Millennium Line - Broadway Extension: Planning & Pre-Construction

[cornholio]

Originally Posted by Northski

Portland streetcar capital cost was 147million for 11000 riders per day or 13,363 capital cost per daily rider.

The Broadway subway will cost 2.8 billion for a per day ridership of 200,000 or 14,000 capital cost per daily rider.

For Comparison the new Port Mann costs 2.46 billion for 130000 current trips per day or a capital cost of 18000 per trip per day.

And a downtown parking stall costs about between 30000-40000$ to construct.

I am sure you looked at commuter km's traveled right?

Of course you would not because if you did the Portman would come in as number 1, Broadway as number 2, and the streetcar in Portland would be dead last, way dead last I am sure.

A rider traveling 1 km is not the same as a rider traveling 10 km's. The Portland street car's trips are going to be obviously "short" and often "useless", while the Broadway line and Portman handles trips that are going to be mostly long, and important.

When

[cabotp]

Originally Posted by Jebby

How about we don't waste money building an LRT line where it doesn't belong (Broadway) and just build the damn thing as its supposed to be built: SkyTrain

Sadly though in some people stupidity wins out over logic. So no matter how much you might explain skytrain would be a better system. They are stupidly hell bent on LRT. Even though logically skytrain would be better.

This is one of those times when democracy sucks.

[officedweller]

Meggs in the Vancouver Sun today - nice opening quote (how does that mesh with the City's view on bikes?)

Opinion: Subway to UBC offers lowest operating costs

Trip from Commercial Drive would take only 20 minutes, versus at least 26 minutes using other options

By Geoff Meggs, Special to the Sun
December 19, 2012

The debate over what kind of rapid transit is best for the Broadway Corridor is like a growing family trying to decide whether to replace the worn-out family car with another sedan or move up to a minivan.

A smaller car might be cheaper, but if it can’t do the daily commute, take six kids to soccer practice and handle summer vacations, it’s probably the wrong choice.

Vancouver city engineers have concluded that light rail transit (LRT) travelling in dedicated lanes right down the centre of Broadway would pose the same problem for regional transit.

...

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/Opinion+Subw...g+costs/7723506/story.html#ixzz2Ffh5CpVD

[BCPhil]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Meggs in the Vancouver Sun today - nice opening quote (how does that mesh with the City's view on bikes?)

Meggs' view on bikes didn't get him the NDP nomination in Vancouver-Fairview (in fact he got skunked and barely signed up any new members). So he has to change his tune if he ever wants to be more than a barely memorable (to most people) city councilor. He has to start appealing to more than the organic granola munching, bike peddling, fair trade hippies out there, and alluding to soccer moms (which Vancouver is full of) is a good start. And getting Vancouver the best transit system possible is a worthy goal, and one that could get him a lot of recognition.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by BCPhil

And getting Vancouver the best transit system possible is a worthy goal, and one that could get him a lot of recognition.

Not to mention that it's the right thing to do...

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Meggs in the Vancouver Sun today - nice opening quote (how does that mesh with the City's view on bikes?)

wowee!! I can't believe this is the same Geoff Meggs talking! I would have imagined he'd go for quaint trams or something. Glad he's got the subway mindset, although of course, as mentioned, it could be grandstanding. Nevertheless, I think that it's a pretty sure bet the subway option will be chosen. Just hope it doesn't take too too many years. Linking the Millenium Line to the Canada Line would be a good start. Onwards to Granville would be an even better one. A start, that is.

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by BCPhil

The only real way to see how much it would cost to build LRT in Vancouver is to actually build it. It's something we have never done before in this area, so the impact of local variables is completely unknown.

LRT might be cheaper in some of the other examples because the ROW is a derelict or abandoned freight railway. I bet building LRT down the Arbutus Corridor WOULD be cheap and in line with what some other cities pay. Other cities, especially in Europe have historically wide boulevards, used to have parades or march troops to impress/oppress the city population. If we build surface LRT on the Cambie or King Edward median, I bet it would be in line with what other cities have paid.

But how many of the other examples have built their first LRT line down the busiest road in their city? How many have reduced lane capacity (especially cities without major freeways through or circling the location of transit)?

It's hard to know what any of these variables would have on building an LRT line without first getting some experience.

Before we built the Expo line, we built a test track to see if it could be done, and how much it would cost. And we didn't build it in the middle of nowhere to minimize cost either, we built it down a short stretch of one of the busiest roads into the downtown core (and if we fucked up, there were alternative routes people could use if Terminal was out of action, unlike Broadway).

If we hadn't had local experience building the Expo line, I think people would never have thought we could build the Millennium line for $1 billion. Or build a full blown automated subway under the downtown core (Canada Line) for under $3 billion. Cities around the world easily pay twice as much for what we got.

Now I'm not saying that we build things cheap compared to elsewhere, just that we don't know the cost until we have some practice.

So what I suggest is we build out the Downtown Streetcar as a primer for LRT in the region. Much of the ROW has already been reserved and set aside (keeping property acquisition costs out of the picture) and a lot of the planning done. Meaning that the cost at the end of the project would represent the actual construction cost of building Light Rail in street ROW. You can also judge the public reaction to Light Rail. You can see if more or fewer people than projected ride. The impact on traffic can be judged. It also has the benefit of not being down the middle of any major streets, so if for some reason, we don't like it that much, it hasn't irreparably harmed the transportation grid, or taken away from other planned projects.

And the cost is estimated to be substantially less and the scope is small. So if we are wrong, and light rail costs MORE than we think, we aren't blowing hundreds of millions to get it done. A 20% overage on a $120 million budget isn't as bad as a 10% overage on a billion dollar budget.

Nothing would be worse than actually going forward with LRT, having it end up costing MORE than we thought, then having people like it LESS than we thought, and saving less time than we thought, in the end wishing we spent a little bit more on a subway.

I'm even worried about putting LRT through the busiest Surrey streets before testing it out in a less critical application (like building the downtown Streetcar).

So let Surrey build a Streetcar/ Tram/ LRT along 104th Ave and down King George with a station that has transfers to SkyTrain.

If it's as good & cheap as predicted, they've found a better & inexpensive replacement for SkyTrain in their area. The CoV could then use the Surrey results as proof for or against Streetcar/ Tram/ LRT in Vancouver.

If it's not as cheap as claimed, we'll know that too.

Either way, Surrey gets an expansion of transit in their area.

Meanwhile, Vancouver can build Skytrain tunneled to UBC.

[Jebby]

Originally Posted by jsbertram

So let Surrey build a Streetcar/ Tram/ LRT along 104th Ave and down King George with a station that has transfers to SkyTrain.

If it's as good & cheap as predicted, they've found a better & inexpensive replacement for SkyTrain in their area. The CoV could then use the Surrey results as proof for or against Streetcar/ Tram/ LRT in Vancouver.

If it's not as cheap as claimed, we'll know that too.

Either way, Surrey gets an expansion of transit in their area.

Meanwhile, Vancouver can build Skytrain tunneled to UBC.

I agree, if anywhere should be a "test bed" for LRT it should be Surrey and not Broadway. Surrey wants LRT anyway, so might as well do it there.

[xd_1771]

So let Surrey build a Streetcar/ Tram/ LRT along 104th Ave and down King George with a station that has transfers to SkyTrain.

If it's as good & cheap as predicted, they've found a better & inexpensive replacement for SkyTrain in their area. The CoV could then use the Surrey results as proof for or against Streetcar/ Tram/ LRT in Vancouver.

So you're telling us that it is acceptable to let the part of the region with the: fastest growing vehicle registration rate, the highest competitive transit demand, the highest proportion of citizens under 19 and the highest new immigrant population growth rate of any city in the metro, and the most underdeveloped local transit connection grid take the risk of adopting the potentially inferior transit service that will eat operating costs and hold back more widespread transit expansion as needed?

Please, get out. Have a look at the vehicle registration growth rates in Surrey (esp. in comparison to the population growth and road capacity growth rate) and tell me this city is ready for taking that kind of risk.

The test beds that we need already exist. They are the similar on-street systems in cities all over North America that have at least this in common: just about all of them have done dismally in terms of new ridership attraction. Just about all of them have involved hundreds of millions of dollars that could have been spent far more wisely.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

So you're telling us that it is acceptable to let the part of the region with the: fastest growing vehicle registration rate, the highest competitive transit demand, the highest proportion of citizens under 19 and the highest new immigrant population growth rate of any city in the metro, and the most underdeveloped local transit connection grid take the risk of adopting the potentially inferior transit service that will eat operating costs and hold back more widespread transit expansion as needed?

Please, get out. Have a look at the vehicle registration growth rates in Surrey (esp. in comparison to the population growth and road capacity growth rate) and tell me this city is ready for taking that kind of risk.

The test beds that we need already exist. They are the similar on-street systems in cities all over North America that have at least this in common: just about all of them have done dismally in terms of new ridership attraction. Just about all of them have involved hundreds of millions of dollars that could have been spent far more wisely.

Spent more wisely: just how? Could you provide examples?

[Rico]

[QUOTE=xd_1771;5947497]So you're telling us that it is acceptable to let the part of the region with the: fastest growing vehicle registration rate, the highest competitive transit demand, the highest proportion of citizens under 19 and the highest new immigrant population growth rate of any city in the metro, and the most underdeveloped local transit connection grid take the risk of adopting the potentially inferior transit service that will eat operating costs and hold back more widespread transit expansion as needed?

Please, get out. Have a look at the vehicle registration growth rates in Surrey (esp. in comparison to the population growth and road capacity growth rate) and tell me this city is ready for taking that kind of risk.

The test beds that we need already exist. They are the similar on-street systems in cities all over North America that have at least this in common: just about all of them have done dismally in terms of new ridership attraction. Just about all of them have involved hundreds of millions of dollars that could have been spent far more wisely.[/QUOT


You can find plenty of examples of failed LRT implementation in North America...you can also find plenty of successful examples. In my mind it is about connecting the correct system for achieving your goals with the best value. In my mind a Skytrain extension for Broadway is a no brainer but LRT on a road like King George should still be rapid and reliable and potentially significantly cheaper.

[xd_1771]

• Los Angeles: In 1985, when the transit agency starting building rail, it raised bus fares and cut service to cover cost overruns. Transit ridership plummeted, and did not recover to its 1985 levels until after 2000.
• Dallas has spent large amounts of money on a 118km light rail transit system. It carries 75,000 riders a day - and some lines are carrying less riders today than in earlier years. That's about 4 times less ridership than our SkyTrain system on a system with 70% more track and serving a larger metropolis.
• Portland has built a 85km light rail system that in 26 years has attracted and benefited less riders than the 19km Canada Line has in just 3 years of operation.
• STUDY: Portland Streetcar + several major events, people still choose to drive. Something that might have to do with the weak overall transit network created by high LRT costs is the fact that people were still driving despite the huge streetcar benefits.

I'm not saying, as some of these sites might seem to say, that the money should have been spent subsidizing roads instead. What's crippling the ability for rail transit systems in the USA to attract decent ridership are the horribly low standards being set for transit expansion. The systems I listed above are unlike potential Broadway & Surrey LRT options in that they are not completely on-street: there are some portions that are not on-street and in more reliable, totally separated rights-of-way - yet they are still so unsuccessful.

If those cities had pooled those hundreds of millions of dollars into even better and more competitive and reliable transit (i.e. complete grade separation) - despite any premiums or coverage area losses, chances are there'd have been more people riding transit after 25 years. There'd be more benefits to offset the costs after 25 years. There'd be less money being spent on roads each year because there's not going to be a need for so many roads/road expansions - transit is successfully attracting motorists. That's exactly what happened in Vancouver in the 1980s when we built with ART instead of LRT. And, no surprise.... today we have one of the most cost-effective rapid transit systems in North America. SkyTrain is outperforming EVERY light rail transit system in the United States in terms of cost per passenger. And, transit is so attractive and effective that not just the mode-share percentage but the amount of vehicles altogether entering downtown Vancouver is decreasing.

Slow transit doesn’t make people live slower lives. Instead, it makes people use their cars because those become the only way to access the city quickly. -Jarrett Walker, Human Transit

While other American cities are setting horribly low standards for transit, we Vancouverites set high standards. It is partly because we have to. Vancouver is dense AND it is just about the only major city in North America without a freeway to its downtown proper other major employment centres. We've started with high standards and I think that we ought to contend the Federal government's year-by-year reduction in public transit infrastructure funding and ensure that they stay that way.

[dreambrother808]

Awesome post!

[BCPhil]

Originally Posted by jsbertram

So let Surrey build a Streetcar/ Tram/ LRT along 104th Ave and down King George with a station that has transfers to SkyTrain.

If it's as good & cheap as predicted, they've found a better & inexpensive replacement for SkyTrain in their area. The CoV could then use the Surrey results as proof for or against Streetcar/ Tram/ LRT in Vancouver.

If it's not as cheap as claimed, we'll know that too.

Either way, Surrey gets an expansion of transit in their area.

Meanwhile, Vancouver can build Skytrain tunneled to UBC.

I have to agree with XD on this one. The city council and mayor in Surrey want LRT, but that might not be the best choice, or one that most people in Surrey would chose if given the choice.

Building exactly what Surrey wants, wouldn't be a test, it would be a full blown deployment. What I was getting at is that the downtown Streeetcar is on a smaller scale of several magnitudes than the Broadway Line and the Surrey proposals.

If Surrey builds LRT, and then it turns out to not meet our expectations and/or it costs far more than predicted, then Surrey is screwed forever. There is no replacing it with Skytrain. It's just stuck the way it is and may not have the desired effects on single occupancy vehicle trips one would hope. So we could be stuck with less road capacity, but the same number of drivers. Surrey might also not test all scenarios that need addressing (for current and future projects).

At least if we build out the Vancouver Streetcar we would get a full depth of experience for very little money (comparatively). The proposed plans have the Streetcar running fully segregated in a dedicated ROW (between GI and OV Station), a dedicated center median (OV station through the OV to Science World), a side of street running (up Columbia) and mixed with traffic (through Gastown). If extensions are put in place we get further experience with center median construction on very busy streets (Pacific and through Coal Harbour).

After it's built we can fully study the impact it has on travel patterns and traffic. If it doesn't live up to our hopes and dreams at least all we are left with is a very decent tourist attraction and downtown feeder line and it doesn't adversely impact any future lines planned.

A small cost overrun on the downtown Streetcar could be just tens of millions extra money spent; the same percentage discrepancy on the Surrey line could mean hundreds of millions lost to Translink. But beyond the cost, we need to see how the public reacts.

Surrey needs more than adequate transit. If we build the downtown streetcar line and it does not indicate it will meet the needs of Surrey (or Broadway) then Skytrain even with the higher cost is the better choice. If we just go ahead and build LRT, it might have no improvement over current buses, then we'll have spent hundreds of millions for nothing and have no chance of ever having Skytrain.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by BCPhil

...a side of street running (up Columbia) and mixed with traffic (through Gastown). If extensions are put in place we get further experience with center median construction on very busy streets (Pacific and through Coal Harbour).

Why the heck would anyone living on the south side of False Creek want to take a streetcar downtown when they're just a few minute's walk from a Skytrain station? If we ran the streetcar all the way to Granville Island, does anyone seriously think that downtown-bound passengers who board there would stay on the streetcar and not transfer at the Olympic Village station?

[easy as pie]

connecting stanley park to waterfront station to gastown to dtes to chinatown to science world to olympic village to sefc to false creek flats to granville island, and potentially to vanier park. yeah, a real waste of time, noone would ever use that. especially if there was a spur passing granville st near the bridge through yaletown along pacific via the stadium.

[jlousa]

Somone living in OV would probably get to Waterfront just as quick on the streetcar if not quicker instead of switching at Main St or riding the otherway and switching at OV station. But in either case the streetcar would be popular in shuttling passengers.

[Jebby]

Originally Posted by jlousa

Somone living in OV would probably get to Waterfront just as quick on the streetcar if not quicker instead of switching at Main St or riding the otherway and switching at OV station. But in either case the streetcar would be popular in shuttling passengers.

The streetcar would be great to connect the huge SEFC development to Olympic Village station.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by Jebby

The streetcar would be great to connect the huge SEFC development to Olympic Village station.

With more and more development along the south shore of False Creek I can see the need for some sort of shuttle service along it. I'm not convinced that a streetcar is the most cost-effective means to provide the service, but at least it would be fairly cheap to implement since almost all of the right-of-way already exists.

But I see absolutely no need for a streetcar to run downtown since it already has two Skytrain lines and by far the most frequent and numerous bus and trolley routes anywhere in the lower mainland.

[Echowinds]

I always thought that the streetcar is meant for shorter local trips that can replace a multitude of bus or trolley routes. No one's gonna ride it for the whole trip besides tourists, but it'll serve a good number of internal traffic within the downtown core. Stanley Park <---> Waterfront route would be pretty popular during summer, and Granville Island <---> Olympic Village is a lot more convenient than the current bus route. Also, the streetcar is better than the Skytrain at serving people right outside their destination. It's main competitors are bus/trolley routes, not Skytrain. If you agree that there are many people using the current bus/trolleys in Downtown right now, it should only make sense the streetcar will get at least that many riders on those existing routes.

It's a question whether the money is better off creating more bus/trolley lines rather than the streetcar.