Transit Fantasies

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

From the start, how much did the Skytrain get expanded?
How much did the WCE get expanded?
Add one more Skytrain train, how many people per day?
Add one more WCE train, how many people per day?

Another 8-car BiLevel Coach set gets you about 1,296 riders twice a day. Another Innovia Mark III gets you 532 riders every few minutes.

Expanding SkyTrain through an area that's set to outgrow the COV gets you tens of thousands of riders. Expanding WCE from one end of nowhere to the other end gets you so little that TransLink hasn't even done a study on it.

[Sheba]

The big problem is we don't own the WCE tracks - which has been brought up on here probably every time someone talks about expanding the WCE. TransLink rents time on the rails and can't expand the service.

If we want more commuter rail then we need to either buy or build our own rail lines. We built the Skytrain lines, which is why we can expand them. It's really that simple.

[Migrant_Coconut]

And if we could build our own WCE tracks, why spend that much on six thousand riders when you can spend it on forty thousand riders? Value for money, people.

[Sheba]

No argument from me. I was only commenting on why we can't expand WCE, not if we should.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Right - just trying to drive the argument home.

[Bdawe]

let's suppose we solve the track access issues with expanding mainline rail in Metro Vancouver, you still have the georgraphy issue.

For the most part, people don't actually live near the train tracks. The West Coast Express corridor east of Port Moody has lots of strength, but most rail lines either run through industrial areas or sit at the bottom of hills while everyone lives near the top.

If we had set up regional rail lines in 1949 and then had development follow them it would be a different story, but unfortunately most of the regions urban structure follows the roads, not the rails

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Another 8-car BiLevel Coach set gets you about 1,296 riders twice a day. Another Innovia Mark III gets you 532 riders every few minutes.

Expanding SkyTrain through an area that's set to outgrow the COV gets you tens of thousands of riders. Expanding WCE from one end of nowhere to the other end gets you so little that TransLink hasn't even done a study on it.

The problem is that those coming in are only going to make it more congested to the point that adding cars is not going to be enough when having a couple of WCE trains from the area could alleviate that.Imagine if everyone on the WCE got on the Skytrain at Coquitlam Centre. That would overload the Skytrain.

Translink hasn't done one, or at least done one publicly because they haven't been told to. They have been told to extend the Skytrain lines to replace the B lines, such as the push to UBC and Surrey.

Originally Posted by Sheba

The big problem is we don't own the WCE tracks - which has been brought up on here probably every time someone talks about expanding the WCE. TransLink rents time on the rails and can't expand the service.

If we want more commuter rail then we need to either buy or build our own rail lines. We built the Skytrain lines, which is why we can expand them. It's really that simple.

GO and EXO didn't own most of the tracks, CN and CP did. Over time, they have bought some of the tracks. GO own about 1/3rd of their network's tracks and EXO owns even less. Montreal is one of the busiest ports in Canada. Vancouver is the busiest.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

And if we could build our own WCE tracks, why spend that much on six thousand riders when you can spend it on forty thousand riders? Value for money, people.

And if you can't, why not better utilize existing infrastructure?

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Bdawe

let's suppose we solve the track access issues with expanding mainline rail in Metro Vancouver, you still have the georgraphy issue.

For the most part, people don't actually live near the train tracks. The West Coast Express corridor east of Port Moody has lots of strength, but most rail lines either run through industrial areas or sit at the bottom of hills while everyone lives near the top.

If we had set up regional rail lines in 1949 and then had development follow them it would be a different story, but unfortunately most of the regions urban structure follows the roads, not the rails

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=19_HTBWkcdY5yR7cshlxaFgtShgB08OKs&usp=sharing

There is tracks going to White Rock.
There are tracks to Surrey and Langley.
There are tracks going to the Horseshoe Bay Ferry Terminal.
There are tracks almost to the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal.

Even if you fit in a couple trains a day, it would grow. The Ferry connections would be well utilized.

If you had a government work with what they have instead of dreaming, the highways would not be so congested, and they would not need expansions.

[dleung]

^^Different modes of transport have different applications. Streetcar/LRT is mainly for connections within urban neighbourhoods. Skytrain is good for high-volume cross-town travel between various density clusters (eventually skylines at most of them), with stations rarely more than 2km apart due to the prerequisite density to justify the expensive per-km cost. Those intervals will never happen east of Fleetwood, unless we're gonna fill up the valley with sprawl. There is 7km between Fleetwood and the closest power centre in Langley (with a floodplain in between!), and 11km to anywhere worth putting a station. That's commuter rail distances, and at-grade rail is perfectly economical for passing through a whole lot of nothing between stations where densities are low, where long trips into the city are less spontaneous and can handle less frequent trains. People expect to sit down for 1 hour+ rides, not be at standing-room-only by the time the train arrives in Whalley. Meanwhile there's a parallel at-grade corridor fit for express service from Langley to New Westminster with only 2 potential stops (Newton, 120 St) in between, and can be part of a bigger system connecting with White Rock, and eventually the North Fraser towards Marine Station

Originally Posted by jollyburger

They could barely add the weight of the widened decks for the Lions Gate Bridge. I doubt they are going to string SkyTrain on it. And the long term population for Moodyville is 4000 people. And the Indian Reserve down near Lonsdale Quay will never let overhead guideways cutting across their land, they're already fed up with the rail line.

How bout a very expensive retrofit of the Lions Gate Bridge? lol, if it's the same price as a tunnel, i'd prefer that over the tunnel (which is apparently rather complex due to unfavorable geology around the Capilano River in the report someone posted earlier). I think the ease of extending to Moodyville on a mostly at-grade track might make the case for more than the current projected density to add ridership, though it is nicer to have Lonsdale as a terminus. And I was thinking that the at-grade portion in front of the reserve lands could be incorporated into some kind of Senakw-style native-led mega-development with it's own future station.

Originally Posted by scryer

Well I guess it's fair game to wait until the shovels are in the ground for the Expo line to Langley... but a big part of being able to secure the votes funding from the Provincial government was extending the Expo line to Langley . IJS.

Yeah I'm only thinking in terms of what makes sense logically, not politically haha.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

The problem is that those coming in are only going to make it more congested to the point that adding cars is not going to be enough when having a couple of WCE trains from the area could alleviate that.Imagine if everyone on the WCE got on the Skytrain at Coquitlam Centre. That would overload the Skytrain.

Translink hasn't done one, or at least done one publicly because they haven't been told to. They have been told to extend the Skytrain lines to replace the B lines, such as the push to UBC and Surrey.

The limbs need the heart more than the heart needs the limbs. Before the lockdown, Abbotsford had a grand total of 4,290 people driving into the metro; even by 2050 (assuming 1.5x more drivers and 25% taking a train instead, to be generous), that's barely a WCE and a half... and when they get to Surrey or Langley, they'd have no SkyTrain or bus grid to get around.
Ditto Whistler, Squamish and White Rock. They've got even less people, so it's even less worth it.

Not really - Brentwood processes 1,360 people an hour at peak, and the trains aren't even remotely full (or upgraded)!

Before that, they were "told" to make light rail on King George look good and almost nobody bought it. See above; no amount of "spin" will make commuter rail outperform a metro, the resident count just isn't there.

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

GO and EXO didn't own most of the tracks, CN and CP did. Over time, they have bought some of the tracks. GO own about 1/3rd of their network's tracks and EXO owns even less. Montreal is one of the busiest ports in Canada. Vancouver is the busiest.

We've been over this: unlike our eastern neighbours, CP/CN aren't willing to sell here; a train to the Valley or the ferries would have to wait for an hour behind all the freight just like Mission to Waterfront. And twinning that much track would cost nearly as much as SkyTrain and get less ridership (again, lower population density, inferior capacity/hour).

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

And if you can't, why not better utilize existing infrastructure?

Because we're already utilizing it to its fullest? For more, we'd have to make our own, and for much less cost/benefit than a SkyTrain line.

Originally Posted by dleung

Meanwhile there's a parallel at-grade corridor fit for express service from Langley to New Westminster with only 2 potential stops (Newton, 120 St) in between, and can be part of a bigger system connecting with White Rock, and eventually the North Fraser towards Marine Station...

... How bout a very expensive retrofit of the Lions Gate Bridge? lol, if it's the same price as a tunnel, i'd prefer that over the tunnel (which is apparently rather complex due to unfavorable geology around the Capilano River in the report someone posted earlier).

That also means skipping the bulk of Surrey and Whalley (which decreases your ridership potential) and killing any chance of a proper bus grid south of the Fraser (which really decreases ridership potential).

Vancouver nixed the last retrofit proposal - I highly doubt we'd accept this one. Besides, most of the demand is around the Second Narrows.

[dleung]

^^Lol, how many Langley people actually have Whalley as a destination? They're there to get on the trains to downtown, but any masochist need to go to Whalley can be done via transfer from commuter rail to skytrain in New West or Scott Rd, which probably takes no more time given far fewer stops. Also, the Second Narrows is busy because of Hwy 1 (going nowhere transit-accessible anyway), and because of Phibbs Exchange, likewise an artificial island of ridership removed from urbanity on the wrong side of Lynn Creek, a dynamic that will totally change with skytrain.

Like I said, I'd spend that south-of-Fraser 3 billion very differently:

-$800M for Skytrain to Guildford (— Fleetwood! there's nothing taller than 3 stories south of 96 Ave) - Surrey bus grid oriented north-south now
-conservatively $1.5B for 28km of commuter rail from New West to Langley, plus 11km spur to South Surrey, AND a 10km extension from Mission to Abbotsford, almost all of it merely twinning of existing tracks to bypass freight. (For comparison, getting all-day GO service from Toronto to Waterloo will cost $750M for station upgrades, train facilities, new bridges, 40km of new track/grading, incl twinning of single tracks)
-$700M for BRT to connect Strawberry Hill and Newton with Surrey Central via 120 St and King George

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

We've been over this: unlike our eastern neighbours, CP/CN aren't willing to sell here; a train to the Valley or the ferries would have to wait for an hour behind all the freight just like Mission to Waterfront. And twinning that much track would cost nearly as much as SkyTrain and get less ridership (again, lower population density, inferior capacity/hour).

Do you understand why they sold? They sold because the traffic was high and needed to be scheduled better.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Because we're already utilizing it to its fullest? For more, we'd have to make our own, and for much less cost/benefit than a SkyTrain line.

You aren't. Otherwise they would have added another track.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

That also means skipping the bulk of Surrey and Whalley (which decreases your ridership potential) and killing any chance of a proper bus grid south of the Fraser (which really decreases ridership potential).

Vancouver nixed the last retrofit proposal - I highly doubt we'd accept this one. Besides, most of the demand is around the Second Narrows.

This isn't about making the bus better or worse. It is about making all of the Lower Mainland better. The problem is most people won't look outside their own community.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by dleung

Also, the Second Narrows is busy because of Hwy 1 (going nowhere transit-accessible anyway), and because of Phibbs Exchange, likewise an artificial island of ridership removed from urbanity on the wrong side of Lynn Creek, a dynamic that will totally change with skytrain.

Pfft, nope. And as long as Cap and Dollarton exist, so will Phibbs - and it's growing.

Let's be real, the only actual density on the North Shore is Lonsdale. With Second Narrows, you get a university and a bus exchange; with First Narrows, you get mudflats and a bunch of elitist NIMBYs.

Originally Posted by dleung

^^Lol, how many Langley people actually have Whalley as a destination? They're there to get on the trains to downtown, but any masochist need to go to Whalley can be done via transfer from commuter rail to skytrain in New West or Scott Rd, which probably takes no more time given far fewer stops.

You don't build for the city that is, you build for the city that's going to be there. Otherwise we'd never have gotten the Expo to Metrotown. And neither Newton and Scott Road Station are in any shape to outpace Surrey Central - they're barely any larger than Fleetwood!

Originally Posted by dleung

Like I said, I'd spend that south-of-Fraser 3 billion very differently:

-$800M for Skytrain to Guildford (— Fleetwood! there's nothing taller than 3 stories south of 96 Ave) - Surrey bus grid oriented north-south now
-conservatively $1.5B for 28km of commuter rail from New West to Langley, plus 11km spur to South Surrey, AND a 10km extension from Mission to Abbotsford, almost all of it merely twinning of existing tracks to bypass freight. (For comparison, getting all-day GO service from Toronto to Waterloo will cost $750M for station upgrades, train facilities, new bridges, 40km of new track/grading, incl twinning of single tracks)
-$700M for BRT to connect Strawberry Hill and Newton with Surrey Central via 120 St and King George

Alright, that's:
- 12,000 train riders from Guildford
- 1,500 train riders from Abbotsford
- 20,000 bus riders from Newton to Scott Road
- 30,000 new bus riders from Newton via King George (96 is already planned for an upgrade in tandem with Langley, so doesn't count)

33,500 riders, not bad.

TransLink? 40-62,000 with a SkyTrain? Wow.

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Do you understand why they sold? They sold because the traffic was high and needed to be scheduled better.



You aren't. Otherwise they would have added another track.



This isn't about making the bus better or worse. It is about making all of the Lower Mainland better. The problem is most people won't look outside their own community.

And they do not have that problem over here, so they're not selling.

CP and CN don't need to add anything, because their needs are satisfied. We are using 100% of the table scraps, and will end up doing the adding.

Not looking outside one's own community is the reason people want a commuter train for just themselves. If I only cared about my area, I'd be pushing for a UBC line before Langley, but we've got a LOT of areas to think about, and SkyTrain to Langley is the best option for the SoF's areas.

[dleung]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

You don't build for the city that is, you build for the city that's going to be there. Otherwise we'd never have gotten the Expo to Metrotown. And neither Newton and Scott Road Station are in any shape to outpace Surrey Central - they're barely any larger than Fleetwood!

And the city that's gonna be there isn't going to happen at 166th, 184th, or 192nd, about half the length of the 3 billion extension. I just don't know why Guildford - the only other place in Surrey with towers (and the city's biggest mall), and the most realistic 2nd urban centre - would be completely missed by the skytrain extension.

Scott Road and Newton both have way more commercial than Fleetwood. Scott Road has the benefit of a traditional street grid and an existing commercial street, while Newton has a lot of developable properties, whereas Fleetwood is hemmed in by fairly new sprawl. Having rail connections cover a greater chunk of Surrey is better for ridership.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Alright, that's:
- 12,000 train riders from Guildford
- 1,500 train riders from Abbotsford
- 20,000 bus riders from Newton to Scott Road
- 30,000 new bus riders from Newton via King George (96 is already planned for an upgrade in tandem with Langley, so doesn't count)

33,500 riders, not bad.

TransLink? 40-62,000 with a SkyTrain? Wow.

Not looking outside one's own community is the reason people want a commuter train for just themselves. If I only cared about my area, I'd be pushing for a UBC line before Langley, but we've got a LOT of areas to think about, and SkyTrain to Langley is the best option for the SoF's areas.

^^To be very cynical, a lot of the Point Grey folks are quite pro Rail for the Valley just to tie up transit dollars away from their neighbourhood, for NIMBY reasons

Anyway, where are you getting your numbers from?

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by dleung

And the city that's gonna be there isn't going to happen at 166th, 184th, or 192nd, about half the length of the 3 billion extension. I just don't know why Guildford - the only other place in Surrey with towers (and the city's biggest mall), and the most realistic 2nd urban centre - would be completely missed by the skytrain extension.

Scott Road and Newton both have way more commercial than Fleetwood. Scott Road has the benefit of a traditional street grid and an existing commercial street, while Newton has a lot of developable properties, whereas Fleetwood is hemmed in by fairly new sprawl. Having rail connections cover a greater chunk of Surrey is better for ridership.

Definitely not on the ALR. But it will definitely be there at Whalley, and so we need to make sure that everybody SoF can get to it and to each other. It's much easier to anchor and grow (let's say) a Guildford-Fleetwood-Newton corridor, or one down 88th to Carvolth, with a SkyTrain in the middle of the map; put it in the corner or on the side, no RapidBus, no density.

So Scott Road and Newton-Guildford are already fairly well off - it's just a short R1 or R6 ride away from downtown or the town centres. Broadway's been in a similar position for decades and did just fine, right?

Originally Posted by dleung

^^To be very cynical, a lot of the Point Grey folks are quite pro Rail for the Valley just to tie up transit dollars away from their neighbourhood, for NIMBY reasons

Anyway, where are you getting your numbers from?

Heh, very true.

Already did the Abbotsford math above - there's roughly 4,300 commuters coming into the GVRD from Abby, and the average transit mode share in Vancouver is 21%; 0.21 x 4,300 is 903, but for argument's sake I'm picking cherries in favour of the WCE.

Just before the lockdown, the 96 B-Line was averaging ~20k riders daily, and the 99 was in the 55k range. It's safe to say that over time, the R6 will grow to meet the R1/96's ridership, and the R1 will meet the 99's.

Guildford was admittedly not well thought-out; the population x 21% = bad metric. How about this: ridership usually increases 4-5x when the SkyTrain comes in, so 20k passengers x 4.5 more x 1/3rd of the route = 30k riders.

So now we're at 49k* versus 62k Langley. Slightly better, but the current plan is still best.

*Completely forgot about the Scott Road RapidBus. Since we've got both it and King George on the table regardless of Langley or not-Langley, I think it's fair to take them off the list.

[scryer]

Originally Posted by dleung

^^Lol, how many Langley people actually have Whalley as a destination? They're there to get on the trains to downtown, but any masochist need to go to Whalley can be done via transfer from commuter rail to skytrain in New West or Scott Rd, which probably takes no more time given far fewer stops.

I linked a study, some odd years ago, that found that most people travelling south of Fraser have a final destination in Surrey. I think that most certainly applies to Expo line extension.

Speaking of which, the Expo line extension to Langley is actually much closer to a reality at this point.

Originally Posted by dleung

And the city that's gonna be there isn't going to happen at 166th, 184th, or 192nd, about half the length of the 3 billion extension.

Same exact thing was said about the Millennium line extension. Now we are seeing some excellent urban developments happen around Lougheed, Brentwood, Metrotown, and Gilmore stations. Actually there has been some murmurings about mixed-use hubs for Fleetwood around the 160th st station. It's not like developers haven't took notice.

Originally Posted by dleung

I just don't know why Guildford - the only other place in Surrey with towers (and the city's biggest mall), and the most realistic 2nd urban centre - would be completely missed by the skytrain extension.

Two reasons: politics and expenses. And in that order.

Firstly, promising a Skytrain to Langley earns you more votes from more municipalities.

Secondly, funding a Skytrain to approach downtown from Guildford would be a lot more expensive than funding a Skytrain extension down Fraser Hwy. The reason being is that throwing a Skytrain extension on 104th or 108th (to connect Guildford) will likely have to be tunneled driving up the expenses, and lowering how many voting areas would be affected.

IMO, it was no mistake that Horgan promised the cheapest Skytrain extension to Langley for last year's provincial election.


When it comes to the WCE, my opinion is this:

- Yes, I do think that it is important to at least figure out potential routes for WCE expansion.

- A good problem that we have right now is that we are building Skytrain out to areas that are already serviced by the WCE such as Port Moody, Coquitlam, etc. This means that we have atleast provided a relief solution for the WCE (and vice-versa) in that those who are travelling to Broadway will choose to use the Millennium line, and those who are travelling to downtown would ideally choose to use the WCE.

- I also think that there is something to be said about induced demand for transit. We usually think of expanding traffic lanes, and getting those filled up as something that indicates induced demand; now don't get crazy with this point, but why wouldn't this theory be applied to transit on the right routes?

- Of course before anything, we need to purchase the very few rails that our WCE is currently running on and we need to expand the service times, slowly. Not everyone works from 9 - 5pm, and I think that a decent starting point to expand service times would be a mid-afternoon train of some kind (both directions), and maybe a late evening Eastbound train as well (9 - 10pm) after purchasing the tracks the WCE already operates on.

- I think that each municipality like Surrey, Langley, White Rock, Abbotsford, North Van, West Van, and possibly Richmond need to figure out what corridors they can reserve for WCE space right now. It's not like we need WCE right now BUT in the future the region is going to need to be better connected and reserving rail space for stations and such now is going to save us a lot of headache in the future.

- Just from looking at what the WCE route looks like now, the rail around Port Moody looks very valuable to CP/CN. The Pacific Coast Terminals and the Suncor Terminal both look like they would be quite important to the national economy with their rail connections.

- Also just from speculating, the WCE's rail feeds into the Port Coquitlam (Canadian Pacific) railyard. To me, this looks like a hell of a nightmare to work out logistically because you would have to create new tracks for freight trains to travel to the Pacific Coast Terminals and Suncor Terminals. Unless of course you only allowed freight trains to run overnight which would disturb the neighbourhoods along the way .

[officedweller]

Remember that Whalley will be Metro Vancouver's second downtown core (there were supposed to be 3 - Downtown Vancouver, Whalley (south of Fraser River) and Coquitlam (north of Fraser River).
Whalley should eventually have its own set of radial rapid transit lines leading in and out of it.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by scryer

I linked a study, some odd years ago, that found that most people travelling south of Fraser have a final destination in Surrey. I think that most certainly applies to Expo line extension.

I remember that study. One of the takeaways was that people tend to work either in their own city or the next one over. So for example a lot of people who live in Burnaby work there or next door in Vancouver. When you're looking at the area that covers Delta, Surrey and Langley you get a lot of travel within the area and a hell of a lot less travelling to Vancouver for work.

[officedweller]

Vancouver's not a head office city, so not as many people travelling long distances to downtown.

[scryer]

Originally Posted by Sheba

I remember that study. One of the takeaways was that people tend to work either in their own city or the next one over. So for example a lot of people who live in Burnaby work there or next door in Vancouver. When you're looking at the area that covers Delta, Surrey and Langley you get a lot of travel within the area and a hell of a lot less travelling to Vancouver for work.

Yes! Now if only I could find the — link !

Originally Posted by officedweller

Vancouver's not a head office city, so not as many people travelling long distances to downtown.

To add onto your point, because we compare ourselves to Montreal and Toronto a lot, the GMA and the GTA cover a much larger geographical distance than the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley. My point here is that physical distance isn't such a huge factor for Lower Mainland like it is in those metropolitan areas. And with Vancouver balancing its employment centres between the downtown peninsula and Broadway street, the city is actually buying itself quite a bit of time before it has to make expensive decisions about dealing with congestion.

However with geographical barriers like the mountains, rivers, and the pacific ocean; as soon as we start trying to extend any kind of a WCE, it starts to look super wonky to try and get the commuter destination to Waterfront. We would have to build more rail infrastructure like bridges and tunnels than our other Canadian city counterparts.