Metro Vancouver Transit Discussion

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

Outlook 2018: New year could bring springtime for transit plans

Regional projects stalled in 2017, but change of government could accelerate 2018 action

...

https://www.biv.com/article/2017/12/outlook-2018-new-year-could-bring-springtime-trans/

Let's not forget:

“If anything it looks more promising,” LaClaire said. “The Liberal government, they seemed to be just really quiet and silent in terms of non-support for massive transit investment in the region. If anything they were kind of putting up a lot of roadblocks and trying to make the [Mayors’ Council] do this and that.” The Mayor’s Council would comply, he said, but the provincial government “wouldn’t follow through on their part.”

[flipper316]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

Outlook 2018: New year could bring springtime for transit plans

Regional projects stalled in 2017, but change of government could accelerate 2018 action

By Patrick Blennerhassett | Dec. 19, 2017, 6 a.m.


Lon LaClaire, Vancouver’s director of transportation, says the city is hoping to take lessons learned from Canada Line SkyTrain construction and apply it to the Broadway subway line extension | Chung Chow

The past 12 months “could be characterized as the year of the second opinion when it comes to transportation futures for the region,” said Anthony Perl, a professor of urban studies and political science at Simon Fraser University.


But 2018 could bring a thaw in the long winter that has frozen in place plans for major public transit infrastructure projects in Greater Vancouver.

...

https://www.biv.com/article/2017/12/outlook-2018-new-year-could-bring-springtime-trans/

Holy does that entrance there look dirty and grimy especially with the older buildings and small gravel lot right next to the station entrance wall.

[Express691]

Small talk:

According to TransLink alerts, Bridgeport Station will be undergoing bus bay re-assignments tomorrow.

403 Three Road: Bay 3 (#61323)

480 UBC: Bay 4 (#61324)

311 Scottsdale / 601 South Delta: Bay 6 (#61326)

602 Tsawwassen Heights / 603 Beach Grove / 604 English Bluff: Bay 7 (#61327)

620 Tsawwassen Ferry: Bay 11 (#61331)

My reasoning for the changes:

1) A lot of old people use the 403 so I guess they complained about how far it was from the station.

2) The queue line for the 601 can get messy and mix in with the 407/430 stop at bay 5.

[s211]

Originally Posted by flipper316

Holy does that entrance there look dirty and grimy especially with the older buildings and small gravel lot right next to the station entrance wall.

I could be wrong, but I think the city might own those old buildings just east of the station entrance.

And I'm pretty sure there's no gravel lots in the area. They're all paved.

[Sheba]

Some good news from The Buzzer Blog

With current economic growth continuing upward, we anticipate paralleled ridership growth in step with continued transit expansion, beginning with the permanent addition of new hours of bus service in 2018 followed by the addition of four new B-Lines in 2019. New SkyTrain cars are scheduled to begin arriving in late 2018, as well as a new SeaBus in 2019 – paving the way for further service improvements.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by s211

I could be wrong, but I think the city might own those old buildings just east of the station entrance.

yes the city owns them, there are city offices in those buildings even. in the future this, Reimagine City Hall, may consume those buildings.

Originally Posted by s211

And I'm pretty sure there's no gravel lots in the area. They're all paved.

he doesnt mean parking lot, he means the property lot between the station house and first building. it is a gravel property. it looks nicer in the summer.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.2631786,-...itch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

yes the city owns them, there are city offices in those buildings even. in the future this, Reimagine City Hall, may consume those buildings.

Yeah, that's supposed to be the site of "new city hall" - especially for customer service counters, etc.

They've talked about it since the mid-1990s.

I think the NE corner of the site is outside of the 12th & Cambie view cones.

[s211]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

he doesnt mean parking lot, he means the property lot between the station house and first building. it is a gravel property. it looks nicer in the summer.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.2631786,-...itch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Right. Noticed that yesterday. My failing memory...

[dpogue]

Noticed two new bids on the TransLink page, unfortunately I can't get the full details because they don't post them publicly as PDF files anymore

Electrical Upgrades for Commercial Retail Units (CRU) at SkyTrain Stations

TransLink is looking to enter into a contract with experienced electrical installation services Contractor(s) to facilitate electrical upgrades to Commercial Retail Units (“CRU”) at the SkyTrain Stations listed below:

1. Stadium-Chinatown
2. King George
3. Renfrew
4. Rupert
5. Holdom

BCRTC Vehicle Storage Facility (VSF) Expansion

TransLink is considering a design build (DB) approach versus a traditional design-bid-build (DBB) for the SkyTrain Storage – Coquitlam VSF Expansion Project – Phase OMC 3A. The intent of this RFI is to gauge interest and obtain information from the contractor community.

[MIPS]

Several things I've noticed on my trip this last weekend (sorry, no photos):

-Most wayfinding signage has now been upgraded.
--Underground stations have some signage that is ILLUMINATED, which is rather nice
--At some point I didn't see they changed the signage style AGAIN. Compared to the early material installed at New Westminster with hard edges, newer signs have a curved top and bottom
--Every station now has TWICE the platform signage than before. I guess if you don't make the text bigger, you can just put it everywhere and people will clue in

-Several yellow platform edge tiles are poking out through the plywood at Commercial-Broadway now

-People are crawling UNDER the faregates.

-One of the new glass panels at Lafarge has a nice bullseye from a rock. I wonder how long that will take to replace. The one at Main Street is STILL broken.

-There is a lot of lighting at Granville, Stadium and Burrard that does not work.

-The bathroom outside Main Street - Science World ACTUALLY WORKS now
--Yes I am aware that is a city thing and not TransLink but be damned if you are going somewhere and you have to "go"

-Some of the foliage overhanging the guideway in problematic areas (between Nanaimo and 29th) has been trimmed back.

-New fencing AND razor wire in the open spaces between Waterfront and the tunnel.

-Most of the Super Soaker graffitti at Stadium has been washed off platform 3 after being there almost a year. They also scrubbed it off the remaining original wayfinding signage over there, which was nice.

[ssiguy]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Ummm, nope.

The initial project will only be 2700 pphpd, using 40 meter platforms.

The ultimate build out will be 4080 pphpd after extending the platforms to 60 meters (which would involve a second round of construction).

That is less than a third of the Canada Line’s ultimate build out of 15 000 pphpd. (Not to mention the other aspects)

I know that the CL was suppose to be built to 15k pphpd but I thought that was downgraded by Campbell? The 15k number came from having a potential for a 3 car trains but that morphed into a "middle car" which is only half the size of a full 20 meter car. They "technically" kept their promise of a system expandable to a 3 car train but the reality is that it dropped potential capacity by 18% to 12.5k pphpd.

The 15k pphpd was also a lie because the trains were originally suppose to have luggage racks over the chairs due to serving the airport and 2 major colleges. That was one of the reasons why the CL didn't go standard ART Mark 3 trains........they couldn't have been as easily accommodating of overhead racks. So we got standard Metro cars but without the racks regardless. This of course "technically" doesn't change capacity but in the real transit world it most certainly does with all the students backpacks and especially large amounts of luggage for people heading to YVR taking up valuable seats and walking/standing room. One rolling piece of luggage or big travel nap-sack takes up as much space as a standing passenger.

[waves]

Originally Posted by MIPS

People are crawling UNDER the faregates.

Under!?! I am disappointed you didn't get a photo. I imagine it would have been hilariously awkward.

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I know that the CL was suppose to be built to 15k pphpd but I thought that was downgraded by Campbell? The 15k number came from having a potential for a 3 car trains but that morphed into a "middle car" which is only half the size of a full 20 meter car. They "technically" kept their promise of a system expandable to a 3 car train but the reality is that it dropped potential capacity by 18% to 12.5k pphpd.

The 15k pphpd was also a lie because the trains were originally suppose to have luggage racks over the chairs due to serving the airport and 2 major colleges. That was one of the reasons why the CL didn't go standard ART Mark 3 trains........they couldn't have been as easily accommodating of overhead racks. So we got standard Metro cars but without the racks regardless. This of course "technically" doesn't change capacity but in the real transit world it most certainly does with all the students backpacks and especially large amounts of luggage for people heading to YVR taking up valuable seats and walking/standing room. One rolling piece of luggage or big travel nap-sack takes up as much space as a standing passenger.

We have been over and over and over this.

The final contract was for an ultimate build out of 15 000 pphpd.

Nothing was changed after that.

You even get your data wrong, again.

The C cars will not be half length (10 meters), they will be 15 meters. Most of this loss in length is due to the fact that the C car will be a dummy car, as in it will not have any of the computer components that take up space on the A and B cars. The front and Back of the A and B cars will overhang the platforms but all door will access them.

Unless you have an official source that clearly displays that the build out ridership was reduced to 12 500 pphpd please stop this nonsense.

[ssiguy]

When the CL was under construction I went to InTransitBC and they sad that the stations were to be built to handle 3 FULL cars and not just a mid-car. I am going by what they told me then.

[SpongeG]

Rogers Completes SkyTrain Wireless Network as Evergreen Extension Goes Live

BY GARY NG – 1 DAY AGO14 COMMENTS

Rogers and TransLink have announced this morning wireless coverage is now complete across the entire SkyTrain system in Metro Vancouver. This week saw the 2.5 kilometre Burquitlam Tunnel on the Evergreen extension of the Millennium Line finish, along with final LTE and voice expansion across Dunsmuir, Edmonds and Columbia stations as well.

...

http://www.iphoneincanada.ca/carriers/rogers/rogers-skytrain-wireless-evergreen/

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

When the CL was under construction I went to InTransitBC and they sad that the stations were to be built to handle 3 FULL cars and not just a mid-car. I am going by what they told me then.

i was at a open-house where a rep for canada line said they had finalized the size of the tunnels to make construction easier, but hadnt decided on who was making the trains that could fit in the tunnels

this struck me as back-asswards decision-making

[Reecemartin]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

Ummm, nope.

The initial project will only be 2700 pphpd, using 40 meter platforms.

The ultimate build out will be 4080 pphpd after extending the platforms to 60 meters (which would involve a second round of construction).

That is less than a third of the Canada Line’s ultimate build out of 15 000 pphpd. (Not to mention the other aspects)

I am not completely against LRT (it can be built right) but this specific project has a terrible cost benefit ratio and is inferior to nearly all other LRT projects in North America.

It should be noted that back in 2012 this projected was promised to be over 10 000 ppdph... now we are getting less than half of that.

I'm not sure how it can be inferior to nearly all other projects in North America... as I mention time and time again Ontario is building numerous LRT projects and most of them are being built to a very similar spec. I was unaware that they didn't plan to build platforms to 2 car length to start with as that seems like an obvious decision that most of the Ontario systems are making then again Eglinton has an above ground section nearly as long as the Surrey LRT and has a max capacity with three cars of 15,000 so Surrey should be able to hit at least 8000. (Also worth noting that extending the LRT platforms is pretty minor construction which is a benefit over skytrain. You are basically just building a longer raised curb which is going to be easier than extending a skytrain station anyday) hopefully we can all agree on that.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Reecemartin

I'm not sure how it can be inferior to nearly all other projects in North America... as I mention time and time again Ontario is building numerous LRT projects and most of them are being built to a very similar spec. I was unaware that they didn't plan to build platforms to 2 car length to start with as that seems like an obvious decision that most of the Ontario systems are making then again Eglinton has an above ground section nearly as long as the Surrey LRT and has a max capacity with three cars of 15,000 so Surrey should be able to hit at least 8000.

Once more, for effect: the socio-economic review estimates 2,700 pphpd for opening day and 4,080 pphpd when fully built. Before anybody accuses anybody of cherrypicking, those are Surrey's official numbers - one train every three minutes, carrying 204 passengers (roughly the same size as the Eglinton's Flexity trams).

Originally Posted by Reecemartin

(Also worth noting that extending the LRT platforms is pretty minor construction which is a benefit over skytrain. You are basically just building a longer raised curb which is going to be easier than extending a skytrain station anyday) hopefully we can all agree on that.

The Expo Line can also move 15,000 pphpd, non-upgraded. Unless TransLink's got enough trams and drivers to run every 45 seconds, you'd need 11-car platforms to match that!

[Rico]

We all have a tendancy to simplify our points by comparing our systems to other existing or proposed systems....but I would like to add a caution. We need to remember different systems capacities are limited by different constraints. Capacity is pretty easy to figure out in a completely grade seperated system like skytrain (capacity/train X frequency) but systems like Surrey or Eglington are constrained by different things. In the end systems like these have an ultimate capacity based on what frequency the system can achieve without compromising reliability and creating unacceptable traffic problems. This will be different for different systems. I suspect the Surrey LRT capacity is largely limited by the truely horrible junction at King George and 104th....where Metrolink claims a final capacity of 15,000pphpd for Eglington....because they grade seperated the major conflicts.

[GlassCity]

^Surrey LRT's capacity is hampered by its general at-grade design and relatively low frequencies. In general, at-grade transit isn't intended to move the amounts of people a grade-separated line is. While LRT has higher theoretical capacity, it's rarely taken advantage of in urban settings (As in Portland, not Calgary) due to its limited demand.