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Originally Posted by makr3trkr
I mostly agree with what you are saying, but I should note:
There are certainly many areas along Fraser Highway where houses and townhomes directly front the road, or are within metres of the "highway."
Telling people that they already live on a "highway" and should just put up with Skytrain noise at 1am and reduced sunlight is all well and good, but there is also the political reality to consider. |
Let me counter with an image of what the paradigm of LRT that is people's idol for comparison, Calgary, does when trains pass near homes:
To keep the noise down, they build high, solid fences. To keep the trains operating at high speeds, the fences prevent access everywhere except controlled, signaled crossings. The LRT tracks literally cut this neighborhood in half.
So this is what happens in people's front yards on Fraser Highway with LRT, or something has to give. Maybe the fences are not solid to preserve views, thus increasing noise in homes. The fences can be removed or allow access points to let people cross the tracks at more points, but trains have to travel slower for safety reasons.
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Originally Posted by WarrenC12
Surrey has kept taxes super low for far too long. Now they are paying the price (crime, resulting in big boosts in RCMP spending) and LRT, if they get it, will come with tax increases to pay for it.
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The taxes here are incredibly low. They could double my taxes and the bill would still be less than one paycheck (take home) because of the home owners grant.
And I think it is something Surrey should consider if they want improved service. Some of the politicians were complaining about the burden Surrey has paid into Translink over the past 10 years, but the number was less than what would be required to build LRT in Surrey. Surrey's investment on Translink projects in other municipalities is litterally cents on the dollar (and a lot of Surrey residents use those projects to get to work or at other times, so it's not lost money). If we want something really really badly, we should be prepared to pay for a large portion of it, as connecting Whalley to Newton isn't that big a priority for the entire region.
Compare the external use (people from cities outside the city where the infrastructure is built) for LRT in Surrey to Newton compared to the Broadway line. For every resident from outside Surrey that would take the LRT to Newton, there are probably 100 people from outside Vancouver that would ride the Broadway Subway.
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Originally Posted by logan5
Yes. And in time the Sun will go super nova. Why after 20 years of Skytrain has there been so little movement in Surrey City Centre compared to about 10 other centres in the region? Now with the Evergreen Line, priority is going to be given to Tri-Cities, not to mention the 4 Burnaby centres. The only reason to go LRT instead of BRT is the expectation that LRT will spur high density development. Skytrain has already shown that that will not happen.
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I think the lack of development in Surrey CC is the fault of the market, and the people in power.
Many of the areas around stations in Burnaby and the future Evergreen line stations are highly developed because
- They are physically closer to Vancouver, thus the units have higher sale vales, thus generate more profit for the developer (as no mater where you build has the same construction cost, you build first where you will make more profits).
- city governments were more than happy to let these areas function as high density suburbs to Vancouver
But Surrey didn't. They wanted their areas around Skytrain to be more of it's own downtown where people commute to rather than a high density suburb where people commute away from.
Look at places like Joyce, Patterson, Edmonds, Gilmore, Brentwood, Holdom, Lougheed, Port Moody, Coquitlam.
Sure they have the kind of high density skyscrapers that make this forum jiz,
but for all intent and purposes they are suburbs of downtown Vancouver. More people leave those areas than arrive in a work day.
But I think Surrey (rightly or wrongly) has held out on letting many applications go through because they are trying to avoid having too many buildings that are just condos in the area. They don't want to have everyone commute away. They want buildings like in Downtown, with ground floor retail, offices, and public amenities. But developers don't want to front the cost for that when they can build a building with nothing but high margin walk ups in the pedestal somewhere else.
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Originally Posted by Canadian Mind
Given the drama recently, is there any possibility Translink can throw Surrey a bit of a bone and at least extend Expo to Fleetwood right after completion of the Evergreen extension?
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I think this would actually be the best short term solution possible.
It would solve a lot of transit problems, improve the bus grid, and shorten so many thousands of commutes.
One of the biggest slowdowns for transit is crossing 152 (because it has traffic priority). If Skytrain were to cross that, thousands would see their bus rides to Skytrain (King George/Surrey Center) cut to 1/4 their current length. It would greatly increase frequency for buses with the same number of buses in use in that part of town if they didn't have to get stuck in traffic through Green Timbers.
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Originally Posted by jsbertram
If Surrey goes ahead with LRT, they will be the testing ground for LRT vs Skytrain.
They can start with the LRT only along King George and 104th with an interchange station at Surrey Central. Don't build anything along Fraser Highway - yet.
After a few years of real-world use of the LRT by the locals who demanded it, an informed decision can be made as to whether the Fraser Highway segment should be more LRT or more SkyTrain.
I think that after having their own LRT train system for a few years, Surrey will decide that LRT can be used within their city limits and expanded beyond the King George and 104th Ave routes, but Skytrain should be the backbone commuter rail system for travelling between Surrey and the rest of the mainland.
Extending Skytrain down Fraser Highway makes for a convenient diagonal run to Langley, and the major Surrey streets and avenues all could connect with a Skytrain station on the Fraser Highway.
If this works for Surrey, there may be other opportunities in the area for LRT as the local rail service within a city (replacing over-capacity bus service), and Skytrain is used as the backbone / commuter service connecting all the cities together.
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If,
IF, Surrey decides to go ahead with LRT, I would say they should just build down King George
only as phase 1. It has the most ROW available, and altering the road would have the least impact to drivers/congestion and be the most affordable (and the road needs the most improving in general too). It also links up with some empty property Translink owns in Newton (for the storage yard). It's also has the most potential for future TOD with more empty/underdeveloped lots, and has the worst connections to the highway system.
Once it is done you can determine if it was worth it. You can see the impact on development, on traffic, on ridership. You can also see if the cost estimates are accurate. As the cheapest section (probably) if the costs balloon, it won't be catastrophic.
It also gives you the most choice in how to proceed in the future. If it takes up more room than you think and affects traffic worse than expected or attracts less riders than thought, then taking lanes away from 104 Ave will obviously be a bad choice. If you build down 104 first, and then see LRT doesn't work like we think (no better than bus service) then those lanes will be lost forever on a pointless, and expensive exercise.
If from experience, building down Fraser Highway would be a lot more expensive and disruptive than thought (loss of lanes, access to homes, noise), then Skytrain can be build to preserve pedestrian access.
If it is determined White Rock needs rail rapid transit, then extending Light Rail from Newton makes more sense than sending Skytrain all the way there.
Or the LRT could be extended down an electrified BCER ROW to Langley. It's not the best choice for connecting the most people to the fastest route, but it would be extremely low cost. And depending on demand, it could be run as peak hour/peak direction commuter train (avoiding doubling the tracks) between Langley and Newton.
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And last I checked the LRT would be entirely paid for by Surrey for Surrey. So if you don't live here, why do you care?
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