Millennium Line - Evergreen Extension | Completed

[antonba]

With respect to climbing steep grades - there is one more option. You can build a tunnel and a deep station. In Seattle, Beacon Hill station is almost 50 m deep. In fact it has no escalators or regular use stairs - it uses large capacity high speed elevators. It's expensive to build such stations but would make sense for SFU. SkyTrain will have much more capacity than a gondola system as fun as that would be.

Moreover, this would enable a straight shot from Hastings to SFU and then continuing on towards Burquitlam. Rail on Hastings makes a lot of sense as it is a dense corridor of commercial and residential space.

[MIPS]

Originally Posted by nname

Why bother putting up signs now when many of them have to be modified in 2017?

We already have a number of signs for the Evergreen line where there's a white decal covering that particular part of the sign. It's not hard to apply and later peel off a vinyl decal, neither is it expensive. I believe we did the same at Waterfront when the new signage was installed but the Canada Line was still not open.

[Jebby]

Originally Posted by antonba

With respect to climbing steep grades - there is one more option. You can build a tunnel and a deep station. In Seattle, Beacon Hill station is almost 50 m deep. In fact it has no escalators or regular use stairs - it uses large capacity high speed elevators. It's expensive to build such stations but would make sense for SFU. SkyTrain will have much more capacity than a gondola system as fun as that would be.

Moreover, this would enable a straight shot from Hastings to SFU and then continuing on towards Burquitlam. Rail on Hastings makes a lot of sense as it is a dense corridor of commercial and residential space.

Could a station be built under SFU mountain? Would the geology allow it?

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by antonba

With respect to climbing steep grades - there is one more option. You can build a tunnel and a deep station. In Seattle, Beacon Hill station is almost 50 m deep. In fact it has no escalators or regular use stairs - it uses large capacity high speed elevators. It's expensive to build such stations but would make sense for SFU. SkyTrain will have much more capacity than a gondola system as fun as that would be.

Moreover, this would enable a straight shot from Hastings to SFU and then continuing on towards Burquitlam. Rail on Hastings makes a lot of sense as it is a dense corridor of commercial and residential space.

Like it's an interesting idea, but it's something you do to meet a tunnel, and the evergreen line tunnel is about 2.4km away from SFU. A new tunnel would only be able to climb 144 meters in 2.4KM at 6% grade. It would also need to go under stoney creek. Burquitlam station is about 90 meters above sea level. So a tunnel from there to SFU would still only hit 234 meters above sea level, still requiring a another 132 meters for an elevator. Perhaps we should have some secret labs built under SFU using the elevator

Alignment 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the Gondola are 2.8km (lake city), 2.7 (production way), and 2.4 (Burquitlam). SFU's summit is 366 meters, or about the height of Tokyo Tower from it's base (22 meters.)

Like ignoring the tunneling costs, it's still cheaper to do the gondola.

[SOSS]

A gondola would be substantially cheaper then digging a tunnel through Burnaby Mountain.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by SOSS

A gondola would be substantially cheaper then digging a tunnel through Burnaby Mountain.

Would it have a high enough capacity to meet the demand?

[BCPhil]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Would it have a high enough capacity to meet the demand?

Yes. I think you over estimate the demand of SFU. The student enrollment of SFU is only 26,000, and that is spread across multiple campuses, and not all students start class first thing in the morning every day.

According to the Translink bus review, the #145 averages under 10,000 boardings per weekday (and on weekends it is well under 3,000). The 143 sees 3150 weekday boardings (but it travels the length of Coquitlam first) and the 144 sees 5800 riders (and it travels through the heart of Burnaby), so the number of riders travelling to/from SFU on those lines is less than that.

That's a good number of riders, but hardly anything requiring Skytrain. A Skytrain line would be able to carry every single student enrolled at SFU to the campus in an hour. Is that necessary?

The new aerial cable car transit systems in South America are capable of carrying 3,000 pphpd. It would match the demand of the 145 with a little over 3 hours of work.

And Hastings is a bit over rated. According to Translink, the population in a 400m buffer of route 135 is 55,000. Good, but not stellar when you consider how long the route is. Most of the length of the street, once you walk past the first alleyway off Hastings, it's just detached housing.

I don't know if a Skytrain would be needed along much of Hastings when the Millennium line is only 2.3km away at the furthest point. Main and Fraser have similar statistics (population/ridership) and Commercial and Arbutus blow the 135 out of the water. If you did do Skytrain, there is no need for it to extend past Hastings park for the next 40 years.

And that is the main difference. You could conceivably build a gondola to SFU within a few years with very mild financing (in some scenarios the business case saves money vs keeping it as bus), but Skytrain to SFU wouldn't be financed at any point in my lifetime, and I intend to see the next century.

[queetz@home]

Originally Posted by BCPhil

Yes. I think you over estimate the demand of SFU. The student enrollment of SFU is only 26,000, and that is spread across multiple campuses, and not all students start class first thing in the morning every day.

According to the Translink bus review, the #145 averages under 10,000 boardings per weekday (and on weekends it is well under 3,000). The 143 sees 3150 weekday boardings (but it travels the length of Coquitlam first) and the 144 sees 5800 riders (and it travels through the heart of Burnaby), so the number of riders travelling to/from SFU on those lines is less than that.

That's a good number of riders, but hardly anything requiring Skytrain. A Skytrain line would be able to carry every single student enrolled at SFU to the campus in an hour. Is that necessary?

The new aerial cable car transit systems in South America are capable of carrying 3,000 pphpd. It would match the demand of the 145 with a little over 3 hours of work.

And Hastings is a bit over rated. According to Translink, the population in a 400m buffer of route 135 is 55,000. Good, but not stellar when you consider how long the route is. Most of the length of the street, once you walk past the first alleyway off Hastings, it's just detached housing.

I don't know if a Skytrain would be needed along much of Hastings when the Millennium line is only 2.3km away at the furthest point. Main and Fraser have similar statistics (population/ridership) and Commercial and Arbutus blow the 135 out of the water. If you did do Skytrain, there is no need for it to extend past Hastings park for the next 40 years.

And that is the main difference. You could conceivably build a gondola to SFU within a few years with very mild financing (in some scenarios the business case saves money vs keeping it as bus), but Skytrain to SFU wouldn't be financed at any point in my lifetime, and I intend to see the next century.

Amen Amen Amen AMEN!!!! Finally some sanity! People have this mistaken impression that just because there is a university that building billion dollar extension for its riders justifies it. But there are far more dynamics behind the ridership of university students and even staff that you cannot just look at simple numbers at face value.

There are reasons why planners, those that studied and worked at such professions all their lives would say Broadway should only be in Arbutus or Surrey should be the priority, why LRT is better than Skytrain, and so on say such things. What they say are far more credible than the arm chair analysts you see in this forums or in blogs like "Skytrain for Surrey". Just because casual observations show Hastings Street having heavy traffic does not mean you need to have a rail line there.

So the next time a planner or even a duly elected municipal politician regardless of party says something that is contrary to the views of some forumers, no matter how counter intuitive and how seemingly politically motivated, I would still give them the benefit of the doubt than those that nitpick over a choice of technology or route because it looks pretty on a map or more fun to ride with...

[GeeCee]

Originally Posted by queetz@home

Amen Amen Amen AMEN!!!! Finally some sanity! People have this mistaken impression that just because there is a university that building billion dollar extension for its riders justifies it. But there are far more dynamics behind the ridership of university students and even staff that you cannot just look at simple numbers at face value.

There are reasons why planners, those that studied and worked at such professions all their lives would say Broadway should only be in Arbutus or Surrey should be the priority, why LRT is better than Skytrain, and so on say such things. What they say are far more credible than the arm chair analysts you see in this forums or in blogs like "Skytrain for Surrey". Just because casual observations show Hastings Street having heavy traffic does not mean you need to have a rail line there.

So the next time a planner or even a duly elected municipal politician regardless of party says something that is contrary to the views of some forumers, no matter how counter intuitive and how seemingly politically motivated, I would still give them the benefit of the doubt than those that nitpick over a choice of technology or route because it looks pretty on a map or more fun to ride with...

UBC is a completely different animal than SFU. As usual, you have no idea what you're talking about.

[Rico]

Originally Posted by GeeCee

UBC is a completely different animal than SFU. As usual, you have no idea what you're talking about.

True but remember 2/3s of the ridership of a Broadway line will be East of Arbutus. West of Arbutus will only be 5000 people per hour per direction, this could be considered the lower end of justifying a Skytrain but if you are looking to get the best bang for limited dollars Skytrain to Arbutus is a slam dunk but past Arbutus it is marginal.

[Jebby]

Originally Posted by queetz@home

There are reasons why planners, those that studied and worked at such professions all their lives would say Broadway should only be in Arbutus or Surrey should be the priority, why LRT is better than Skytrain, and so on say such things.

Um...what? Who says any of that?

[Jebby]

Originally Posted by Rico

West of Arbutus will only be 5000 people per hour per direction, this could be considered the lower end of justifying a Skytrain

If that's the case then the Canada Line probably shouldn't have been built as that's what it currently gets in ridership.

[xd_1771]

Hmmm. I'm not a mod here or anything and don't have any real power outside of words but I'm going to have to remind everyone here that this is a discussion forum... and, well, we're entitled to make suggestions here that are contrary to what politicians think. I think it's what we're supposed to be doing here. So if you don't like it, don't participate.

On the SFU topic, A Gondola is definitely the most reasonable alternative to pursue if we're looking at what to build in the next 10 years. It will bring tangible benefits over existing transit at a cost that could be reasonable when there is a proper cost-benefit analysis.

However, I'm going to admit, a SkyTrain tunnel might be a suitable alternative for SFU at some point in the future because we don't know what this place is going to look like in 20, 30 or 40 years. Broadway has come to require a SkyTrain extension just 20 years after the 99 was introduced. We're going to have a Hastings B-Line next year and for all we know it, Hastings could be rapid transit ready by the time we hit the 2040s. If we still haven't built a gondola by then (and I really hope we will have), adding an SFU link to a SkyTrain extension along Hastings may very well be a more cost-efficient way of proceeding than a gondola - given the opportunity to create a direct linkage with another major project.

On the UBC topic, by the way, we have to realize that a UBC station will be the region's second busiest SkyTrain station after Commercial-Broadway just based on the existing ridership numbers across all of the UBC express bus routes (99, 43, 44, 480, 258).

Unlike places like downtown, Metrotown, or even Surrey City Centre, UBC is quite far off the centre of the region, which means that not having a SkyTrain link is really holding back its potential to be a accessible for the entire region. If you consider UBC's assets on top of the existing ridership numbers, extending SkyTrain there is still a very viable prospect - with real, tangible benefits that go further than just saving students time on their commute. Is it less cost-effective, well, in pure ridership terms then that would likely be the case - but the extension should not be suddenly unviable just because ridership won't be as high as it is east of Arbutus.

[djmk]

Can Skytrain go to SFU? That is quite the slope

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by djmk

Can Skytrain go to SFU? That is quite the slope

Go back to pages 413 / 414 - we had an extended discussion on it.

[djmk]

Sorry, late to the party

[sweetnhappy]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

Hmmm. I'm not a mod here or anything and don't have any real power outside of words but I'm going to have to remind everyone here that this is a discussion forum... and, well, we're entitled to make suggestions here that are contrary to what politicians think. I think it's what we're supposed to be doing here. So if you don't like it, don't participate.

Well said.

Originally Posted by xd_1771

Broadway has come to require a SkyTrain extension just 20 years after the 99 was introduced.

It's actually needed a SkyTrain extension for a while now (5-10 years at least). I sure hope that it is "shovel-ready" by the time the next round of federal funding for transit comes.

[nname]

This thread seems to have gone so far off topic..

Anyways, the one day I didn't have my camera, I saw them testing the platform level at Lincoln. The first 2 lines shows the destination and time till the next 2 trains (like the ones at Canada Line), while the third row scrolls those messages you typically see on the display for existing E&M stations.

[red-paladin]

Thanks for bringing the thread back on track.

[officedweller]

Found this:

• Video Link