Rural Commuter Rail

[zzptichka]

Originally Posted by Charles5

is there any way to post an image to this forum without it being a link to a URL? I've created a graphic of my own (jpg) that I was hoping to include with some comments.

Upload it to imgur.com (no account required), get a link and insert it with [img] tag.

[Joseph Potvin]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I guess this confirms that Moose will be a vector for sprawl.

@Truenorth00: Moreso or less than roads & cars? Would you like to back up your view with pointers to your comparative empirical sources?

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

And now we have a private operator proposing to hijack a city owned rail corridor to get sprawl going into overdrive.

In your view, is Moose seeking anything other that to engage with railway corridor owners as described in Sections 112 and 138 of the Canada Transportation Act?
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-10.4/page-20.html#h-72
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-10.4/page-16.html#h-62

Or do you disagree in principle with Section 92(10)(a) of Canada's Constitution?
http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-4.html#h-19

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

In Stockholm you have a private sector rail operator charging fares and operating the system. Moose says they can impose a voluntary tax

So in your view:
(a) Individual pays a monthly pass for train service at their location, that's business.
(b) Corporation pay a monthly fee for train service at their location, that's a tax.

Is it the B2B aspect that bothers you? Must transit be a "retail' B2C or G2C thing only?

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

If regional transit is to be delivered, one would hope the primary purpose is to serve the interests and needs of area residents

Which regional transit plan are you referring to that meets your criterion. There isn't one. Because there is no National Capital Regional public sector body with a mandate to serve the interests and needs of area residents. The business design of Moose Consortium is a workaround to achieve the practical purpose of financing whole-region rail. You're entitled to insist that the conventional way is the only way, and perhaps on this blog thread you'll be willing to put forward a thought or two about how your preferred concept ought to be funded, and how it ought to be organizationally structured.

Looking forward to learning about your concept.

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

[Joseph Potvin]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

You don't expect an honest answer do you?

If you disagree with our direction or views, we're on this forum to listen and discuss.

If you believe that my postings on behalf of Moose Consortium have stated anything false or misleading, please point to the specific issue(s). Broad assertions of mistrust do not enable practical discussion.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

It's not like he's going to come on and say, "The mayor told me to stuff it."

Actually, you nailed it! Mr. Watson has indeed told us to stuff it, to put it in your words. But he said the same to the NCC in 2013 in relation to the Internprovincial Transportation Strategy.

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Oh. And Joseph, don't throw around examples you aren't personally knowledgeable about.

I presume you are referring to my comment "Whether bytes or butts, they have to get delivered on-time and intact, and certainly in both, lives depend on multi-layered systems resilience (e.g. both MASAS and Search & Rescue Canada run on free/libre/open stacks)"

Actually, while I worked at Treasury Board Secretariat I led the business design and implementation for the "High Resilience Environment" (HRE) that MASAS, Search & Rescue Canada and several other significant services have now relied on for several years. Another well-known service on the HRE is https://buyandsell.gc.ca/ In fact, 2017 is the HRE's 10th year of operation (if you include the first 3 "proof-of-concept" years). It's a back-end platform, so not considered 'news' material. It's a genuine "horizontal initiative" but the budget was much smaller than the minimum threshold for that list.

My involvement with free/libre/open source in the public sector dates back to 2001/2002 when I was hired by PWGSC to introduce that approach government-wide:
http://www.flora.ca/citizen-20021010.phtml
http://www.flora.ca/osss2002/eventssch-e.html
"You Paid What??!"
http://wiki.c2.com/?OpenSourceSecurityStrategy
...well, actually, the first time I led a 100% free/libre/open source project in the Canadian Government was in 1999.

Regarding the free/libre/open approach in the software industry more generally, the curriculum I developed for manager training under contract to a global Fortune 500 company in 2013 was then adapted for sharing via the Open Source Initiative. Here is it, though it's somewhat dated now:
https://wiki.opensource.org/bin/Projects/flow-syllabus/

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

None of it is FOSS. At best, some of it is built to common standards, those being NATO/US MILSTDs.

You might find these useful:
https://code.nasa.gov/
http://www.mil-oss.org/
https://blogs.cisco.com/openatcisco/open-source-at-the-large-hadron-collider-and-data-gravity
And of course, it goes beyond software:
https://press.cern/press-releases/2011/07/cern-launches-open-hardware-initiative

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

[Joseph Potvin]

Originally Posted by Charles5

In everything that MOOSE seems to publish the risk is minimized or even trivialized. I paraphrase: There is no risk to taxpayers as this is all privately funded. The commuter can pay what they want, no risk there. Even investors don't seem to have any risk. They only share in the profits as land values rise.... I also hope that the financial risks are not simply passed down from large corporations to tenants, members, etc through increased fees or rents.

Why paraphrase? Can you cite anything we've said that trivializes any component of risk? Do you suggest that because we are designing a way to distribute financial risk to those parties who would most directly benefit financially in the real property sector, that we have ignored risk? We think it's exactly the opposite: we designed PPR to manage risk, and liabilities explicitly. You seem to imply that since the federal government self-insures, somehow financial risk goes away for public sector transit systems.

Can you please be more specific about the components of risk you're referring to?

Originally Posted by Charles5

I do hope that when it actually comes down to this affecting folks financially that there is an open and transparent explanation of where the money is going and what the potential risks are.

Most people find our 20-page white paper, and all the other reports online, too much information. For more detail, you'll just need to wait for the results of our further design-feasibility-revenue-cost study.

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

[Joseph Potvin]

Originally Posted by roger1818

I have delt with enoght startup CEOs to know how they tick and Joseph isn't much different. They are great salesmen and spin masters

@roger1818,

Ad hominen attacks are probably not as effective as evidential or reasoned debate. I'm taking some time on this forum to respond to issues raised. If you begin with a premise that IF someone is a start-up founder THEN s/he is a spin-master, you've not left any room for evidential or reasoned debate.

Originally Posted by roger1818

VCs with any experience...

VC's typically look for a 3-year payback period, therefore they don't engage in long-term infrastructure capital investment.

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

[Joseph Potvin]

Originally Posted by Charles5

Joseph, Perhaps you can clarify something for me. I've been reviewing your Business Model and it seems to differ somewhat from what I've interpreted from your comments on the site.

Our team-reviewed work on the website should be considered more authoritative than blog discussion posts.

Originally Posted by Charles5

Specifically it goes back to the Station Owners. I got the impression from your earlier statements that Station Owners were the ones collecting the revenue from the property owners and using that to operate the station as well as contributing to the operations of the rail line. However, the graphic on your website suggests otherwise. In the image it appears that all revenue from properties goes to the consortium and none to the station owner. In fact, the station owner also has to pay fees to the consortiun in exchange for the "business opportunity".

Participating commercial/residential property owners pay x% of the increment to their station operator under some form of JUMA, a sort of contract-based arrangement that operates like a commercial/industrial "common elements" freehold condominium. The participating commercial/residential property owners also KEEP y% of the increment. Using the proceeds of the aggregated revenues of the x% portions, the station corporation subscribes to train service.

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

Why paraphrase? Can you cite anything we've said that trivializes any component of risk? Do you suggest that because we are designing a way to distribute financial risk to those parties who would most directly benefit financially in the real property sector, that we have ignored risk? We think it's exactly the opposite: we designed PPR to manage risk, and liabilities explicitly. You seem to imply that since the federal government self-insures, somehow financial risk goes away for public sector transit systems.

The federal government self-insures because it has almost unlimited resources to back any claim (and average claims are less than premiums). I am not sure how that is comparable in any way to a real estate developer or condo corporation.

Your business model is similar to a tech startup. The stations need a large injection of capital years before there is any revenue, collateral is small compared to the capital requirements, once revenue starts to trickle in, it will be years before it ramps up, the size of the market is unknown and if it is successful there are few barriers of entry for competitors.

A tech VC is often willing to take on a risk profile like this because the returns can be gargantuan if they have hit upon a winner. As you said, a VC would not be interested in this type of investment.

I think the reason people are sceptical about the risk management is that you haven't given any indication of who would be willing (and able) to assume this kind of risk profile.

[Joseph Potvin]

Originally Posted by acottawa

The federal government self-insures because it has almost unlimited resources to back any claim (and average claims are less than premiums)."

Speaking as an economist, which is what I am in terms of formal education, I suggest that the common belief that a national government has "almost unlimited resources" is false. It seems true if you count only one side of the balance sheet, and dismiss the other side of it as 'external effects'.

Originally Posted by acottawa

The stations need a large injection of capital years before there is any revenue

Not correct. You've not read our plan for rapidly-deployed minimum stations:
https://www.letsgomoose.ca/wp-content/up...w_RailTransitStations_2016-09-26_PDF.pdf

And empirical studies in most markets show that the value increment begins as soon at the market learns that a station will be going in at a certain location. You'll find the references in the PPR white paper.

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

[acottawa]

[/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

Speaking as an economist, which is what I am in terms of formal education, I suggest that the common belief that a national government has "almost unlimited resources" is false. It seems true if you count only one side of the balance sheet, and dismiss the other side of it as 'external effects'.

Relative to any potential insurance claim it does.

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

Not correct. You've not read our plan for rapidly-deployed minimum stations:
https://www.letsgomoose.ca/wp-content/up...w_RailTransitStations_2016-09-26_PDF.pdf

Stations are not your biggest capital expense. At a minimum you need hundreds of millions to get abandoned, washed out, etc. track up to a functional standard and tens of millions in rolling stock. More than likely that if the CTA delivers the orders you want, they will also order you to pay for capital improvements where existing lines are at capacity (particularly the Capital Railways track, but maybe also some of the Via track). Providing money for the track in particular is a high risk investment because there are no tangible assets (various third parties will still own the track if moose or its related entities go bankrupt).

But, the challenge you're going to have is the more temporary the facilities appear, the more air of risk the project will take on and the more difficult it will be for people to make longer-term decisions (like selling their house in the suburbs to move to the countryside).

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

And empirical studies in most markets show that the value increment begins as soon at the market learns that a station will be going in at a certain location. You'll find the references in the PPR white paper.

That has certainly not been the case for the Ottawa LRT, where station locations have been known for almost a decade. But even if it is the case a rise in prices for future development sites does not provide anywhere near the billions in transit-related appreciation necessary to fund the system, which would only come as developments are built out. Land prices in this area are not that high.

Also, an increase in value in these lands would be dependent on developers being convinced that the necessary municipal approvals will be received, which I would not be sure of (particularly if the OMB is abolished as planned or the province brings in further anti-sprawl initiatives).

[Joseph Potvin]

Originally Posted by acottawa

That has certainly not been the case for the Ottawa LRT, where station locations have been known for almost a decade.

Really? Look again at the major developments now being realized around the new OLRT stations, and work backwards to when their planning would have had to begin.

And that's for the limited transit connectivity of that system.

Formal empirical studies show that the value increment is greater the more comprehensive the catchment area.

We’re trying to solve a very hard problem in a novel way, and we're collaborating with others who are committing the intellectual and financial resources required to give this method a chance.

Joseph Potvin
Director General | Directeur général
Moose Consortium (Mobility Ottawa-Outaouais: Systems & Enterprises) | www.letsgomoose.com
Consortium Moose (Mobilité Outaouais-Ottawa: Systèmes & Enterprises) | www.onyvamoose.com

[Charles5]

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

Most people find our 20-page white paper, and all the other reports online, too much information. For more detail, you'll just need to wait for the results of our further design-feasibility-revenue-cost study.

In this case the quantity of information provided does not equate to the quality of information provided. You can have 1000s of pages of rosy outlook and a tiny portion of negative aspects hidden in the fine print at the end. The case here is that the vast majority of the folks who will reside in these catchment areas aren't economists, aren't businessmen, and won't be reading through all your paperwork. My greatest concern is for those folks who don't even have an option to join or not, those folks who are renters or even condo owners who may simply have higher rents or higher fees imposed on them without their explicit knowledge or consent.

[Charles5]

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

Can you please be more specific about the components of risk you're referring to?

I'm speaking about financial risk in general (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_risk) and all of it's various elements which seem to be trivialized in all of the documentation you have provided so far. In fact, a Google advanced search of the letsgomoose web domain and the search term "financial risk" only turned up two occasion where the term "financial risk" was used. In both instances it had to do with minimizing it. Specifically in https://www.letsgomoose.ca/wp-content/uploads/AnnexPa_Moose_Brochure_Ottawa_2016-01_PDF.pdf you speak about "without saddling the city with financial risk" and in https://www.letsgomoose.ca/wp-content/up...pertyPoweredRailModel_2016-06-28_PDF.pdf you talk about "controlled financial risk".

Other terms such as "credit risk", "liquidity risk", "investment risk" etc all failed to turn up any instances on your website.

[Charles5]

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

Our team-reviewed work on the website should be considered more authoritative than blog discussion posts.

Well, if your website is the authority than this schematic shows that no revenue is going to the station owner from the property owners. This is contradictory to your subsequent statement

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

Participating commercial/residential property owners pay x% of the increment to their station operator

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

Really? Look again at the major developments now being realized around the new OLRT stations, and work backwards to when their planning would have had to begin.

There are 3 projects currently underway near the LRT.

Richcraft is building low-rise rental units on a large development site it owns.
Riocan is building a high rise rental building.
Inside edge is building a six story office building.

All three started construction this year and and the high rise and office building sought development approval last year, some eight years after the location of the station was known. All three sites have approvals for much larger developments, but are phasing development because of low demand. Meanwhile, several approved development sites (and many potential development sites) remain untouched.

Someone with access to more detailed real estate data might have more accurate insights, but it doesn't seem that the future LRT has caused a generalized increase in nearby property values. Recent press reports have indicated Orleans is among the slowest-growing property markets in the city, despite the announced location of future LRT stations.

Originally Posted by Joseph Potvin

We’re trying to solve a very hard problem in a novel way, and we're collaborating with others who are committing the intellectual and financial resources required to give this method a chance.

What is the problem you're trying to solve? Your planned high density communities in rural areas are unlikely to have much appeal for existing rural residents and there is lots of room for development (particularly high density development) inside the existing urban areas. This is a business model for a community running out of space applied to a community with no such problems. Even if your high-density rural communities are wildly successful, you will have succeeded in moving tens of thousands of people from urban areas to areas where there are fewer amenities, less infrastructure, doomed them to long commutes and gobbled up lots of farmland.

[Truenorth00]

I can't really tell whether Mr. Potvin is selling or is true believer who's swallowed his own tonic.

That aside. The projects increasingly seems to show less promise for existing residents in those towns than to future residents living around the stations. Which again begs the question that nobody (particularly anybody from MOOSE) seems to be answering (and which acottawa has asked too), "Who moves to the countryside for high density living?"

I've had a condo at Place Des Governeur since 2007. In that time, they've actually scaled back plans. They initially proposed several 10+ storey towers in that centre patch which my neighbours got all up in arms about. Demand collapsed earlier this decade. And despite the switch in LRT plans to something benefiting Cyrville, they've had to build low-rise brownstones with outdoor parking to keep the costs down. I'm huge a fan of transit oriented development. But Ottawa seems to suck hard at it. Add in the proposed riocan tower at Blair and the rentals being built at Cyrville itself and demand seems most flaccid, given the serious lack of development for non-rentals.

Mr. Potvin ascribes this to "the limited transit connectivity of that system." Given that MOOSE isn't going to have feeder bus services or transfer arrangements with OC Transpo or STO (that have been publicly revealed to date), I can only imagine how Moose will fair. If the Confederation LRT line is a system with "limited transit connectivity", what does that make Moose?

[Charles5]

I like to use basic numbers and simple scenarios to see how rational a proposal is. Here's another way I'm looking at this.

Assumptions: 50 stations. $200M annual operating costs. 1.3M people in the region. All personnel within 0.8Km of the station contribute. These are all figures provided by MOOSE at one time or another to the best of my knowledge.

First of all. I took a map of the region (background map image courtesy of Google Maps). I superimposed on it 50 dots each approximately 1.6km in diameter along the proposed rail lines. They are not all in appropriate locations, I used roughly the 35 locations shown on the schematic on the MOOSE website and then just generally added an additional 15 in between to fill out the lines.

Conclusion number 1. Even if all this were to happen, I don't believe there are sufficient potential station locations to create 50 stations. I was unable to find many good locations in between the ones already proposed on the MOOSE schematic. You will see that many of my stations are in the middle of nowhere. The only other possibility was to put these very close together inside the city core, but that has no real benefit either in my opinion.

Theoretical scenario: Assuming 1000 households per square km and 2.5 people per household around stations That would put almost 20% (250K) of the regional population within the dots shown on the map I created. Looking at the map and the density of the stations, I just can't visualize squeezing 20% of the local population into those blue dots.

Follow on: Assuming you can cram 50 stations along these lines, and you can get the 20% of the regional population in close proximity to those stations, here's the math. $200M annual operating costs divided by 100K households equals $2K per household per year. These funds would have to be generated through increased fees, increased rents, or increases in property value.

My opinion: I've used best case scenario numbers here. If there are fewer stations then the costs per station go up. If there are fewer people, either because density decrease or if not everyone in the zone participate, then the cost per household goes up. Even in the best case scenario, I just can not imagine any household being prepared to willingly contribute $2K per year on average to this endeavour either through fees, rents, or property sales value.

Any thoughts. Did I get my numbers right?

[Buggys]

Originally Posted by Charles5

I like to use basic numbers and simple scenarios to see how rational a proposal is. Here's another way I'm looking at this.

Assumptions: 50 stations. $200M annual operating costs. 1.3M people in the region. All personnel within 0.8Km of the station contribute. These are all figures provided by MOOSE at one time or another to the best of my knowledge.

First of all. I took a map of the region (background map image courtesy of Google Maps). I superimposed on it 50 dots each approximately 1.6km in diameter along the proposed rail lines. They are not all in appropriate locations, I used roughly the 35 locations shown on the schematic on the MOOSE website and then just generally added an additional 15 in between to fill out the lines.

Conclusion number 1. Even if all this were to happen, I don't believe there are sufficient potential station locations to create 50 stations. I was unable to find many good locations in between the ones already proposed on the MOOSE schematic. You will see that many of my stations are in the middle of nowhere. The only other possibility was to put these very close together inside the city core, but that has no real benefit either in my opinion.

Theoretical scenario: Assuming 1000 households per square km and 2.5 people per household around stations That would put almost 20% (250K) of the regional population within the dots shown on the map I created. Looking at the map and the density of the stations, I just can't visualize squeezing 20% of the local population into those blue dots.

Follow on: Assuming you can cram 50 stations along these lines, and you can get the 20% of the regional population in close proximity to those stations, here's the math. $200M annual operating costs divided by 100K households equals $2K per household per year. These funds would have to be generated through increased fees, increased rents, or increases in property value.

My opinion: I've used best case scenario numbers here. If there are fewer stations then the costs per station go up. If there are fewer people, either because density decrease or if not everyone in the zone participate, then the cost per household goes up. Even in the best case scenario, I just can not imagine any household being prepared to willingly contribute $2K per year on average to this endeavour either through fees, rents, or property sales value.

Any thoughts. Did I get my numbers right?

They're probably not just envisioning households to live around those TODs. They're probably thinking an amusement park here, a major employer there, a condo complex over there, a wilderness park way over there, etc. Still would be a massive undertaking though.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I've had a condo at Place Des Governeur since 2007. In that time, they've actually scaled back plans. They initially proposed several 10+ storey towers in that centre patch which my neighbours got all up in arms about. Demand collapsed earlier this decade. And despite the switch in LRT plans to something benefiting Cyrville, they've had to build low-rise brownstones with outdoor parking to keep the costs down. I'm huge a fan of transit oriented development. But Ottawa seems to suck hard at it. Add in the proposed riocan tower at Blair and the rentals being built at Cyrville itself and demand seems most flaccid, given the serious lack of development for non-rentals.

I think demand will pick up after the LRT opens, although I think richcraft made a mistake by having any sort of mixed use component or any amenities.

[Kitchissippi]

Originally Posted by acottawa

I think demand will pick up after the LRT opens, although I think richcraft made a mistake by having any sort of mixed use component or any amenities.

I've always thought that if they had done it like THIS the development would have been in very high demand

[gjhall]

Originally Posted by Kitchissippi

I've always thought that if they had done it like THIS the development would have been in very high demand

Seems like that would still be possible in the undeveloped parcels along Cyrville