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

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by Hmoob

As my first comment on the forums, I'm going to see if I can really step in it. Apologies in advance to anyone I offend.

I'm a proponent of transit oriented development and dense urban development. So from that perspective...

Metro Vancouver is better served if Surrey develops LRT, especially towards Langley. If Surrey develops LRT, it will push back by decades the possibility of future skytrain. Surrey and Langley will be stuck with slow, loud, and poorly integrated service, reinforcing the attitude that it's less desireable than living north of the Fraser. It will discourage development and slow encroachment into the ALR. If we don't build LRT now, we increase the chance that skytrain could be approved and put more pressure on the ALR.

No, that's a fabrication.

Pressure on the ALR comes from development, that pressure will exist regardless of the state of transit. Places that aren't well served by transit often build subdivisions on perfectly usable farmland. All these people want their own piece of land, instead of... say living in a 70 story tower which takes up just one acre of land.

What transit enables is people to live in these towers, and work in other towers, without needing a car. But that only happens if the transit is preferable to a car, or the only option. A Light rail system that is slower than a car, is not "rapid" transit system at all, and doesn't take cars off the road network at all.

See the connection? The people in Surrey, live there because they want to, or that's the only place they could afford their own piece of land. A light rail system isn't being built to serve existing residents at all. It's being used as a carrot to try and attract developers for towers for people to move to Surrey. Why would someone want to move to Surrey with a inefficient light rail system, when they could move to Coquitlam?

http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Ind...+puts+pressure+review/9532692/story.html

Industrial land squeeze puts pressure on ALR review

Land use needs to be examined in the context of serving port development, says industrial landlord

By Derrick Penner, Vancouver Sun February 20, 2014

In an interview with The Vancouver Sun last fall, Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan, chairman of Metro Vancouver’s planning and agriculture committee, said developers need to look at using remaining industrial land more intensively.

He added that developers have profited from converting industrial land for residential use, “now there’s significantly less available land, and the pressure, as we predicted, is going onto agricultural land.”

When we start growing farms inside skyscrapers, then we can talk about the ALR becoming obsolete.

I don't see every second building in Vancouver and Burnaby being a 70 story tower, so there is plenty of places to build without encroaching into the ALR. It's quite honestly embarrassing that 3 and 4 story buildings are being built on industrial lands.

[dharper]

I have a question about the LRT lines proposed for Surrey. Do they take traffic lanes away? If they do, I find it absolutely ridiculous that after they FINALLY widened Fraser Highway to Langley to 4 lanes, then they would take 2 lanes away for the occasional 'bus'.

[nname]

Originally Posted by dharper

I have a question about the LRT lines proposed for Surrey. Do they take traffic lanes away? If they do, I find it absolutely ridiculous that after they FINALLY widened Fraser Highway to Langley to 4 lanes, then they would take 2 lanes away for the occasional 'bus'.

No, but for the section along Green Timbers, the train will share lane with traffic (so no dedicated ROW)

[logicbomb]

^
Nope, section in Green Timbers would be widened to fit 4 traffic lanes, 2 LRT lanes and 2 bike lanes (most recent plans as per Nov 26th).

Originally Posted by dharper

I have a question about the LRT lines proposed for Surrey. Do they take traffic lanes away? If they do, I find it absolutely ridiculous that after they FINALLY widened Fraser Highway to Langley to 4 lanes, then they would take 2 lanes away for the occasional 'bus'.

KGB would see lane width reduction and a loss of a bike lane (so a shared lane).

104th would be reduced to 2 lanes and see lots of closures and detours during constructions (there is a proposal to make it local traffic + bus only during construction). 100th Ave and 108th Ave would be seen as alternative W-E corridors. 100th Ave would be widened to 4 lanes. 108th Ave would see the addition of left/right turn lanes. These construction costs have not been factored into the cost of the LRT project.

Surrey will be an absolute mess if this project goes through.

[xd_1771]

Originally Posted by Hmoob

Metro Vancouver is better served if Surrey develops LRT, especially towards Langley. If Surrey develops LRT, it will push back by decades the possibility of future skytrain. Surrey and Langley will be stuck with slow, loud, and poorly integrated service, reinforcing the attitude that it's less desireable than living north of the Fraser. It will discourage development and slow encroachment into the ALR. If we don't build LRT now, we increase the chance that skytrain could be approved and put more pressure on the ALR.

Kisai nailed it. The thing is.... the lack of a proper, high-quality rapid transit expansion will result in road expansion taking place in its stead. Surrey did not start growing because the SkyTrain Expo Line was extended South of Fraser. In fact, if you look at the historical population numbers, the introduction of SkyTrain in 1994 did not necessarily speed up the influx of people moving into Surrey. There were people coming into the City long before then at a fast rate. That's because one of the main drivers of growth in Surrey at the time was access to freeways already built and the affordability that created. If you owned a car, it was affordable and workable to live in Surrey because you could drive downtown or to whatever other job centre in the region, but pay less for your home and land.

Maybe SkyTrain helped that out, but growth levels didn't increase when SkyTrain came South-of-Fraser. What SkyTrain did when it came down here is it gave a people some sort of excuse to even be using transit - it gave you a 40-minute, all-day commute to downtown Vancouver that would otherwise be impossible if you took a bus the whole way. It laid the foundation for sustainable development of any sort (now happening today in city centre) and higher transit mode shares.

The use of a lower-quality, slower transit option that's barely faster than the existing service won't stop the growth. It'll just give the growth and the population here a far less workable and attractive transit option, and that's going to congest local streets and cost taxpayers as we'll need to expand roads more often, and restrict the potential of the transit-dependent - especially youth and post-secondary students who lose opportunities without a productive transit service. Consider that there's no rapid transit today beyond King George Station or the rapid bus terminals, and that hasn't stopped the South of Fraser from being the region's fastest growing area.

====

I also happen to think that the whole notion of "shaping the city" that Surrey has used to promote LRT as some sort of good option is a bit of the farce for one big reason: our Council has forgotten that Surrey is in competition with the rest of the region. Developments on a future LRT service will obviously be aimed at those who want to live (or set up office) near some sort of quality transit service - and so they will be priced higher, to match the increased land value and specialty demand. The problem with this is that Surrey's stations will be among many in Metro Vancouver with developers building and vying for buyers. So at the end of the day, when the similarities of price premium are considered, I think most people and companies are going to choose a north-of-Fraser location on SkyTrain rather than a south-of-Fraser location on LRT. SkyTrain is not only better quality transits, but the North of Fraser already has far more opportunities for work and play (and far more people to hire within good commute times) that have been established for far longer than the South of Fraser - and are more centralized in the region (i.e. you can still access Surrey City Centre in good time by SkyTrain).

When developers realize this, I think Surrey's going to see a much slower pace of TOD around LRT than Councillors predict. Developers are going to build the first influx of TOD - and then people will skip around them, continuing to favour the North of Fraser or cheaper sprawl-developments in the NCP areas (Grandview, etc). Which will make them want to slow it down.

The real boom in Surrey is only going to happen when the areas around SkyTrain stations are too saturated for any more competitive developments - and we have so many stations and a new Evergreen Line and Broadway Line coming, so that's years out. That's why I've been saying, it's going to take decades for the benefits of LRT to come afoot and we shouldn't build this. When you consider the losses we have to take for the sake of Light Rail Transit (i.e. aforementioned 104 Ave losses, and I often mention the construction-period disruption on the 96 B-Line) and the ridiculously small benefits in terms of actual transportation (Newton-Guildford will be only 1 min faster than the 96 B-Line), it's just not worth it.

[bardak]

Remember that even if the referendum passes it still needs to get provincial and federal funding. I think that both the province and the federal government might have an issue giving the project funding with such a negative business case when they have so many other projects asking for funding. That being said I would also not be surprised if the do fund the LRT

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by bardak

Remember that even if the referendum passes it still needs to get provincial and federal funding. I think that both the province and the federal government might have an issue giving the project funding with such a negative business case when they have so many other projects asking for funding. That being said I would also not be surprised if the do fund the LRT

That's the one I'd be most surprised about, considering LRT has the worst business case.

[logicbomb]

Originally Posted by bardak

Remember that even if the referendum passes it still needs to get provincial and federal funding. I think that both the province and the federal government might have an issue giving the project funding with such a negative business case when they have so many other projects asking for funding. That being said I would also not be surprised if the do fund the LRT

I mentioned it a few days ago. The Federal Government rejected Surrey's request for $1.8 Bil to fund the LRT project. There was a great sense of disappointment and frustration there because they will have to go back to the drawing board and present a better business case.

I'm not worrying too much about this becoming a reality as long as Paul Lee is there. Glad I'm out of that shit hole.

http://www.thenownewspaper.com/news/surrey-ignored-in-tory-budget-surrey-mp-says-1.1659951

Sandhu, MP for Surrey North, said it doesn’t include any federal cash for Surrey for transit improvements, replacement or upgrading of the Pattullo Bridge, community based crime prevention programs, or for additional policing.

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

That's the one I'd be most surprised about, considering LRT has the worst business case.

The way I figure it, we can use the West Coast Express as a proxy for how much it will cost to operate.

http://www.translink.ca/~/media/document...%20and%20capital%20budget%20summary.ashx



The West Coast Express is 69KM, and operates 6 round trips (12 runs total) per weekday, and not on weekends. It costs 20 million to operate.

The Skytrain is 28.9KM(Expo) + 20KM(Millenium Line) and costs 107 Million to Operate (2.18m/km)
The Canada Line is 19.2KM and costs 107 million to operate (5.5m/km.)
Both of these lines can operate 3 minutes apart, but for the sake of simplicity we're going to use the average of 6, while the WCE operates 30 minutes apart 6 times in each direction. So to fill in the missing data we need to approximate how many more WCE runs would be required.

The first thing to do is to add the weekends. So 20m/divided by 5 times 7=28million
Next it needs full day service, so 5am to midnight. So 38 runs instead of 12. WCE now costs 88.66 Million to operate during the same time the Skytrain and Canada line do. Now the last calculation requires normalizing it to 6 minutes, so times by 5: 443Million

This is also completely ignoring the fact that it's single tracked.

So the West Coast Express, to operate at the same frequency as the average Skytrain is more than 4 times more expensive.

Now we all know light rail is never going to hit that, so let's use the more conservative headway of 15 minutes (or half the WCE) time and that gives us 177.33 Million.

The reason I brought this up was Malcom and another Vancouver Sun reader suggested this very thing, having the WCE operate all day.

That is likely how much it is going to cost to operate a Light Rail line with the same distance of the West Coast Express. Let's go back to the drawing board now and factor in the distance.

27KM of Light Rail vs the 69 km long WCE makes the lenght 39%. So it could conceivably cost 69.40 million to operate (177m x 0.39)

But look at the operational cost per km. 2.57m/km to operate at 15m headway, or 6.4m/km (172million) to operate at Skytrain levels of headway of 6 minutes.

This also ignores the fact of who owns the land, and who is contracted to operate it.

So Surrey City Council is deluded if it thinks light rail is anything other than a money pit.

[paradigm4]

Originally Posted by logicbomb

I mentioned it a few days ago. The Federal Government rejected Surrey's request for $1.8 Bil to fund the LRT project. There was a great sense of disappointment and frustration there because they will have to go back to the drawing board and present a better business case.

I'm not worrying too much about this becoming a reality as long as Paul Lee is there. Glad I'm out of that shit hole.

http://www.thenownewspaper.com/news/surrey-ignored-in-tory-budget-surrey-mp-says-1.1659951

To clarify, the federal funding request is still being processed. There's a number of grant programs the City could apply through, including the P3 fund and New Building Canada. These are generic pots of money in the federal budget and never specified. Money is doled out through a competitive application process. So Sadhu is corrected in saying that the Feds haven't allocated any specific Surrey money in the 2015 budget, but that's standard practice - they don't do that for anybody.

[xd_1771]

Originally Posted by logicbomb

I mentioned it a few days ago. The Federal Government rejected Surrey's request for $1.8 Bil to fund the LRT project. There was a great sense of disappointment and frustration there because they will have to go back to the drawing board and present a better business case.

I'm not worrying too much about this becoming a reality as long as Paul Lee is there. Glad I'm out of that shit hole.

http://www.thenownewspaper.com/news/surrey-ignored-in-tory-budget-surrey-mp-says-1.1659951

I'm asking around but even I can't be sure if that's the case yet. The fund Surrey applied for is the P3 Building Canada Fund. I think the money being allocated to this fund is budgeted - but as far as I'm aware, the funding contenders are undergoing screening. To finish this, Surrey's going to have to twist numbers around the business case as it will have to look better than what the IBI group study said regarding transportation benefits.

[Whalleyboy]

Originally Posted by logicbomb

^
Nope, section in Green Timbers would be widened to fit 4 traffic lanes, 2 LRT lanes and 2 bike lanes (most recent plans as per Nov 26th).



KGB would see lane width reduction and a loss of a bike lane (so a shared lane).

104th would be reduced to 2 lanes and see lots of closures and detours during constructions (there is a proposal to make it local traffic + bus only during construction). 100th Ave and 108th Ave would be seen as alternative W-E corridors. 100th Ave would be widened to 4 lanes. 108th Ave would see the addition of left/right turn lanes. These construction costs have not been factored into the cost of the LRT project.

Surrey will be an absolute mess if this project goes through.

You forget to add the add on the creation of a new road which I believe is 105 or 105a ave which would be a new 2lane road connecting guildford and central. Its prime focus would be allowing local traffic between the two areas avoid using 104 ave.

[officedweller]

Article on Fraser Hwy widening to fit LRT -
with comment posted by Darryl.

http://www.surreyleader.com/opinion/288755771.html

[GMasterAres]

You'd have to still widen Fraser Highway about the same if SkyTrain was going down it anyway vs LRT. To get the columns spaced out and enough boulevard space for the inner lanes would make it roughly the same width as 2 x LRT right of ways. The article linked basically says so leave it 1 lane either direction which is complete madness and I doubt the author actually lines up down Fraser Highway every day. It is like a 2km stretch that from 3pm to 6pm every day takes 30 minutes to drive.

It is SO congested. Then you add LRT trains running down with right of way... it will be absolute hell. Fraser Highway has to be 4 lanes for vehicular traffic from King George to Langley it's just that simple. It would be like squeezing Granville Street down to 1 lane from King Edward to Granville. Could you imagine that?

So even if SkyTrain gets built to Langley (which it should, LRT should NOT down that stretch), I'm fairly certain the widening through Green Timbers will be the same and I have no issue with it. Green timbers is not losing much overall to widen such a major arterial through-way in Surrey. People don't complain about 100th being widened in the next 5 years because the widening will be largely in grass space (no trees) but it too is taking away green space.

Society has this thing with cutting down trees like it is a horrible end of the world thing. The trees that will be cut down along Fraser Highway provide enough oxygen for a few cats basically and many fall down every Winter anyway given heavy winds. It isn't a big deal. They honestly cut down more trees for most subdivisions in metro-Vancouver.

What is a big deal is LRT. I still think SkyTrain is and should be the only option down Fraser Highway to Langley. It just doesn't make sense to switch transit modes at King George given SkyTrain POINTS that direction already + it is cheaper and meets the purpose of being a back-bone rapid transit.

LRT for the other stretches I have less of a problem with. I think it is more likely just from a funding perspective given it would be completely impossible to get funding from the region to find SkyTrain exclusively and only for Surrey. Expo expansion to Langley would benefit Burnaby, New West, and Vancouver as well. SkyTrain down King George and 104th only benefits Surrey.

Mayors had enough trouble getting behind Evergreen let alone a Surrey exclusive SkyTrain line, so we'll likely see B-Lines for KGB/104th followed by an LRT option.

[xd_1771]

Originally Posted by jhausner

You'd have to still widen Fraser Highway about the same if SkyTrain was going down it anyway vs LRT. To get the columns spaced out and enough boulevard space for the inner lanes would make it roughly the same width as 2 x LRT right of ways. The article linked basically says so leave it 1 lane either direction which is complete madness and I doubt the author actually lines up down Fraser Highway every day. It is like a 2km stretch that from 3pm to 6pm every day takes 30 minutes to drive.

It will be slightly wider than a 4-lane road with shared LRT lanes (original TransLink plans) much narrower than 2 traffic lanes + 2 LRT lanes (Surrey intent). Here's something I just pulled out of the SRTS Design guide:

Originally Posted by jhausner

Expo expansion to Langley would benefit Burnaby, New West, and Vancouver as well.

Why does it benefit only North-of-Fraser cities, and at the exclusion of Surrey? There are likely benefits for every city on the Expo Line. For one, I think a lot more people would be actually willing to come South-of-Fraser for any purpose.

[SFUVancouver]

I'm flabbergasted that LRT would share the same travel lanes as general purpose traffic through Green Timbers park. That corridor is absolutely jam-packed during rush hour. How on Earth can that segment be considered 'rapid transit'? Should the plebiscite pass and the money is found in Provincial and Federal budgets to co-fund the Surrey LRT line, how many people do you think will lose their mind and blame Translink for the trains getting stuck in regular, wholly predictable diurnal rush hours along the Green Timbers corridor? SkyTrain would be clear in a minute, tops, but from experience I know that one can be stuck in traffic for 10, 15, 20+ minutes. It's not inconceivable that during especially heavy peak periods a RRT/SkyTrain could continue on from King George and be arriving in Langley City in the same time that it would take the LRT takes to make its way from King George to 152. There will be an additional travel lane in each direction as a result of the road widening, but that won't be sufficient to permanently ameliorate the daily congestion that will cause endemic delays to LRT. Moreover, as the downtown core builds out and becomes a genuine centre of commerce and employment, and an even large centre of education, how will the situation improve? This is so dumb.

[Metro-One]

The only saving grace is that the last line of LRT planned to be built is the one out to Langley.

I am hoping that they did this on purpose to maybe observe the outcomes of the first two LRT lines, let a little more urbanization occur, and then be able to change the last line to an Expo Line Skytrain extension instead.

[red-paladin]

I agree 100% that the Langley line is best left last, so that it could be reassessed before built.

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by red-paladin

I agree 100% that the Langley line is best left last, so that it could be reassessed before built.

It just doesn't make sense to build LRT for that part at all.

http://www.translink.ca/~/media/document...atives_evaluation_executive_summary.ashx

RRT1 = 1.8 Billion to build, and 1.2Billion in NPV Lifecycle costs (This is the Surrey to Langley leg only)
LRT4 = 910 million to build, and 640million in NPV Lifecycle costs (This is the L shaped part that is entirely within Surrey only)

Kinda amazing that we've spent 6 years studying this, and we're going to have Surrey spoil everything.
http://atl.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2011/07/Shiffer_Web.pdf

http://www.cite7.org/conferences/compend...ransitNetworkChoicesGrowingUrbanArea.pdf

Even here LRT4 has negative time saved, and the least benefit to cost ratio.

 Transportation: All RT alternatives provide transportation benefits relative to BAU; however BB, LRT 4 and RRT 3 provided the least benefits and rated 3. RRT 1A had the greatest benefits due to extent and fast, transfer-free travel times,and rated 5 (“better than BAU”).

 Urban Development: All RT alternatives have the potential to intensify land use around stations, and the BRT and LRT alternatives that could also improve urban design rated the highest (“better than BAU”). RRT 1 and RRT 3 rated 3 because they would create visual impacts and provide less of the urban development and urban design benefits of other alternatives.

Drawing upon the analysis, it was clear that LRT 4, RRT 1 and RRT 3 would not provide sufficient capacity in all three study corridors, and so those alternatives would not be recommended. Each of the other ten are open to consideration, with several appearing to hold the most prom

Consider that at no point do any of these studies even suggest building both the RRT and the LRT, or RRT for all, or LRT for the entire area. So unless a hail-mary pass comes from the federal or provincial government,again, that all RT must be Skytrain, I don't see the Surrey-to-Langley segment even being built.

I'm not warming to the idea of LRT, but I'm not going to hold my breath that any engineering-savvy politician would get elected for Surrey. The best that can be hoped for is that provincial government and federal government realize how foolish funding LRT would be and Translink backs out due to not being able to fund it, which may even happen that way if the Plebiscite is voted down.

[bardak]

Just remember that the LRT funding is counting on the Feds and province to chip in and they could very well look at the business case and say no.