Heavy Rail, Commuter Rail, & Intercity Transportation

[Migrant_Coconut]

The CP agreement stipulates rail, and it's probably a bad idea to get into a legal battle over whether or not a trackless tram still counts as a train.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

plus Patrick Condon

I love that guy, he's a very useful human indeed. I can pretty reliably learn the best approach to any urban design issue by considering the exact opposite of whatever dogshit he spews.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

I'm still aghast at the idea that we would spend good money putting a streetcar on that right of way.

dont worry, it is decades out, if it ever happens. (I'm betting it will not). when i was a kid i used to walk those tracks with my parents. i still remember looking back and seeing the train coming and watching it go by and he used the horn. then finding a squished penny. (still have it). fun times. this was the early 2000s. i now realize it was on its final legs and now know why the train was only 2-3 cars.

ahh fond memories and it would be cool to see a train on the tracks again. but nostalgia isn't a reason to build transit.

[madog222]

WCE 907 on it's way.

This is ex-GO 533, built 1988 and retired from GO in 2009.

@8:00
• Video Link

[officedweller]

Nice paint job!

[twoNeurons]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

SSP's been over this back in 2019, and now four years later. Long story short, it's a industrial route for industrial customers that's still in service: passenger service would require massive capital investment for dedicated tracks and upgrades, take up to two and a half hours from Scott Road to Chilliwack, and skip most high-traffic destinations. The FVX works better on average for commuters.

Yeah... I get the connection down the highway works... but Hwy #1 is also congested. Although I don't think reviving the ol' interurban is a good idea, maintaining and having the option to widen and expand the ROW is still important. We're going to come to a time when it's important to have this ROW and the fact that it goes through farmland isn't a bad thing, it's a BENEFIT as it's easier to build through.

I don't think it's a replacement for SkyTrain like the site states, that's just ridiculous... but I do think the ROW has merit.

It's basically everybody who jumped ship from Rail for the Valley, plus Patrick Condon and a few new people looking for an election gimmick. Not exactly the best lineup.

Depends on execution. The post-lockdown R4 regularly outperforms the entire O-Train network.

Yeah, these guys are anti-skytrain... but still the idea behind rail to the valley is sound. Speaking of Sound... the Seattle Sounder takes 60 minutes to do tehe ~50km (direct) from Everett to downtown. A bus takes roughly the same time on the I5. I don't know about you, but I'd take the train every time if the schedule was frequent enough.


The line would serve Newton, Cloverdale, Langley, Abbotsford, Chilliwack. Chilliwack or Abbotsford residents could choose to get off in Langley if they wanted a specific place in Surrey like Guildford or Surrey Central... or just stay on the train and transfer at Scott Road.

A freeway alignment isn't optimal for serving actual communities... the Freeway doesn't go close to centre of Surrey, Abbotsford, or especially Langley.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Thing is, said ROW's time as viable passenger service has come and gone - not only does it miss most of the population density for those towns and suburbs (save for Scott Road-Newton, which is already going to be covered by the R6), but the FVX express bus actually serves the Valley faster and much more frequently. In the unlikely event that the FVX ever overfills, it'll probably be replaced by a TCH route; most of the interurban is only good for cargo now.

Highway 1's road lanes are full, so the fantasy thread keeps pitching a surface rail or elevated line down the median instead every now and then. It intersects Carvolth, TWU, Highstreet Mall and UFV, and can go underground to Guildford and Whalley.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Thing is, said ROW's time as viable passenger service has come and gone - not only does it miss most of the population density for those towns and suburbs (save for Scott Road-Newton, which is already going to be covered by the R6), but the FVX express bus actually serves the Valley faster and much more frequently. In the unlikely event that the FVX ever overfills, it'll probably be replaced by a TCH route; most of the interurban is only good for cargo now.

Highway 1's road lanes are full, so the fantasy thread keeps pitching a surface rail or elevated line down the median instead every now and then. It intersects Carvolth, TWU, Highstreet Mall and UFV, and can go underground to Guildford and Whalley.

The 1 benefit is that the Interurban route plunges to the south, creating a 'southern express connector'.

Remember that a disproportionate amount of the ridership SOF (compared to the density) is to Newton and North Delta (hence the need for R6 and R1 both) due to the higher density of lower-income people and minorities (mainly Indians) living there vs the Fraser (minus Langley City) and TCH corridors.

Also, the Interurban route hits part of North Delta, Newton, and Cloverdale.
If we had a Hwy 10 freeway (and/or KGB Skytrain), building an interurban railway would be useless, but as of now, it still has some use cases.

Not $1B worth- you'd be better off with a KGB Skytrain for that money- but still something.

Hwy 10 was an alternate route for the SFPR, so it might become the same as the 91 was for 99.


And the problem with the Hwy 1 express buses isn't congestion, (other than the congestion getting in and out of Carvloth). It's the fact it has no good connectivity to Guildford or anywhere else minus Langley-Lougheed. Not even really Abbotsford for that matter (it has 1 station at a West Abbotsford Shopping Mall.)

[Migrant_Coconut]

That’s more of an argument for the R6. Once it opens, it’ll be much more frequent than the interurban and with more stops for North Delta and Strawberry Hill, so potential ridership on that track segment will basically disappear (unless there’s a lot of people needing to get directly from Scott Road to Newton in eleven minutes?)... and since pretty much the rest of the line is going to sit empty anyway, there goes the business case.

If you’ll recall, there’s plans for RapidBus service for 88th, 96th and 200th, all of which intersect with the FVX or its replacement. 60 minutes on the FVX (possibly less with a train), plus 20-29 minutes on the R7/8/9 and/or 5-10 minutes on the Expo, against 100-120 minutes on the interurban (rounding down from the original 152-minute trip)? Unless we can get it for half a billion or less - which we can't - that's not really worth it either.

As for Abbotsford, it'd be a lot more productive for it to get a RapidBus network of its own; people still need to get around the city, not just in and out of it.

[swimmer_spe]

... it is pointless to argue with the coconut about anything outside of buses or skytrain.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Likewise, swimmer keeps failing to understand that imaginary lines on a map from 1950 can't always work in present reality. There's literally three locals on this forum who still think the interurban's a good idea (and one on the fence).

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

That’s more of an argument for the R6. Once it opens, it’ll be much more frequent than the interurban and with more stops for North Delta and Strawberry Hill, so potential ridership on that track segment will basically disappear (unless there’s a lot of people needing to get directly from Scott Road to Newton in eleven minutes?)... and since pretty much the rest of the line is going to sit empty anyway, there goes the business case.

If you’ll recall, there’s plans for RapidBus service for 88th, 96th and 200th, all of which intersect with the FVX or its replacement. 60 minutes on the FVX (possibly less with a train), plus 20-29 minutes on the R7/8/9 and/or 5-10 minutes on the Expo, against 100-120 minutes on the interurban (rounding down from the original 152-minute trip)? Unless we can get it for half a billion or less - which we can't - that's not really worth it either.

As for Abbotsford, it'd be a lot more productive for it to get a RapidBus network of its own; people still need to get around the city, not just in and out of it.

Well, yeah, you'd want to wait for the Westminster Bridge to be upgraded.
Then you could send some trains across to stop at Braid, Rupert, and Waterfront.
If it's like the WCE, service levels would be low enough that reserving a few slots across the bridge so Marine traffic can wait a few minutes shouldn't be impossible.

Of course, spending that much money on such low levels of service makes this a hard sell.


WCE goes from Mission to Waterfront in 1 hr 15 min. Or about the amount of time it would take to get from Glouchester to Waterfront.
It'd be way less than what you're implying from Langley (more like 50 min).


My fantasy is a tram-train system, so you could go in a straight line from Langley to Murrayville and Aldergrove and create an integrated rail transit system to Abbotsford without following the circuitous path of the interurban, before transitioning to LRT in suburban/urban areas.
Grade issues are less of a concern, so you have a lot more route options than the freight rail lines (like following Robertson Crescent, highway corridors, or using the side lanes of the Pautello.)

But this is pretty low cost-benefit, TBH. You'd have to build it after most of the Town Centers (minus places like Aldergrove and Ladner) were already connected to SkyTrain to consider having the money or demand for this to be worth it.

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I don't take any of the RapidBus plans post 5-years seriously- Remember that Brookswood and Port Kells are pretty empty as is. (Also, it's 96th, not 88th.)
Most of them (aside from Park Royal - Downtown, which uses 100% existing infrastructure) seem pointless and dumb. Just improve bus service without adding a R-service label. It's often hard to distinguish R-1 from a normal bus other than the fancy livery.
The 5-year priorities capture most of the actual important corridors.

The rest is fantasy.

But if those routes somehow exist, it just makes 66/555 more awkward and disconnected from the rest of the network.


Why they never extended R1 to 152nd is beyond me.


True, but the point is that the highway bus coaches are still pretty limited right now.
There's not even a stop to connect with UFV, for example.

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And who's the dude on the fence?

[Migrant_Coconut]

Wouldn’t hold my breath on CN doing anything with that bridge either - at least not enough for reliable passenger service. Also, note that the Production Way spur and Holdom-Lake City are two of the least-busy segments of the network, so not much ridership there in the first place. Rupert is a very big "maybe."

Yeah, but the WCE’s track also goes in a roughly straight line and doesn’t wind all over the Valley; the interurban’s total track is literally over twice as long, so the commute probably will be too. Tram-train that doesn’t stick to the interurban does partially solve that problem... by replacing it with all the disadvantages of street-running light rail (and maybe let’s not dig that one up again).

Understandable. Consider, however, that Fraser Highway’s about to see a whole lot of TOD around the Expo extension, and a densified Fleetwood will likely anchor an E-W RapidBus between North Delta and Carvolth. I’m not counting Port Kells at all here – and judging by the graphics, TransLink wants to skip it anyway.

UFV is a bit out of the way, in fairness. Ideally, Abby’d have their own FTN bus through McCallum Exchange to the campus... but BC Transit seems content with the current Flying Spaghetti Monster network.

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Well, as far as I can tell, you're not against the interurban, but you're not for it like ssiguy, dleung or Neurons. Pretty sure that leaves the fence.

[twoNeurons]

FVX is good for connecting the Fraser Valley to Burnaby, but not for connecting the Fraser Valley itself. It adopts old skytrain-downtown-centric routing. May work for some... but a solid connection hitting Langley centre, Newton and Surrey... I can't see that as in valuable. The FVX terminates at Lougheed but doesn't serve any other destinations, really.

Some Abby teen wants to go to visit Grandma in White Rock for the weekend... a train to Newton is a viable choice. I'm not so sure it would be THAT much slower than taking the FVX and transferring to a bus from Carvoth Exchange... and you're still taking a bus.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Wouldn’t hold my breath on CN doing anything with that bridge either - at least not enough for reliable passenger service. Also, note that the Production Way spur and Holdom-Lake City are two of the least-busy segments of the network, so not much ridership there in the first place. Rupert is a very big "maybe."

Yeah, but the WCE’s track also goes in a roughly straight line and doesn’t wind all over the Valley; the interurban’s total track is literally over twice as long, so the commute probably will be too. Tram-train that doesn’t stick to the interurban does partially solve that problem... by replacing it with all the disadvantages of street-running light rail (and maybe let’s not dig that one up again).

Understandable. Consider, however, that Fraser Highway’s about to see a whole lot of TOD around the Expo extension, and a densified Fleetwood will likely anchor an E-W RapidBus between North Delta and Carvolth. I’m not counting Port Kells at all here – and judging by the graphics, TransLink wants to skip it anyway.

UFV is a bit out of the way, in fairness. Ideally, Abby’d have their own FTN bus through McCallum Exchange to the campus... but BC Transit seems content with the current Flying Spaghetti Monster network.

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Well, as far as I can tell, you're not against the interurban, but you're not for it like ssiguy, dleung or Neurons. Pretty sure that leaves the fence.

Well, trying to get off on Lougheed means you're walking at least 7 minutes to the station, uphill. And you're on the opposite side of the freeway. Braid is also already a transit hub for buses.

If you're going from North Delta or Scott Road to Langley, you're better off going on the SFPR than going on 96.
96 does pass though South Port Kells- the industrial section. In fact, most of 96 passes through industrial areas or parks.

501 doesn't do this, because it diverts to Guildford.

TBH, the tram-train idea is more useful after Langley, where the development is more sparse and the line becomes more windy, as the Surrey section isn't too bad (as I pointed out before). Abbotsford may have RapidBus by then, so just use the same corridor as a smooth upgrade (grade-separation optional).

Same thing with having an express service to Tsawwassen or Mission.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by twoNeurons

FVX is good for connecting the Fraser Valley to Burnaby, but not for connecting the Fraser Valley itself. It adopts old skytrain-downtown-centric routing. May work for some... but a solid connection hitting Langley centre, Newton and Surrey... I can't see that as in valuable. The FVX terminates at Lougheed but doesn't serve any other destinations, really.

Some Abby teen wants to go to visit Grandma in White Rock for the weekend... a train to Newton is a viable choice. I'm not so sure it would be THAT much slower than taking the FVX and transferring to a bus from Carvoth Exchange... and you're still taking a bus.

Remember that the only 2 lines that connect to the TransLink network from Abby are in Aldergrove and in Carvloth.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Braid's not a very big hub though. IMO the interurban itself is already a weak business case - an also-weak extension to Vancouver won’t fix that.

Right, but the Surrey half covers a lot of residential plus an Expo station. An 88th/96th RapidBus would be for Walnut Grove and connecting to Maple Ridge, not Langley; Port Kells happens to be kinda-sorta on the way.

It’s not bad, but not great either; again, only two stops at Scott Road Station and Newton (maybe one or two in the middle, because it's a light rail) means it’s skipping most of the demand. And if you put the tram on Fraser Highway past Langley, roadworks brings the expense up and the cost/benefit down.

Originally Posted by twoNeurons

FVX is good for connecting the Fraser Valley to Burnaby, but not for connecting the Fraser Valley itself. It adopts old skytrain-downtown-centric routing. May work for some... but a solid connection hitting Langley centre, Newton and Surrey... I can't see that as in valuable. The FVX terminates at Lougheed but doesn't serve any other destinations, really.

Some Abby teen wants to go to visit Grandma in White Rock for the weekend... a train to Newton is a viable choice. I'm not so sure it would be THAT much slower than taking the FVX and transferring to a bus from Carvoth Exchange... and you're still taking a bus.

I dunno, that’s more of an argument to have a second FVX line to Whalley. Sure, the interurban means you don’t have to transfer, but it also means a 2.5-hour ride (instead of 1 hour) which means you might as well anyway.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by twoNeurons

FVX is good for connecting the Fraser Valley to Burnaby, but not for connecting the Fraser Valley itself.

Sure, but it does provide a backbone to which new regional transit services can be attached. And one day, long after those regional services have been established, some of them will have grown to the point where they're capacity constrained and it will be worth spending money to grade separate them. That's how transit systems grow and develop.

Also known as: "you gotta start somewhere".

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Braid's not a very big hub though. IMO the interurban itself is already a weak business case - an also-weak extension to Vancouver won’t fix that.

Right, but the Surrey half covers a lot of residential plus an Expo station. An 88th/96th RapidBus would be for Walnut Grove and connecting to Maple Ridge, not Langley; Port Kells happens to be kinda-sorta on the way.

It’s not bad, but not great either; again, only two stops at Scott Road Station and Newton (maybe one or two in the middle, because it's a light rail) means it’s skipping most of the demand. And if you put the tram on Fraser Highway past Langley, roadworks brings the expense up and the cost/benefit down.



I dunno, that’s more of an argument to have a second FVX line to Whalley. Sure, the interurban means you don’t have to transfer, but it also means a 2.5-hour ride (instead of 1 hour) which means you might as well anyway.

Why is it ok to go to Rupert instead of Brentwood but not Braid instead of Lougheed?

Note that tram-train (and upgrades to the current bus system) could allow you to go directly to the hub stations:
(Note there may be grade-separation where the path intersects Willingdon and its ramps.)


Same with Lougheed and Government Rd (grade separation across Government Rd.):


(TBF, the Lougheed pathway is ~1.5x shorter than the Brentwood path.)

I would argue extending to Vancouver actually makes it better. Going from Surrey to Waterfront requires going across Skytrain, passing through a large # of Expo Stations you don't care about (35 min total from Scott Road vs 30 min for similar WCE passage).

Going to Lougheed or Brentwood on SkyTrain requires an extra 2 transfers.


Dunno, I would be in the target market for such a bus. I don't see how it's beneficial.

200 St makes a lot of sense, since it's the arterial lifeblood of the Walnut Grove-Clayton-Langley City development 'blob' and connects Maple Ridge with Langley.
1/3rd of all people travelling on 200 St. already use the 200 St. buses to travel on the corridor and is nearly at FTN levels of service. The demand is already there (as far as buses in Langley go).


Also, Hwy 1 and the SFPR exist for East-West travel, which doesn't exist for the 200 St. corridor.


This is one of those cases where expanding out the bus network (Best Bus) makes more sense than a fancy 'RapidBus.'

Buses here tend to arrive every 30 minutes most of the time and wind around to hub exchanges. There's a severe lack of east-west bus routes as well.

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Frustratingly, the current plans for buses excludes an express bus on the SFPR.

The fact Langley wants to turn the Salmon Fraser Uplands into an industrial park now means Fraser Hwy post-Langley Bypass will may also get future upgrades to take the additional traffic (like Hwy 10), so an express bus from Abbotsford directly to Langley City may become viable in the future.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Moved to fantasy thread.