Millennium Line - Broadway Extension: Planning & Pre-Construction

[trofirhen]

https://twitter.com/City_Duo/status/1102351295652872192

That entry by CITYDUO trying to block the Broadway underground skytrain was the most classic examples of NIMBYism I've seen in a long time.
Surely densities along WBroadway can be planned, with sensitivity; that is respecting the shopping/cafe aspect and developing density behind street level.
The street- cafés, offices, shops and restaurants are W Broaway's lifeblood.

There'are also a lot of ugly low-to midrise buidings, and a tall, 30 storey building isn't going to hurt it if it well integrated into the immediate urban landscape.

[misher]

Originally Posted by trofirhen

https://twitter.com/City_Duo/status/1102351295652872192

That entry by CITYDUO trying to block the Broadway underground skytrain was the most classic examples of NIMBYism I've seen in a long time.
Surely densities along WBroadway can be planned, with sensitivity; that is respecting the shopping/cafe aspect and developing density behind street level.
The street- cafés, offices, shops and restaurants are W Broaway's lifeblood.

There'are also a lot of ugly low-to midrise buidings, and a tall, 30 storey building isn't going to hurt it if it well integrated into the immediate urban landscape.

Just do what metrotown does, have towers around the major stations.

Arbutus (to a lesser extent), Granville, Oak, Cambie, Main, etc. can all have massive towers.

Well except if there's viewcones or helicopter paths? But I think Arbutus, Main and Granville are safe.

Just make the towers look good and leave gaps between them so they become part of the skyline/look instead of making things look ugly.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by officedweller

I'd rather have a company that has actual experience building the SktyTrain rather than a newbie.

Hopefully it is a twin bore - meaning centre platforms.
That would also mean easy wayfinding in the stations.

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

they should build all the busiest stations with centre platforms AND side platforms; problem solved.

What is the fascination with centre platforms? You potentially have both trains dumping into the same spot potentially at the same time.

Having both is called a Spanish Solution.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by misher

Just do what metrotown does, have towers around the major stations.

Arbutus (to a lesser extent), Granville, Oak, Cambie, Main, etc. can all have massive towers.

Well except if there's viewcones or helicopter paths? But I think Arbutus, Main and Granville are safe.

Just make the towers look good and leave gaps between them so they become part of the skyline/look instead of making things look ugly.

I think you have the right idea.

[scottN]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

SNC has offices in about 50 countries. that doesn't make them any less of a Quebec company. Microsoft has offices here; they aren't a Vancouver company.

I was thinking about it more from an employment perspective rather than a head office / corporate taxation perspective. There aren't that many offices that specialize in designing rapid transit systems in this country. One of them is located in Vancouver and is owned by SNC-Lavalin. That's as local a bidder as you are going to get on any rapid transit project in metro Vancouver.

I just wanted to hilight this since it seemed that few people were are aware that the engineers that designed the Canada Line, etc. for SNC-Lavalin are live and work in Vancouver.

[Bdawe]

Canada is not much better than the US. Americans’ world is flat, with its corners in Boston, Seattle, San Diego, and Miami. Canadians’ world includes the United States and Canada, making it flat with the northern ends of the quadrilateral stretched a few hundred kilometers to the north. A study of a long-overdue extension of Vancouver’s Millennium Line to UBC has four case studies for best practices, all from within North America. This is despite the fact that in the developed world the system most similar to Vancouver’s SkyTrain in technology and age is the Copenhagen Metro, whose construction costs are one half as high as those of Vancouver despite cost and schedule overruns.

https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/03/03/why-american-costs-are-so-high-work-in-progress/

[Alex Mackinnon]

Originally Posted by scottN

I was thinking about it more from an employment perspective rather than a head office / corporate taxation perspective. There aren't that many offices that specialize in designing rapid transit systems in this country. One of them is located in Vancouver and is owned by SNC-Lavalin. That's as local a bidder as you are going to get on any rapid transit project in metro Vancouver.

I just wanted to hilight this since it seemed that few people were are aware that the engineers that designed the Canada Line, etc. for SNC-Lavalin are live and work in Vancouver.

Many of them don't even work for SNC-Lavalin anymore

[Rico]

Originally Posted by Bdawe

https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/03/03/why-american-costs-are-so-high-work-in-progress/

The quote you showed is very true...and sad. Does anyone know what the 'best practices' examples were?

[s211]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

That really depends how they setup the bid. They can weight the scores heavily towards quality, experience and technical merit. It really depends how you want to structure the work and what the priorities are.

Or you set the bid scope up in such a way that you favour your pre-chosen contractors. That happens frequently in government circles, e.g. leasing RFPs.

[M00dy]

Originally Posted by s211

Or you set the bid scope up in such a way that you favour your pre-chosen contractors. That happens frequently in government circles, e.g. leasing RFPs.

OR you do what basically every major public construction project procurement does - you do an RFQ which pre-qualifies bidders and allows the client to select a short-list of capable teams. Then that short-list is allowed to complete the RFP phase.

Which is what the Broadway extension bid will be.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by scryer

Isn't that more expensive? Because I wouldn't hold my breath on centre platforms.

Not that I'm saying I don't want it done right, etc, etc. Just saying that it might not be realistic to expect centre platforms for the underground portion.

If they run twin bores, then the two tunnels need to have separation from each other. That separation - as was done with Canada Line downtown - is the width of the centre platform. Centre platform only needs one elevator to the platform and there may be fewer escalators (2 versus 4). That could cut down station costs. A centre platform may also make a 2nd station house more affordable (i.e. centre platform with 2 station houses can have the same number of elevators and escalators as side-platform station with one station house)

I doubt they would do a single bore like Evergreen, just because of the sinkhole delays they encountered on that one (though the soils are different).

For elevated stations, the advantage of the side platforms is the expensive guideway is kept straight. But if you are already doing twin bores, you've made that decision, so they'd likely go with the cheaper station option (centre platform).

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

keep in mind the document is 1y old and things do change and can change with these projects.
.

Agreed.

Even the reference to the twin bore says "assumes..."

This is just the reference alignment - which, for Canada Line was also a bored tunnel and for Everegreen was also a twin bore.
The bidders may think outside the box.

[TransitJack]

I'm curious about what the station names could be:
1. Great Northern Way - Emily Carr
2. Main Street - Mount Pleasant (or perhaps Kingsway & Main Street)
3. Broadway City Hall (or perhaps renamed to Cambie - Broadway akin to the Commercial - Broadway name)
4. Oak Street (Oak Street - VGH)
5. Broadway - Granville) I think South Granville might be confusing a name
6. Arbutus - Kitsilano

Perhaps either stop 4 or 5 could also use the Fairview neighbourhood name.

Sort of a mixture of street nomenclature and more modern use of neighbourhood names.

[SFUVancouver]

For the love of everything holy, I hope that Translink finally renames Production Way-University to "Production Way-SFU".

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

What is the fascination with centre platforms?

If you build the station without centre platforms initially, it's basically impossible to add them after the fact. That makes a future Spanish solution impossible if volumes grow to the point where it becomes necessary (a la the Broadway Station). Also, side platforms pretty much require a mezzanine level to provide cross-platform connectivity, which means more stairs to go up or down and added expense for the stations themselves. It also complicates wayfinding since you're hooped if you happen to go down the wrong stairway.

[dpogue]

Originally Posted by TransitJack

I'm curious about what the station names could be:
1. Great Northern Way - Emily Carr

I've seen suggestions for "Finning Station" (after the Finning tractor factory lands upon which Emily Carr and the Centre for Digital Media are built) and "Thornton Station" (after Thornton Street, which will be directly over top of the station).

Personally, "Great Northern Way Station" sounds better than either of those
I'd prefer not to see excessive hyphenation where it's not necessary

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

If you build the station without centre platforms initially, it's basically impossible to add them after the fact. That makes a future Spanish solution impossible if volumes grow to the point where it becomes necessary (a la the Broadway Station). Also, side platforms pretty much require a mezzanine level to provide cross-platform connectivity, which means more stairs to go up or down and added expense for the stations themselves. It also complicates wayfinding since you're hooped if you happen to go down the wrong stairway.

Interchange stations are the only one that makes sense for a centre platform for future proofing.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Interchange stations are the only one that makes sense for a centre platform for future proofing.

Just remember that this applies not only to stations that are interchanges today, but to those which could potentially be interchanges in the future. For the Broadway extension that should include Arbutus and Granville at a minimum, and probably also Main/Kingsway.

[The_Henry_Man]

Originally Posted by TransitJack

I'm curious about what the station names could be:
1. Great Northern Way - Emily Carr
2. Main Street - Mount Pleasant (or perhaps Kingsway & Main Street)
3. Broadway City Hall (or perhaps renamed to Cambie - Broadway akin to the Commercial - Broadway name)
4. Oak Street (Oak Street - VGH)
5. Broadway - Granville) I think South Granville might be confusing a name
6. Arbutus - Kitsilano

Perhaps either stop 4 or 5 could also use the Fairview neighbourhood name.

Sort of a mixture of street nomenclature and more modern use of neighbourhood names.

For me:

1) Great Northern Way
2) Kingsway - Mount Pleasant (if we can avoid using Main Street twice, that’ll be ideal)
3) Broadway - City Hall (this has to remain the same with the C-Line counterpart to prevent confusion)
4) Oak Street - Fairview
5) South Granville (this is actually the official name of that area and I actually think Broadway - Granville is even more confusing since if those names separate, there exists two different stations)
6) Arbutus
7) McDonald
8) Alma
9) Sasamat
10) Point Grey - UBC (I also hope Production Way - University gets changed to Production Way - SFU)
11) Wesbrook Village

[WarrenC12]

I much prefer location names to street names. Street names might help tourists, but I'd much rather have landmarks (which might help them too). And no hyphens.

The Granville Station will be about as far from Granville Island as the OV station is from Olympic Village...

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

For the love of everything holy, I hope that Translink finally renames Production Way-University to "Production Way-SFU".

No way. Production Way-UniverCity.