Metro Vancouver Transit Discussion

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by go_leafs_go02

Hindsight I'd argue that the Expo line corridor should have been built as a commuter heavy rail line instead of SkyTrain.

Then there would be capacity to keep extending it out to Langley.

I found a good example of what you mean froman older entry on the Transit Fantasies Thread.

Hope it sends ok: post 121 by "fever":

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=146531&highlight=transit+fantasies&page=7

[ssiguy]

Toronto has solved much of the problem by actually buying the track.

10 years ago Metrolinx {greater Toronto/Golden Horseshoe transit authority} owned 10% of the track and now own 80% so they have control of the tracks and not CN/CP.

As I said, the benefit of suburban rail is that it's not an all or nothing investment. Unlike other rapid transit systems {except BRT} it can be phased in over a period of time as funds permit and as ridership demands.

[trofirhen]

This was posted in the Transit Fantasies thread back in 2009 by NET MAPEL:
If you find it close up, it addresses many of the commuter rail concerns recently stated here on this thread:
He states "
Originally Posted by NetMapel
There is an existing train bridge besides the Petallo bridge so I think the exchange point between the two rail line should be at New Wesminster instead of near Braid station. I have coloured the two train lines from that previously posted map to show how I think the two lines should work. They were all grey before so I don't know what line goes where. I have separated them into a purple and sky-blue colour. The purple line goes from downtown all the way to south of Fraser so there is no need for any exchange. The solid red line there is where the train bridge is, so that purple line really should be crossing the Fraser river via the dotted red line to the solid red line.





http://i27.tinypic.com/6ftxd0.jpg
I think this might not be considered inappropriate as a post at this tenor of the thread, exploring possibilities.

[ssiguy]

BTW Sheba, you state that not everyone is commuting to Vancouver.........where precisely did I say they all were or even half were?

That of course changes nothing because ten of thousands do and that will only increase as Vancouver continues to sprawl ever further into the valley. Any suburban line SoF will have to cross a SkyTrain line in NuWest meaning a connection to the SkyTrain which can take them to other employment areas such as Metrotown or SFU. Any line will also go via the Broadway viaduct meaning connection to the Broadway Corridor and a connection to the Canada Line via the future M-Line extension down Broadway.

Remember true suburban rail also runs each way all day which means people who live in the City or inner suburbs can also take the train to get to their jobs SoF. Building SkyTrain to the ends of the earth is not financially possible and nor is it good transit policy.

[st7860]

Originally Posted by trofirhen

Funny, I recall wondering why they didn't use that old ROW for Sktrain when it was built.
Could that old ROW be converted into suburban rail? Could pieces of the rail be cut and covered a bit? (Help out the neighbors enormously)
Could this be the root for the route of a Central Fraser Valley line, eventually going to Langley, Abbotsford, Chilliwack? It will be required in several decades. Better to put in, now, perhaps?

what about the labour costs of conventional rail vs skytrain?

[go_leafs_go02]

I absolutely love the idea of that commuter rail line that would then connect with SkyTrain (Expo Line)at Waterfront, Commercial-Broadway and Scott Road.

Would work really well if done right, meaning it would function as a separate but parallel to the Expo Line, provide a more commuter level of service (ie, WCE) in a comparable travel time.

Just don't see how Expo Line can handle more capacity long term, and if it is extended down to Langley, it would be I think the longest metro line in the world, meaning that if something happens somewhere, everyone between Vancouver and langley would be impacted and have no other opportunity to use an alternative corridor.

[Waders]

Vancouver has leaky condo. But I didn't expect our skytrain to have the same issue.
Today I was on a MKII (2009 model) train #341. I suddenly found my jacket wet and water dripping from overhead lighting fixture. I have no idea how water got into that area without creating a short circuit.
I hope the MKIII train workmanship will be better and more weather proof for the West Coast rainy weather.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

BTW Sheba, you state that not everyone is commuting to Vancouver.........where precisely did I say they all were or even half were?

That of course changes nothing because ten of thousands do and that will only increase as Vancouver continues to sprawl ever further into the valley. Any suburban line SoF will have to cross a SkyTrain line in NuWest meaning a connection to the SkyTrain which can take them to other employment areas such as Metrotown or SFU. Any line will also go via the Broadway viaduct meaning connection to the Broadway Corridor and a connection to the Canada Line via the future M-Line extension down Broadway.

Remember true suburban rail also runs each way all day which means people who live in the City or inner suburbs can also take the train to get to their jobs SoF. Building SkyTrain to the ends of the earth is not financially possible and nor is it good transit policy.

This is what you said and that many maps posted by here (not by you) continually show:

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Vancouver doesn't have the Golden Horseshoes 9 million people but it does have a cone shaped urban form which makes potential ridership higher.

The majority of people who would take transit into Vancouver already do. Any kind of express / commuter rail option is not going to add to that very much - it'll just spread the load. To get more people onto transit, it needs to do more than funnel people into downtown Van.

[nname]

Originally Posted by go_leafs_go02

Just don't see how Expo Line can handle more capacity long term, and if it is extended down to Langley, it would be I think the longest metro line in the world, meaning that if something happens somewhere, everyone between Vancouver and langley would be impacted and have no other opportunity to use an alternative corridor.

First of all, Expo Line is only at 65% of its capacity without even using 5-car trains. There is definitely enough capacity for the line IF there is enough funding to buy more trains.

Second of all, it will be far from being the longest metro line in the world. From the list of longest metro lines I've gathered from wiki, it would be at best the 47th longest line if it opens in 2016. By the time it opens in maybe 2026, we'll be lucky if it even make it to the top 100 list.

km	City and Line Name
======	=========================================================
160.0	Seoul Line 1 (Gyeongbu)
121.7	Seoul Gyeongui–Jungang Line
102.1	Seoul Line 1 (Gyeongin)
88.8	San Francisco BART Pittsburg/Bay Point (Yellow) Line
81.3	Seoul Gyeongchun Line
75.9	Chongqing Line 6
74.0	London Central Line
72.1	Seoul Line 4
72.0	Shanghai Line 11
71.0	London Piccadilly Line
67.3	Guangzhou Line 3
66.7	London Metropolitan Line
65.4	Chongqing Line 3
64.0	London District Line
63.8	Shanghai Line 2
63.5	Dalian Line R3
63.0	San Francisco BART Fremont (Green) Line
60.2	Seoul Line 2
59.1	San Francisco BART East Bay (Orange) Line
59.0	Shanghai Line 16
58.0	Seoul Airport Line
58.0	London Northern Line
57.5	San Francisco BART Dublin/Pleasanton (Blue) Line
57.1	Beijing Line 10
57.1	Seoul Line 7
56.3	Guangzhou Line 4
55.8	Hamburg Line U1
53.1	Taoyuan Airport (Blue) Line
53.0	Beijing Line 6
52.9	Seoul Bundang Line
52.8	Tianjin Line 9
52.3	Seoul Line 5
52.1	Shanghai Line 9
52.1	Dubai Red Line
51.8	New York A service
51.7	Shenzhen Line 11
51.3	Washington Red Line
51.0	San Francisco BART Richmond (Red) Line
50.3	Singapore East-West Line
50.0	Delhi Blue Line
48.8	Washington Blue Line
47.6	Washington Silver Line
46.4	Kuala Lumpur Line 5 (Kelana Jaya)
46.0	Busan Line 2
45.7	Beijing Line 15
45.1	Moscow Line 3
45.0	Vancouver Expo Line with extension to Langley
44.8	Singapore North-South Line
44.7	Delhi Yellow Line
44.3	Cairo Line 1
43.7	New York F service
43.3	Chicago Blue Line

So this is how the Expo Line to Langley rank on that list
- Longest metro line in Canada
- 2nd longest Bombardier ART line
- 3rd longest LIM metro line
- 3rd longest driverless line
- 6th longest metro line on the west coast
- 10th longest metro line in North America
- 17th longest metro line outside of Asia
- 47th longest metro line in the world

Maybe we'll have a chance to claim the top spot if the Expo Line ever extended to Hope...

The current Millennium Line at 42.1km would rank about the 55th.

* Note: This list does not include Light Rail systems. Some of the Korean lines are a hybrid of commuter rail and metro - primarily linking the city with suburbs and/or another major town nearby. However, those line meet every criteria of being a metro system - frequent service all day, high ridership, close station spacing, grade separation, etc.. pretty much similar to BART. So I've included in the list since its also included in the wiki.

[Express691]

Onto different news, 62 shuttles will be replaced up in Port Coquitlam.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/transli...hat+made+people+feel/11481861/story.html

[Mac Write]

Can you say Orion II

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by nname

km	City and Line Name
160.0	Seoul Line 1 (Gyeongbu)

Keep in mind that Seoul Line 1 is also ONLY 11 years older than the Skytrain (1974)

So that length The 160 Length would be like Vancouver to Stanwood,WA, or all the way to Hope BC.

But look at how their system is laid out:
http://www.mappery.com/maps/Seoul-Metro-Map.jpg

According to Google Maps, that's a 2 hour and 16 minute trip (54 stops) from one end to the other. I probably wouldn't put it past someone to actually spend 2hr+ commuting (I'm sure some people do that in their car out here) but the layout suggests that Line 1 is their major inter-city rail route.

So compared to the Skytrain that's pretty much Vancouver Waterfront to Hope BC in length, could we ever justify that? No, not likely this century. The reason many Asian transit systems are the way they are is that they aren't in love with the car as much as Canadians or Americans are.

It's still amazing that Surrey wants to screw Langley out of getting the Skytrain entirely so they can prevent people from leaving Surrey.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by Kisai

Keep in mind that Seoul Line 1 is also ONLY 11 years older than the Skytrain (1974)

So that length The 160 Length would be like Vancouver to Stanwood,WA, or all the way to Hope BC.

But look at how their system is laid out:
http://www.mappery.com/maps/Seoul-Metro-Map.jpg

According to Google Maps, that's a 2 hour and 16 minute trip (54 stops) from one end to the other. I probably wouldn't put it past someone to actually spend 2hr+ commuting (I'm sure some people do that in their car out here) but the layout suggests that Line 1 is their major inter-city rail route.

So compared to the Skytrain that's pretty much Vancouver Waterfront to Hope BC in length, could we ever justify that? No, not likely this century. The reason many Asian transit systems are the way they are is that they aren't in love with the car as much as Canadians or Americans are.

It's still amazing that Surrey wants to screw Langley out of getting the Skytrain entirely so they can prevent people from leaving Surrey.

Yet every city I have been to in Asia has a far superior highway system than metro-Vancouver's as well.

It is more that Asian cities have found a better balance than North America and also value decent infrastructure in general more than we do and they also generally don't play the "either / or" politics that Vancouver loves.

Also, Seoul is a metro area of 26 million people, Vancouver is 2.5 million...... I think Vancouver would have no need for a 160 km long metro line. Langley is as far east as a metro line is currently needed in Metro-Vancouver. Once you start going beyond that heavy commuter rail is the only choice for rail transit.

The closest apples to apples comparison between Vancouver and an Asian city is Sapporo, Japan.

Sapporo metro area has a population of 2.5 million (exactly the same as Vancouver) which is roughly half of the population of Hokkaido (nearly identical to Vancouver's near half of BC).

Sapporo has 3 metro lines (Vancouver has 3...ish, kind of soon to be 4).

The entire system length for Sapporo's metro system is 48 km. The Tozai line is the longest at 20km.

(Sapporo also has an 8km long streetcar).

Now, what Sapporo does better than Vancouver is heavy commuter rain, there are several heavy rail lines in the city like every Japanese city. These though, are not metro lines, and often have very wide station spacing. Vancouver's only comparable thing to this is the WCE (but commuter rails in Japan run all day each direction).

[Reecemartin]

Whoever brought up the length of Seouls metro is really missing the point, Seoul has a massive metro but, that's not that impressive considering its size.

While Skytrain is good I think it's going to become an issue in the not so distant future because it's going to really bottleneck. Traditional rail is much easier to expand and tends to be higher capacity but we've already built up a lot of momentum as far as Skytrain goes. Building Skytrain to Langley might seem like a good idea but it isn't going to do much in the way of improving connectivity the way Metro Vancouver needs it. When all is said and done I'm assuming a ride from Langlry Centre to Waterfront would take 2 hours which is already pushing on the upper limits of what people are willing to travel on a metro. By the time Skytrain is extended to Langley drastic changes will likely need to be made to handle the ridership which will skyrocket seeing the magnitude of the SOF growth. As people have suggested improving and building new heavy/commuter rail infrastructure seems far more intelligent. It would be far more cost effective, and probably more scalable than the Skytrain infrastructure and if things were planned right there could be express trains from Langley to Vancouver that make maybe only 5 stops. If we could build 3 or so lines like this that operated bi directionally we'd probably have a lot more expansion potential than with our current policy of extending the metro out to areas which often seem to only grow populated due to the systems presence.

[Rico]

Originally Posted by Reecemartin

Whoever brought up the length of Seouls metro is really missing the point, Seoul has a massive metro but, that's not that impressive considering its size.

While Skytrain is good I think it's going to become an issue in the not so distant future because it's going to really bottleneck. Traditional rail is much easier to expand and tends to be higher capacity but we've already built up a lot of momentum as far as Skytrain goes. Building Skytrain to Langley might seem like a good idea but it isn't going to do much in the way of improving connectivity the way Metro Vancouver needs it. When all is said and done I'm assuming a ride from Langlry Centre to Waterfront would take 2 hours which is already pushing on the upper limits of what people are willing to travel on a metro. By the time Skytrain is extended to Langley drastic changes will likely need to be made to handle the ridership which will skyrocket seeing the magnitude of the SOF growth. As people have suggested improving and building new heavy/commuter rail infrastructure seems far more intelligent. It would be far more cost effective, and probably more scalable than the Skytrain infrastructure and if things were planned right there could be express trains from Langley to Vancouver that make maybe only 5 stops. If we could build 3 or so lines like this that operated bi directionally we'd probably have a lot more expansion potential than with our current policy of extending the metro out to areas which often seem to only grow populated due to the systems presence.

A couple of points, the first is someone would have to be a bit of a gluton for punishment to take Skytrain to downtown from Vancouver so I don't think many will, but not everything is downtown Vancouver so it should still get good ridership with people going to Surrey or New West or Metrotown. A RER/S bahn type heavy rail system would be great, especially for longer distance commuters but don't kid yourself about the costs. For such a system to be successful it will need fairly direct, fairly rapid and fairly frequent and bi-directional. The problem we have in Vancouver is we basically don't have existing railway right of ways that will let us do that cheaply. Right of ways that are fairly direct/potentially rapid are pretty much freight mainlines that do not have track space to allow frequent commuter trains. That leaves us only with indirect milk run tracks like the old Interurban line that would have travel times longer than Skytrain because it is so indirect/curvy. So absent pre existing rights of way we would need to build new rail right of ways and if we want it to be fairly rapid and frequent it will need a lot of grade seperation. With a lot of grade seperation heavy rail will be more expensive than Skytrain. Since I love the RER and Swiss S bahns that reality sucks and I still have transit fantasies about a various routes involving lots of tunnels ect. but I recognize they are for the transit fantasies thread.

[Rico]

Originally Posted by Reecemartin

Whoever brought up the length of Seouls metro is really missing the point, Seoul has a massive metro but, that's not that impressive considering its size.

While Skytrain is good I think it's going to become an issue in the not so distant future because it's going to really bottleneck. Traditional rail is much easier to expand and tends to be higher capacity but we've already built up a lot of momentum as far as Skytrain goes. Building Skytrain to Langley might seem like a good idea but it isn't going to do much in the way of improving connectivity the way Metro Vancouver needs it. When all is said and done I'm assuming a ride from Langlry Centre to Waterfront would take 2 hours which is already pushing on the upper limits of what people are willing to travel on a metro. By the time Skytrain is extended to Langley drastic changes will likely need to be made to handle the ridership which will skyrocket seeing the magnitude of the SOF growth. As people have suggested improving and building new heavy/commuter rail infrastructure seems far more intelligent. It would be far more cost effective, and probably more scalable than the Skytrain infrastructure and if things were planned right there could be express trains from Langley to Vancouver that make maybe only 5 stops. If we could build 3 or so lines like this that operated bi directionally we'd probably have a lot more expansion potential than with our
current policy of extending the metro out to areas which often seem to only grow populated
due to the systems presence.

I should also note I have used Seouls Metro and it is impressive, even for a city of its size. I am not sure you understood, the 160km is the length of line 1, not the length of the system. And while I did not use it there are extensive commuter and intercity rail options too.

[xd_1771]

^ It would be just under 60 minutes (58 minutes) from Langley to Waterfront if the Expo Line is extended to Langley.

And if you ask me I consider that to be pretty impressive, using the 45km long Hankyu Kyoto Main Line (between Osaka and Kyoto, Japan) as my benchmark. Limited express trains take 50 minutes to travel the length Kyoto Main Line between Umeda and Kawaramachi during peak hours - and that's with trains skipping/barreling through most of the stations at about 100km/h. If we can manage 58 minutes on an all-stop service, then that's pretty great seeing as our trains will always arrive every ~3 or so minutes, whereas Hankyu's skip-stop trains come every 10 minutes (in order to alternate with the all-stops trains).

[Reecemartin]

I understand that this is the length of only one line but Seouls urban form is very different that Met Vans. One quarter approximately of the Korean population lives in the Seoul metropolitan area. And I'm sorry if I wasn't really clear but what I was trying to say is that well maybe you could get from Langley to waterfront in an hour it would not be so simple/direct to go from Langley center to Richmond on rapid transit, and well I do agree that grade separation would definitely be required there's definitely lots of places where right of ways could be built especially south of the Fraser. I just think that we might benefit by perhaps using a different technology LRT perhaps and building out a really large network because from what I can tell if the Powerlines are arranged properly you could run commuter trains on LRT tracksto create express or commuter lines to supplement standard lrt service.

[nname]

Originally Posted by Reecemartin

And I'm sorry if I wasn't really clear but what I was trying to say is that well maybe you could get from Langley to waterfront in an hour it would not be so simple/direct to go from Langley center to Richmond on rapid transit, and well I do agree that grade separation would definitely be required there's definitely lots of places where right of ways could be built especially south of the Fraser. I just think that we might benefit by perhaps using a different technology LRT perhaps and building out a really large network because from what I can tell if the Powerlines are arranged properly you could run commuter trains on LRT tracksto create express or commuter lines to supplement standard lrt service.

How would you run a commuter rail on LRT track when the train are different size, making different stops, travel at different speed, and accelerate differently? You would either have the commuter rail slow down by LRT stopping at stations, or have the LRT bunch up behind the commuter train. Build both LRT and commuter rail with the same spec? Then basically you're paying the cost of building a LRT line all the way downtown that pretty much duplicate the existing Expo line.

And commuter rail is not actually fast. West Coast Express is fast west of Port Moody because it makes no stop. But once the train start making stops? Its only fast because everything else is slow. In fact, taking WCE from Maple Meadows to Coquitlam Station is only 7min faster compared to the #701 bus, which takes about 25-30min - and that is just a bus route that travel a longer distance, stopping at all local stops and traffic lights.

Now compare this travel time:

WCE from Waterfront to Maple Meadows (42km): 54-56min
SkyTrain from Waterfront to Langley (45km): 59min

What is the benefit of commuter rail compared to just extending SkyTrain? Especially the Expo Line takes pretty much the shortest diagonal route from Langley to downtown Vancouver. Commuter rail using existing ROW would have to go through Cloverdale, Newton, Scott Road, Burnaby Lake, etc., which would most likely extend the trip well over an hour...

For trips from Langley to Richmond - its in such a low demand it would never warrant a direct rail-based rapid transit. In fact, according to the 2011 trip diary, only 1.2% of the trip originate from Langley goes to Richmond. That equals to 520 trips a day, barely enough to fill ONE (old) 4-car MkII train. If we build a commuter rail with existing track with a new rail bridge parallel to Alex Fraser, the line would be 55-60km, or around 1hr 20min of travel time. If using the existing New Westminster Bridge - good luck that the train will arrive in Richmond within 2 hours! If the commuter would route through SkyTrain, the trip would be about 1hr 30min. Just 10min longer, but the service will be frequent throughout the day, and it would cost TransLink pretty much nothing in both capital and operating cost!

[Reecemartin]

What I was trying to get across was that it we build LRT/ Commuter Rail I frastructure now, perhaps along really direct right of ways then in the future we have the foundations laid for a higher cpacity and more flexible rail system.