The Regional Transit System

1. THE BLUE LINE REGIONAL SERVICE

There is an affordable, sustainable—and immediately available—option for a Regional Transit System linking the North Shore, Vancouver, Surrey, Chilliwack and places in between that must be considered as a first priority in the Metro Vancouver-Fraser Valley regions (shown as a Blue Line in the map above).

THE ModernTram ADVANTAGE

First demonstrated a decade ago, in Vancouver, as the Olympic Line, the new  ModernTram technology combines conventional, electric streetcar performance with regional, railway commuter service. Light, low platform vehicles make boarding a breeze. The seats are better than trolley and bus, and there is free wi-fi and recharging for personal devices. Adding a café car with lavatories extends necessary convenience for trips lasting over one hour long. Yet, the vehicles are lighter than railway stock, making the construction of roadbeds and rails lighter and cheaper to build. Not insignificantly, the ModernTram can deliver many times more passenger capacity for a fraction of the cost of building the Skytrain. And there is more good news. A Regional Transit System can plan the decisive role in a rapid supply response designed to End the Housing Crisis.

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LEFT: BARCELONA MODERN TRAM. RIGHT: VANCOUVER OLYMPIC LINE.         (Bombardier demonstration, 2010).

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On the technology side, the ModernTram advantage is its hybrid nature. ModernTram can operate as a subway in a tunnel under Burrard Inlet and Burrard Street. It can operate as a streetcar on the Arbutus right-of-way and along No. 5 Street in Richmond. And it can operate as a regional railway on the BCE right-of-way all the way from Scott Road to Chilliwack.

Shown in the route map at the top of the post with a BLUE LINE, ModernTram will link communities and green fields South of Fraser with the Arbutus Corridor, Downtown, the North Shore, airports YVR and YXX, and the Canada, Expo and Millennium Lines.

ModernTram advantage is that it can deliver a Regional Transit System with a neighborhood-friendly technology at an affordable price.

However, there is an important flip side to this store. The Regional Transit System can be the backbone for returning affordable houses across Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley.

REGIONAL REACH

The key regional destinations & links include:

• • • • Millennium, Expo & Canada lines
      • Waterfront Station
      • Arbutus Corridor
      • Richmond
      • Queensborough
      • New Westminster
      • Delta & Surrey
      • The Langleys
      • Abbotsford & Sumas
      • Chilliwack & Rosedale
      • Airports YVR & YXX

+ An airport shuttle serves Abbotsford International Airport (dotted blue line).

+ The cost per/km for tunnelling under the Burrard Inlet and tunnelling under Broadway are comparable. The distance from Waterfront Station, Vancovuer, to the Lonsdale Quay, North Vancouver, is just 3.5 km (dashed blue line). Taking the service below grade along Burrard Street extends the tunnel to 5 km in total length. Extending the Broadway tunnel from Arbutus to UBC requires a 7 km long bore, representing a level of effort and cost better directed elsewhere. Studies are now underway for both the Broadway and Burrard Inlet tunnels.

+ Installing a rail deck under the Pattullo Bridge replacement for taking the BLUE LINE across the Fraser River.

(-) A 16 km section of the BLUE LINE will be built free of cost by freight service operators (Pratt-Livingstone Corridor, between 184th St., Surrey and 232nd Ave., Langley—blue and white dotted line on the map).

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COMPARISON FOR REGIONAL TRANSIT SYSTEM

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2. Skytrain Unsuitable for Regional Transit Service

For reasons that are not altogether transparent, most transit engineers and many politicians in our region continue to insist that Skytrain is the technology of choice for all our transit needs.

In their discussions, most fail to acknowledge that the Canada Line was completed in time for the 2010 Olympics running a conventional electric train technology with drivers on board.

In their rush to judgement they fail to accurately represent the three cardinal disadvantages of the Skytrain System: Cost, Capacity and Restricted Operation.

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$600 million/km —UBC Subway

$200 m/km—Skytrain on the Fraser Highway

$50 m/km—ModernTram/Olympic Line

$6 m/km—Vancouver-Chilliwack (initial hourly service)

COMPARISON OF TRANSIT OPTIONS (per millions per KM)

2.1 COST

As the table above shows, ModernTram will deliver Regional Transit System at 1/4 the cost of Skytrain. In other words, ModernTram can serve 4x more communities than Skytrain for the same buck.

Installing an hourly service from Vancouver to Chilliwack was recently estimated costing $800 million by Leewood Projects (UK).

Cost advantages include the fact that the right-of-way is still owned by government. And that the 16-kilometre Livingston Corridor leased to Canadian National will be upgraded for passenger service, free of cost to the taxpayer, as part of the terms of lease.

2.2 PASSENGER CAPACITY

A further complication introduced by the Skytrain driverless technology is that the Transport Canada certificate restricts operations to carrying 15,000 passengers per hour in one direction (pphpd).

A ModernTram train of the same length can carry 45,000 passengers per hour in one direction. Of course, whereas Skytrain train length is restricted by the elevated platform length, no such restrictions apply to surface transit.

ModernTram can operate trains of any length, adjusting to match demand.

Thus—for the same buck—we could carry 4-times more passengers and travel 4-times further. That amounts to 16-times more service for the same price.

The longer distances in the route make building Skytrain to Chilliwack prohibitive, costing 4-times more to build.

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SKYTRAIN BLIGHTS THE PLACES IT CROSSES

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2.3 RESTRICTED OPERATIONS

Skytrain is an outmoded 1970s transit technology that began building in our city and region in the 1980s. We have shown already how the driverless technology has restricted passenger carrying capacity.

A second feature of the driverless technology is that the tracks must be separated from public access because the trains operate blind. There is no optical sensory detection system on board. Skytrain cannot tell the difference between a lump of snow, a rock, a person or an automobile.

When it snows, Skytrain must have a driver on board. Since there are not enough conductors on payroll, service downgrades on snowy days.

All combined, restricted operations, prohibitive costs of construction, and capacity restrictions make Skytrain unsuitable for delivering a Regional Transit System.

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2.4 TRIGGERING THE HOUSING CRISIS

We have detailed three major drawbacks using Skytrain to deliver a Regional Transit System: the 40-year old, driverless technology’s cost of construction, reduced passenger capacity, and restricted operations.

However, this trio of shortcomings pale in comparison to the greatest damage Skytrain has rained on our communities. In order to pay for the exorbitant costs of construction city governments and regional plans turned to permitting the building of towers.

Economists have shown how what Vancovuer planners dub a ‘best use, highest value’ paradigm for land development, will ‘lift land values,’ triggering a Housing Affordability Crisis.

The inflation of house prices is all in the now stratospheric land valuations. Since 2010 house prices have risen by 200%, while inflation and incomes hovered at 1 and 2% levels.

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SKYROCKETING HOUSE & MULTI-FAMILY PRICES IN VANCOUVER, 2019

 

Municipal councils in Vancouver, Surrey, Burnaby, New Westminster, North Vancouver, Port Moody and Coquitlam have turned to the Skytrain-and-Towers formula to generate new municipal revenue streams. But they have done so at too great a cost.

A Housing Crisis has been triggered in Greater Vancouver over the three decades by building Skytrain-Towers-and-Subways.

House prices today are 2.6 to 3.75-times higher than what is affordable to median household incomes. Most families in the region have been locked out of the real estate market. The Canadian Dream of owning a cottage on a garden lot has been priced beyond the reach of most Canadians in this region.

And there is no end in sight to the lifting of land values if we continue down the same track. Simply put, according to the laws of economics, building Towers-Skytrain-and-Subways is putting out the fire of and over-heated real estate market with gasoline.

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THE TRANSIT PYRAMID: A CONTINUOUS UPGRADE PATH FOR ADDING CAPACITY AND SERVING NEIGHBORHOODS AND NEW TRAMTOWNS.

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3. A TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE

Business-as-usual will not get us out of this mess. We have to change the approach. A transformational change is required at the government policy level. A change that will embrace building ModernTram and Human Scale urbanism to finally End to the Housing Crisis.

The transformational difference separating Modern Tram from Skytrain as diagramed in the Transit Pyramid. 

In the Transit Pyramid Modern Tram rides at the top of a continuous upgrade path for transit. All transit technologies in the Pyramid operate in the same road space, or road lane. We can serve between 1,500 people (trolley) and 33,000 people (ModernTram, 4-car train set) in one hour, travelling in one direction, on the same road space. Off-peak, transit lanes can be shared with local traffic.

However, the leading motivation for building the Regional Transit System is not transportation per se.

We need to prioritize building a Regional Transit System for the benefits that will accrue all along the transit route. Only the reach of regional transit will deliver sustainable, human-scale urbanism in sufficient numbers, and rapidly enough, to break the bottleneck in house supply, and finally End the Housing Crisis.

The Transit Pyramid also presents the fundamental difference between highway lanes and transit lines. Understanding this difference is also key to Ending the Housing Crisis.

• One Freeway Lane   1,200 pphpd

• One HOV Lane.          2,400 pphpd

• ModernTram.          33,000 pphpd (4-car train set)

Building the Regional Transit System will deliver the equivalent capacity of 28 highway lanes in one direction. Or the equivalent to a 56-lane freeway.

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1960s PROPOSAL FOR THE DOWNTOWN WATERFRONT FREEWAY

Wrapped in this enigma is a phenomenon called ‘Induced Demand.’ Cars are an amorphous quantity: traffic patterns change shape to fill whatever road network we build. Thus, traffic congestion is sure to present on any highway at regular, predictable peak points. Just as predictably, there will be long parts to the day when the highway is nearly empty.

The best way to counter traffic congestion, therefore, is not to build additional lanes. Rather, when cities reach a regional footprint, we must build rail capacity to move people between regional centres. This service is the Regional Transit System.

While this will not end peak hour road congestion, it will guarantee those choosing to ride transit fast, affordable and efficient transportation to and from their place of employment.

Looking in the opposite direction, it will also produce the other beneficial results region wide. Chief among these is accessing sufficient quantity of green field to guarantee affordable house supply.

Only a Regional Transit Systems can access green field in sufficient quantities to deliver the rapid supply response necessary to End the Housing Crisis.