separations of the highway, even if it ran mostly at grade, but a LRT would never run at highway speed, so it's just not worth considering.

Broadway should get built. I don't really care if it's above ground or below ground, just as long as it gets as far as Cambie before political fights cause it to be canceled like last time. http://web.archive.org/web/2006101917420....com/issues02/045102/news/045102nn6.html

When the former NDP government announced the Millennium Line project in 1998, it consisted of phase one from New Westminster to VCC and phase two from VCC to the intersection of Broadway and Granville, after which a B-Line bus service would operate west to UBC.

Even the original plan was to make it stop short of the Arbutus Corridor. Also VCC was supposed to be underground. Gee... what changed their mind then?

[jbrizzy]

Originally Posted by Kisai

Even the original plan was to make it stop short of the Arbutus Corridor. Also VCC was supposed to be underground. Gee... what changed their mind then?

It would've been underground under broadway but they wanted to spur development in the GNW lands if I'm not mistaken.

[casper]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Have you guys ever been to Portland? I've been there a number of times, again most recently a few weeks ago.

The streets that have LRT running on them downtown, have no parking, and very few cars on them (by driver choice I imagine). They are one way, and usually pretty empty unless a train is going by.

I don't think people here have any clue how big of a change surface level trains will be.

If we were to do street cars in Vancouver the logical street downtown would be Granville. At hasting where Granville slops down keep the tracks elevated and run them into a platform connected to waterfront station on that public plaza above the parkade. Share the Graville bridge with traffic and then connect onto the arbutus corridor. If its down that way the only area where it will be delayed by traffic is the Granville bridge.

Some trains could continue along the arbutus corridor to Fraser flats and then into Burnaby while other would go along the old street car line along false creek.


As for the Broadway run, I don't see the point of streetcars. Why change transportation modes from Skytrain halfway along the line. if the street car system changes the dynamics of Broadway to not have cars those cars are going to go onto another side street.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by casper

Share the Graville bridge with traffic and then connect onto the arbutus corridor. If its down that way the only area where it will be delayed by traffic is the Granville bridge.

There's a substantial portion of Granville between the bridge and the transit-only mall that is open to general traffic. And if you're going to run rail-based transit over the Granville Bridge I don't see why you wouldn't put it in it's own right of way - the bridge has plenty of width to allow that.

But the fact of the matter is that there simply isn't any need for any sort of light rail there. It's already over-served by the many trolley and bus routes that converge on Granville between Broadway and downtown, not to mention the Canada Line.

If we're going to spend any money at all on transit the first place it needs to go is on bolstering Broadway and the Skytrain network by extending the Millenium line to at least Cambie so that it connects with the Canada line. And if you're going that far it would be insane not to extend it to at least Granville so as to service the hospital district.

[EastVanMark]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

If we're going to spend any money at all on transit the first place it needs to go is on bolstering Broadway and the Skytrain network by extending the Millenium line to at least Cambie so that it connects with the Canada line. And if you're going that far it would be insane not to extend it to at least Granville so as to service the hospital district.

Agreed. Extending to at least Cambie should be done immediately. It wouldn't cost a lot (relatively speaking of course) and would greatly and immediately expand ridership.

[djh]

Originally Posted by EastVanMark

Agreed. Extending to at least Cambie should be done immediately. It wouldn't cost a lot (relatively speaking of course) and would greatly and immediately expand ridership.

The only problem I have with doing things "at least" to point X with expectations of continuing to point Y at a later date...those plans for point Y usually get dropped. Then you're left with a half-finished system that everybody tolerates because they say "well at least we got it to point X..."

If you ask for the least you'll end up with the least.