Expo Line - Surrey Langley Extension: Planning & Pre-Construction

[logicbomb]

The City of Surrey has done an incredibly poor job at accepting reality and prioritizing road expansion through it's boundaries.

I recently visited my old neighborhood back in September and was shocked to see the transformation. Very large multi-generational homes replaced the small ranchers or 4 bedroom split levels. The road had remained the same which is a residential road with parking on both sides that feed onto a busy two-laned road (1 lane each way) with a stop sign.

That's the issue in my opinion. The zoning and infrastructure has remained relatively unchanged since it's low density SFH/residential but the density is actually misleading since you have 10-20 people living in these households with 6-10 cars on or around the lot. 2 homes on that block even had a dump truck in the driveway.

It's incredibly strange at how these 4 story households that occupy 80% of the lot are getting approved as well. I'm not against density, but it literally makes no sense to approve such developments in areas away from transit.

[mcj]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Indeed. And now with an anchor in the middle, there's a business case for a RapidBus down 152nd to Newton, and another to Carvolth and Walnut Grove. Transit south of the Fraser's about to get a whole lot easier.

Justin McElroy made a map of all the BRT/RapidBus lines proposed in the latest Mayor's Council plan, which includes that Rapidbus down 152nd to Newton:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid...4190676845901%2C-122.66918230151711&z=13

There'll also be the Scott Road - Carvolth Rapidbus which should connect at 140th Street Station. Then there's the 200st RapidBus and the Langley - White Rock Rapidbus that'll connect up at Langley Centre Station.

Edit:

Speculation but I think it would also make sense to have a 190th Street Station to Newton Express Bus along 64th through the upper portion of Cloverdale and also a 196th Street/Willowbrook Station to Newton Express bus along Highway 10 through the lower portion of Cloverdale.

[Hotwax]

Once the SkyTrain extension is open, I would like to see a bus route between White Rock Centre and 166 Street station via 16 Avenue and 168 Street.

Grandview Heights' redevelopment already reaches as far east as 168 Street; however, 168 Street needs upgrades before that happens. There is no safe place to pull over to between 32 Avenue and Highway 10 in case of an emergency. I can also see the elevation change between 16 Avenue and 32 Avenue as being problematic.

[mcj]

Originally Posted by Hotwax

Once the SkyTrain extension is open, I would like to see a bus route between White Rock Centre and 166 Street station via 16 Avenue and 168 Street.

Grandview Heights' redevelopment already reaches as far east as 168 Street; however, 168 Street needs upgrades before that happens. There is no safe place to pull over to between 32 Avenue and Highway 10 in case of an emergency. I can also see the elevation change between 16 Avenue and 32 Avenue as being problematic.

Would make sense to establish this route, they've got to use that massive bus loop they're still building at 166 Street Station for something

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by mcj

Justin McElroy made a map of all the BRT/RapidBus lines proposed in the latest Mayor's Council plan, which includes that Rapidbus down 152nd to Newton:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid...4190676845901%2C-122.66918230151711&z=13

There'll also be the Scott Road - Carvolth Rapidbus which should connect at 140th Street Station. Then there's the 200st RapidBus and the Langley - White Rock Rapidbus that'll connect up at Langley Centre Station.

Edit:

Speculation but I think it would also make sense to have a 190th Street Station to Newton Express Bus along 64th through the upper portion of Cloverdale and also a 196th Street/Willowbrook Station to Newton Express bus along Highway 10 through the lower portion of Cloverdale.

Even though I know we don't know the routes, a lot of these just don't make sense.
Moving 123 to Hwy 1 means it can't access BCIT.
Richmond - Metrotown, Marine Drive, and South Surrey-Langley just don't have the demand for a successful B-Line.
I really don't know why Carvolth-Surrey doesn't copy either 501, or goes on the SFPR to Scott Road (basically a second 555), or even just uses the 152 HOV exit/entrance (I think 501 doesn't use it probably because they haven't bothered to put in the proper turn priority needed to change it.) It's not really useful, and I'm in it's target market.

If they really wanted better connections from Carvolth to the rest of the network, double frequencies on the 555 (maybe remove the double-deckers on off-peak) and extend it to Renfrew and Phibbs.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by fredinno

Even though I know we don't know the routes, a lot of these just don't make sense.
Moving 123 to Hwy 1 means it can't access BCIT.
Richmond - Metrotown, Marine Drive, and South Surrey-Langley just don't have the demand for a successful B-Line.

The 123 (New West to Brentwood) barely accesses BCIT. The 130 and 222 are on Willingdon to connect Metrotown and Brentwood to BCIT.

The 430 (Richmond to Metrotown) has been pretty busy the times I've ridden it and is fairly close to a B Line already.

The 100 (Marine Dr) is already FTN so adding a B Line isn't much of a change.

No idea on the 531 (S Surrey to Langley) - I'll let someone else look that one up.

[xd_1771]

Originally Posted by fredinno

Even though I know we don't know the routes, a lot of these just don't make sense.
Moving 123 to Hwy 1 means it can't access BCIT.

Ahh I guess I have to burst his bubble then

If you look a bit closely, the description field hasn't been changed for the line connecting Langley to White Rock Centre. This makes it evident that the alignments were created by using the "add driving route" function in Google My Maps—meaning you let Google choose the route between two specific points on a map. Or three specific points, if you look at the Lynn Valley-Lonsdale-Downtown line (notice the A, B and C points). Basically, these aren't manually drawn lines.



I guess it explains the choice to route via highways? And a few other alignments that do look creative, but I don't personally see TransLink planners selecting those alignments.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Sheba

The 123 (New West to Brentwood) barely accesses BCIT. The 130 and 222 are on Willingdon to connect Metrotown and Brentwood to BCIT.

The 430 (Richmond to Metrotown) has been pretty busy the times I've ridden it and is fairly close to a B Line already.

The 100 (Marine Dr) is already FTN so adding a B Line isn't much of a change.

No idea on the 531 (S Surrey to Langley) - I'll let someone else look that one up.

https://www.translink.ca/-/media/transli...etwork/tspr/tspr_2019_summary_tables.pdf
100 is down there at #20. Even 19, which parallels the Expo, has 2 million more riders. Put a B-Line on Arbutus or Main or or Victoria or King Edwards before considering one on Marine.
You'd even be better off with a loop around to the West End and South False Creek (basically the streetcar, but as a bus.)
100 is pretty mid-tier when it comes to Vancouver bus ridership.

410 has higher ridership than 430, and should be prioritized over 430.
Makes sense, since it's faster (555 may be headed in a similar direction vs 501, especially if R2 is extended to 152nd Street, which is always an empty stop.)
The problem with a 410 B-Line is a lack of HOV on 91, so you'd have buses on the shoulder like on 99 though.

That stop that 'barely' reaches BCIT is close enough that it's the busiest (or 2nd busiest, including buses going towards Brentwood) stop on 123 that's not a Terminus Station:
https://translink.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=482ed47ba3bd47c3a24262c7c5810275
Remember that BCIT is really just the top half of the BCIT lot, as below Sanderson are mostly just green spaces and parking lots.

531 has less ridership than 156, a winding bus collector through random Coquitlam suburbs whose only saving grace is its connection to the Skytrain network.

Originally Posted by xd_1771

Ahh I guess I have to burst his bubble then

If you look a bit closely, the description field hasn't been changed for the line connecting Langley to White Rock Centre. This makes it evident that the alignments were created by using the "add driving route" function in Google My Maps—meaning you let Google choose the route between two specific points on a map. Or three specific points, if you look at the Lynn Valley-Lonsdale-Downtown line (notice the A, B and C points). Basically, these aren't manually drawn lines.



I guess it explains the choice to route via highways? And a few other alignments that do look creative, but I don't personally see TransLink planners selecting those alignments.

Ah, lol. 123 is the only one I rescind then, the other ones are still dumb.

[Jimbo604]

Blah blah blah surrey traffic. I guess we need something to talk about until the contracts are awarded in fall of this year.

Isn't there any pre construction work going on?

[madog222]

Stumbled across these details, emphasis is mine.

The scope of the full build-out includes:

Demolition of the last three spans of existing Expo Line.

Construction of 441 piers with eight different configurations and supported by drilled shafts.

15.8 kilometers of elevated guideway consisting of precast concrete spans with typical span lengths of 39 meters between stations and 20 meters at stations.

The elevated guideway superstructure consisted of 13.7 kilometers of a single box cross section and 2.12 kilometers of double box cross section.

A total of eight stations including center platforms at 140th, 166th, 184th, 190th and 203rd Streets, side platforms at 152nd, 160th and 196th Streets.

Reconstruction of approximately 4.2 kilometers of Fraser Highway to provide a new, 33-meter cross section with multi-use and pedestrian facilities.

Construction of nine PPS buildings.

Two tracks including approximately 900 meters of crossovers and turnouts, and 160 meters of pocket track.

A vehicle maintenance facility.

Utility relocations.

https://charterpdi.com/projects/sl-skytrain-expansion

[Helvetia]

Originally Posted by madog222

Demolition of the last three spans of existing Expo Line.

Any reason for that? Seems to be beyond the last track switch, so it's all plain straight sections?

[xd_1771]

A total of eight stations including center platforms at 140th, 166th, 184th, 190th and 203rd Streets, side platforms at 152nd, 160th and 196th Streets.

That would be a remarkable change from the previous concept!

Only 203 Street was supposed to be a centre platform. 166 was also to be a centre platform as it was expected to serve as a terminus, and then the project's two stages were merged into a single continuous stage and it was changed to side platforms.

That said the above page does seem to predate the introduction of the single-stage project (it introduces the project as having a "Stage 1" and "Stage 2").

The "last 3 spans" would basically be the entire portion of track east of Whalley Boulevard. I can't think of any alignment-related reason to outright discard the last 3 guideway segments, so my guess is there may be intent to reconstruct them in order to protect for a future branch...

[madog222]

Originally Posted by Helvetia

Any reason for that? Seems to be beyond the last track switch, so it's all plain straight sections?

If I had to guess they are planning a special long span section (like here: https://goo.gl/maps/D5yhtfUV7aUKtTNh6) to span 138th St and WB lanes of Fraser Fwy and need to have the guideway before designed for that.

[madog222]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

That said the above page does seem to predate the introduction of the single-stage project (it introduces the project as having a "Stage 1" and "Stage 2").

Good catch, ok fair to assume this is out of date.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

The "last 3 spans" would basically be the entire portion of track east of Whalley Boulevard. I can't think of any alignment-related reason to outright discard the last 3 guideway segments, so my guess is there may be intent to reconstruct them in order to protect for a future branch...

Yes, I hope so. The 3 spans all lie east of Whalley Blvd.
Hopefully there'll be a switch installed for a future branch to Newton via the greenspace east of the hospital (then veering back to KGB).


https://www.google.com/maps/@49.1807775,...Mzqx9oLI0Pxc6igz-uHnw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192


https://www.google.com/maps/@49.1807775,...Mzqx9oLI0Pxc6igz-uHnw!2e0!7i16384!8i8192

Originally Posted by ninjakafi_81

I'm not sure if this has been posted or mentioned but I found phase E of the King George Hub project in the planning reports.

https://www.surrey.ca/sites/default/files/planning-reports/PLR_7921-0311-00.pdf

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Hopefully there'll be a switch installed for a future branch to Newton via the greenspace east of the hospital (then veering back to KGB).

I dunno, all these bifurcations of the line just lead to future capacity issues on the shared segment, as well as problems scheduling adequate capacity on both branches. I think they would be better served in the long term building an independent line to Newton with a transfer to the Expo Line.

[officedweller]

I can't see White Rock (eventual Newton terminus) and Langley each generating enough load for full service (assuming it's not extended beyond Langley).

Maybe the L-line could be Guildford-Scott Road.

[madog222]

The Transit 2050 plan shows King George as the only potentially grade separated route in the area.

[Helvetia]

Unlikely that Expo will branch at King George as there are no plans for a flying junction. Once service to Langley starts, shutting down the entire SLS to retrofit a junction is even less likely.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by Helvetia

Unlikely that Expo will branch at King George as there are no plans for a flying junction. Once service to Langley starts, shutting down the entire SLS to retrofit a junction is even less likely.

There's no flyover at the junction just east of Lougheed Mall...