Township
council not comfortable with SoFA
By Al Irwin - Langley Times
- March 12, 2008
TransLink’s current South of Fraser Area (SoFA) transit plans
won’t meet the future needs of Langley residents, but Township
council was divided Monday on how to remedy the situation.
Engineering department staff
recommended council endorse TransLink’s plan, subject to six conditions
for improving the service.
Council added two more of
their own conditions to the list.
Even so, four councillors
would not endorse the beefed-up SoFA plan.
The SoFA plan identifies
key transit improvements as part of a 2031 vision for Delta, Surrey,
Langley and White Rock, with intermediate time frames of 2011 and 2021.
Councillor Jordan Bateman
said he sees no consideration for light rail to the Township, and with
a time frame of 2031, his 15-month-old daughter will have a 15-month
old child, before light rail is a reality.
“That is just not good
enough,” said Bateman.
Councillor Steve Ferguson
agreed, noting that “a lot of money is being spent in Vancouver
and Burnaby, and of course, the Olympics are coming.
“But that’s not
a reason for the Fraser Valley to suffer,” Ferguson said.
The existing transit system
is primarily serviced by community shuttle and local bus routes, with
no routes which could be considered part of the frequent transit network,
a report from staff says.
The existing system doesn’t
provide for efficient connections between areas of the South of Fraser
Area, and is more oriented towards providing service to the west, to
connect to SkyTrain.
In a presentation, Township
transportation engineer Paul Cordiero noted that local service is currently
“low-level, mostly geared toward (travel to) Vancouver.”
In fact, according to a 2004
survey, 92.3 per cent of all daily trips made by Langley residents are
within the South of Fraser region, with 69.7 per cent of those starting
and ending here in Langley. A further 17.3 go to Surrey, Delta and White
Rock, with 5.5 per cent starting in Langley, and going to Abbotsford
or other points east.
Cordiero’s report recommends
conditions to accepting the SoFA transit plan, including:
that SoFA get an appropriate
share of the additional buses contained in the recent provincial transit
plan;
TransLink commit to achieving
equality in provision of bus services across the region, including SoFA,
in terms of hours of service per capita, as quickly as possible;
An immediate commencement
of planning for new facilities identified in the provincial transit
plan, including the Willowbrook Shopping Centre Transit Exchange, the
202 Street Transit/HOV tunnel, 202 Street Park and Ride/Transit Line
and 200/202 Street Bus Rapid Transit Lines;
TransLink forward, for comment,
to Langley Township an amended Seven-Year Implementation Plan based
on the above recommendations;
The plan acknowledges the
need for further significant rapid transit projects in the plan’s
time frame, beyond those identified in the provincial plan, and that
it be amended in the future as information is available to support the
additions;
That the SoFA plan identify
the need for improved connections to Abbotsford.
Council added two more stipulations,
and approved them unanimously:
That consideration be given for immediate transit opportunities for
Aldergrove, including connections between Aldergrove and Gloucester
Industrial Estates;
That TransLink identify
areas necessary for park and ride facilities.
“What is being proposed
here is not serving our community well,” said Councillor Kim Richter.
At minimum, Richter said
the SoFA plan should include a corridor for light rail transit.
She also asked council to
delay a decision on endorsing SoFA, until the council and VALTAC (Valley
Transportation Advisory Committee) saw the completed Community Rail
Study.
The deferral was defeated,
with Richter getting support from Councillors Steve Ferguson, Bateman
and Charlie Fox.
Mayor Kurt Alberts said that
conditions being imposed on the SoFA endorsement are intended to “make
it very clear that we want to achieve equity in terms of the rest of
the region. It means substantial improvements in the South of the Fraser
plan.
“We want that message
to go through loud and clear to the province,” Alberts said.
But Richter said the conditions
might help Surrey achieve equity, but she doubted Langley would.
Council endorsed the SoFA
plan, subject to the eight conditions, with Alberts, and Councillors
Bob Long, Mel Kositsky, Grant Ward and Howie Vickberg in favour.
Councillors Ferguson, Fox,
Bateman and Richter were opposed.
Chilliwack
gathering to push for Valley rail plan
By Kent Spencer, The Province
Published: Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Proponents of passenger rail in the Fraser Valley are gearing up their
campaign with a public meeting in Chilliwack on Saturday.
Organizers say 850,000 residents
from Delta to Chilliwack will support modern light-rail service if they
learn the facts.
"There is no effective
public transportation in the South Fraser area," said Nathan Pachal,
a 24-year-old television broadcasting engineer with a passion for rail.
"Public-transit
plans have been pretty much Vancouver-centric. There is a stronger case
to get people moving between Langley and Abbotsford than Langley and
Vancouver," said Pachal, a member of of the Valley Transportation
Advisory Committee.
The old Interurban railway
tracks, laid roughly 100 years ago, conveniently pass along most major
population centres and colleges on their way from north Surrey to Chilliwack.
"All the main walkable regions are pretty close," said John
Buker, founder of Rail for the Valley.
He said space on the
tracks could be leased from the Southern Railway of B.C.
"We kind of wonder why it's not being done. It's a no-brainer,"
he said.
The province has promised
to do a feasibility study, but Pachal said recent transportation initiatives
for Valley residents have been negligible. The government's $14-billion
2020 transportation plan promises rapid-bus service to Chilliwack in
12 years' time.
"That is completely
ridiculous," said Pachal. "Something needs to be done today."
Buker hopes Saturday's meeting will generate momentum. About 1,000 people
are already on his contact list.
Speakers include Bryan Vogler,
a former railway employee who helped create the West Coast Express.
He was a winner of the Queen's medal for transportation.
Unlike the West Coast Express,
which is a North Fraser commuter service that runs between Mission and
Vancouver westward in the morning and eastward in the evening, Buker
wants multiple trains to run back and forth all day on the new interurban
line. Chilliwack residents could leave their vehicles at home and do
errands in Langley.
There are challenges.
A stretch south of Abbotsford touches the U.S. border and is not the
fastest way to reach Chilliwack. Some railway curves are fine for slow
freight trains but are not built to handle passenger travel.
But Buker said cost estimates
are cheap, compared with the SkyTrain system. A TransLink study in 2006
pegged costs at $27 million per kilometre.
"Compared to $233 million per kilometre for the UBC SkyTrain line,
that is very cheap," Buker said.
"We're paying taxes
in Abbotsford, Chilliwack and Langley. We deserve better."
Saturday's meeting is at the Lions Club Hall at 45580 Spadina Ave.,
from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
kspencer@png.canwest.com
Time
for all to board a revived Interurban
It was needed once and it's needed now
Brian Lewis, The Province
Published: Tuesday, February 05, 2008
By the time the old Interurban rail service that linked Vancouver and
Chilliwack was closed in 1950, the 40-year-old system was serving roughly
70,000 people throughout the Fraser Valley.
Yet, now that community rail
service for the Fraser Valley along the still-used Interurban route
is being actively discussed, some argue that the region doesn't have
enough population to support such a service.
This despite estimates that
the Fraser Valley's current population of about 850,000 is expected
to reach one million people in 2012, which is only four years away.
More to the point, planning
for public transit usually involves assessing transportation needs for
30 to 50 years hence -- or more.
In that regard, until recently
the provincial government acted like a caboose at the end of the train
when it came to assessing public opinion on public transit for all communities
south of the Fraser River, including the Valley.
Like the caboose, Victoria
was always last to cross a given point (in this case, a point of enlightenment)
that the public had crossed much earlier. However, to its credit, the
Gordon Campbell government is beginning to display some grasp of the
obvious.
It now recognizes that there's
a growing groundswell of support throughout the Fraser Valley, advocating
that one of the most efficient, economical ways for this burgeoning
region to catch up on its public-transit needs is to look very seriously
at introducing a modern Interurban light-rail system.
And, while the government
doesn't buy into the Interurban thesis completely, at least it now acknowledges
that the idea is worth further study.
Hey, even a small step is
progress!
Lost amid all the noise of
the premier's announcement last month of a $14-billion public-transit
mega-plan was a commitment by Victoria to launch a feasibility study
for re-introducing some form of the old Interurban light-rail service
to the Fraser Valley.
Not surprisingly, this has
been welcome throughout the Valley and was a highlight for discussion
at a recent public-transit forum attended by more than 200 people at
the University College of the Fraser Valley.
And, while it's still very
early days for this study, I'm told by the transportation ministry that
its officials will meet with local government representatives in the
Valley at the end of this month to work out the study's scope and terms
of reference.
All of this is also good
news for Abbotsford-Clayburn MLA John van Dongen, Minister of State
for Intergovernmental Relations, who has been quietly lobbying his own
government on this issue for about a year-and-a-half. He's convinced
that the time is right, in term of population growth and demand, to
take a serious look at an Interurban service that would serve the Valley
-- including Abbotsford International Airport -- while connecting to
Metro Vancouver's transit system.
But van Dongen also warns
that Interurban rail won't get out of the station, as it were, unless
local governments in the Valley become full partners with Ottawa and
Victoria in making it happen.
If you have an item about
the Fraser Valley, e-mail Brian via blewis@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Province 2008
This
is how to make the B.C. transit system one that's truly world-class
Ian Bruce, Special to The Province
Published: Monday, February 11, 2008
It's high time we forgot
about wasting more than $2 billion on twinning the Port Mann Bridge.
A recent B.C. government
announcement means we can have a Lower Mainland bridge carrying more
than 20 lanes worth of traffic across the Fraser River. And most of
those lanes could be in place within two to four years.
The new bridge would be faster,
emissions-free -- and would boost economic productivity by getting thousands
of people to work and home with fewer delays.
The infrastructure is already there. It's called the Expo Line SkyTrain
Bridge, and it crosses the Fraser between Surrey and New Westminster.
The province's recent promise
to inject $4.75 billion into B.C.'s transit system -- with extra funding
from Ottawa and TransLink -- could boost the people-carrying capacity
of the bridge by the equivalent of up to 15 highway lanes.
This would be achieved by
adding more SkyTrain cars to the existing system, and by lengthening
the station platforms to handle six-car trains, as opposed to the current
four-car ones.
This improvement to the SkyTrain
Expo Line, together with an extended rapid-rail network to Guildford,
the planned Evergreen Line to the Tri-Cities and an expanded bus fleet
would give us a regional transit network that is fast and reliable.
It's a solution that actually
addresses the root cause of traffic gridlock by reducing car dependency
and by providing a balanced transportation system -- instead of worsening
congestion by expanding freeways and twinning the Port Mann.
The government should
include the money in the coming budget. In the meantime, it must ramp
up funding to address the lack of proper transit service in some parts
of the Lower Mainland.
The fact is we have to stop
spending billions on projects that encourage people to drive. And we
need to build communities with high enough population densities to support
transit.
Even with the SkyTrain Bridge
expanded to its full, 20-lane carrying capacity, some might ask how
the rapid-bus service that's been promised to link Fraser Valley communities
could operate smoothly across the Port Mann Bridge. Well, the solution
is to add one lane in each direction along Highway 1 from the Port Mann
to Langley, and to designate them both for transit. This would allow
buses to bypass the current congestion.Commuters
would flock to a rapid-bus or train system that allowed them every year
to reclaim the week of their lives they now spend stalled in traffic.
And if we get moving on the transit lanes, they could be ready in two
years.
This would achieve Premier
Campbell's bold climate-change goals. And the billions of dollars saved
could be used for building the inter-urban rail system out to the Fraser
Valley and investing in more energy-efficient rail to move goods. Now
that would be truly world-class!
Ian Bruce, a climate-change
specialist with the David Suzuki Foundation, can be reached at contact@davidsuzuki.org
© The
Vancouver Province 2008
For
future, learn from the past
Bryan Vogler, Special to The Record
Published: Saturday, January 12, 2008
Many people who are against the Port Mann Bridge twinning or widening
have only one solution left, and that is passenger rail.
Be it SkyTrain, any form of light rail or commuter rail, it is the alternative
of choice.
The question is, are we returning to our past? Did we build too many
roads so as to overload the grid and end up locked in our own puzzle?
Every car is a piece of the puzzle placed on the grid of roads like
the playing surface of a board game.
Nobody can get by the freeway, some cannot even get on it, while others
who are on it sit there creeping along.
Will passenger rail give them relief and an alternative to the automobile?
Will it end the game by getting them to the destination first? In short,
is passenger rail a winner?
Historically, the Interurban trams were the first urban rail service
running from New Westminster to Chilliwack starting in 1910. There were
few cars that could make that type of trip back then, even if there
was a good road.
Prior to that the Fraser River was the main marine highway to Chilliwack
with paddlewheel propulsion vessels that made the Interurban seem fast.
That all ended when Irving and the C.P. Navigation Company took their
boats to Victoria and sold them in 1905 to form the British Columbia
Coastal Service of the CPR. By that time, the CPR was in Vancouver,
and the first passenger railway was completed across the country.
Meanwhile, back in New Westminster, the new highway/rail bridge over
the Fraser was completed in 1904, giving New Westminster three passenger
railways to serve it by 1910. The Great Northern from Seattle was first
over the bridge, followed by the Interurban and then the Canadian Northern,
and we had three railway stations.
The passenger car grid followed all the major rail routes with highways
that could now make the car faster than passenger rail. For the CPR,
the year 1946 saw the highest amount of passengers ever moved, and it
steadily decreased to the point in 1990 when the railway got out of
the business altogether. The Interurban finished the last run to Chilliwack
in about 1955, because the Fraser/King George highway was preferred
by the travelling public. The Great Northern finished up in 1962 after
the Seattle World's Fair and has only returned recently under the Amtrak
name.
The Canadian National stopped running passenger trains across Canada
in 1977, and three-times-a-week service is done by Via Rail. Over a
period of a century, the public has taken cars or buses or even airlines
to replace the retired passenger rail services our Confederation promised
- into perpetuity and forever to operate, maintain and build the rails
that join Canada together as a nation from sea to sea.
The railways warned earlier that if you don't use them, you lose them,
and we are to blame for breaking promises to the earlier Canadians.
Now with gridlock on major highway routes surrounding New Westminster,
the suggestion of reinventing the New Westminster/Chilliwack interurban
service has become popular with the public again. However, the B.C.
Southern Railway (a Class 2 American regional railway), who operate
the line, remain quiet on the new passenger rail issue.
VALTAC
NOTE RE: For
future, learn from the past
There
is a great article about passenger rail and the Interurban in Saturday's
The Record. I would like to point out an error in the article though.
Contrary to the author, when BC Hydro sold it’s rail division
in the 1980’s it only sold the equipment, facilities and license
to transportation freight. To quote the 1988 press release other rights
“have been retained in order to accommodate future rail passenger,
real estate, or other developments along former B.C. Electric Railway
routings in the Lower Mainland.”
--
Posted By Nathan to Valley Transportation Advisory Committee
at 1/14/2008 01:32:00 PM
Federal
reports not supporting provincial government claims on Gateway Project
Monday, February 11 - 02:01:59 PM Jim Goddard/Mike Hanafin
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130)
- Both Environment Canada and Health Canada have issued reports that
are critical of the Gateway Project that includes the twinning of the
Port Mann Bridge. The federal reports say the provincial government
has not shown any evidence that freeway expansion will solve traffic
congestion.
Independent transport economist
Stephen Rees says one of the obvious mistakes made by the province is
not making a train line to the Valley a priority. "If you want
to see transit oriented developement, you have to have the transit first.
Not as an afterthought or a promise, or a possibly 'we'll get around
to it when there's enough people', which is what we're hearing from
the province."
Rees says the cost benefit
analysis done by the province would not be acceptable as a term paper
from a first year student, let alone justify the expenditure of billions
of dollars of public funds.
Health Canada says the province
has released artificially low air quality impact estimates. In its report
of a Gateway Project study on air pollution, Health Canada says "the
misdirected focus of this assessment is inappropriate and may be misleading
to the general reader."
Rees says the BC government
now needs to rethink this Gateway proposal, "And work towards a
truly sustainable regional transportation and land use plan with municipal
and regional governments. This requires putting transit first."
Langley
needs rapid transit
January 16, 2008
Langley gains little from an ambitious provincial transit plan announced
Monday, says letter writer Ashley Zarbatany. She notes that it takes
a long time to go to Vancouver from Langley, and that won’t change.
Editor: As a concerned
Langley citizen, I, along with many around me, feel that the new plan
for rapid transit expansion in the Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley
region is not going to be efficient enough.
On Monday. Township Mayor
Kurt Alberts said on television that Langley does not need rapid transit
as much as it needs local buses. He said that Langley residents do not
want to travel into Vancouver, thus we don’t need to extend the
SkyTrain into Langley.
This was a poor spin by Alberts
to avoid the truth, which is that he simply was lazy in fighting for
the extension of rapid transit into Langley. Vancouver city has greater
political sway and the Langley Township mayor seems to be either complacent
in his position of power or he is scared of disrupting the political
game by demanding that Langley’s needs are met.
I concede and agree fully
that Langley needs a better bus system within its borders, but I completely
disagree with the statement that Langley residents do not want or need
to leave the area via transit.
The news report had already
stated that 90 per cent of people working in Vancouver are living in
suburbs. Langley is one of those suburbs.
Increasing rapid transit
service into Vancouver would cut the congestion on Highway 1 and Highway
99. Highway 1 is always backed up during rush hour right to the 200
Street exit, and investing in rapid transit for the Fraser Valley would
greatly reduce this line-up.
It would also reduce the
large amounts of carbon dioxide emissions that result from this commuting.
When Alberts stated that
Langley residents don’t travel into Vancouver on transit, he was
somewhat right. Langley residents don’t take transit because it
takes two and one-half hours to get into Vancouver on the current transit
system.
Not only has Langley been
ignored in this new transit policy, so has the rest of the Fraser Valley.
Abbotsford and beyond is completely cut off from the rest of the Lower
Mainland under this new transit plan.
If Langley had the SkyTrain
out this far, there could be express buses from the SkyTrain out into
the valley. That would continue to reduce traffic that would otherwise
be polluting our air.
Alberts either does not have
enough spine to defend his constituents, or he is ignoring the fact
that Langley residents do not wish to be isolated from the rest of the
Lower Mainland and would rather have more innovative and environmentally
friendly ways to commute, instead of having to rely on vehicles that
continue to add to the growing problem of global warming and environmental
(as well as health) disasters.
Instead of saving for money
for the destructive Gateway project, we should be investing in better
transit options that will help sustain the fast-growing populations
of the Lower Mainland.
Transit in Europe should
serve as a good role model for us. Their rapid transit systems serve
millions in high density areas and they do not suffer from congestion.
One can take transit to most
reaches of the European Union and not need a gasoline- powered vehicle.
Canadians, especially those on the West Coast, should take note and
follow older countries’ innovative measures.
We will soon be home to many
more millions, as world population continues to rise.
Ashley Zarbatany,
Langley
"Free"
buses vs. "expensive" rail?
31 May 2007
Produced by the
Light Rail Now! Publication Team
Myth:
There seems to be a widely
held notion among the public – including
many politicians, journalists, etc. – that rail transit systems,
such as light
rail transit (LRT), are weighted down with substantial heavy capital
expense, while buses are more or less "free". Rail transit
critics exploit
this misconception by emphasising the relatively high installation costs
of
new rail systems ("BILLION$$$ for rail") vs. the relatively
lower costs of
simply operating buses on city streets and freeways. "Why build
expensive rail? Buses can do the same thing cheaper" is a familiar
refrain
in local debates over proposed new rail transit starts.
Reality:
Bus systems incur sizeable
capital expenses, too, as well as rail, with
typically much higher operating and maintenance (O&M) costs; often,
when you add up all these costs and account for the relative life of
all the
infrastructure and rolling stock, plus the work performed (measured
in
passenger-mileage or passenger-km), you may find that rail actually
gives
amazing "bang for the buck".
To demonstrate this, the
Light Rail Now Project team carried out an
analysis of transit performance data from St. Louis Metro, comparing
the
total operating and maintenance (O&M) plus capital costs of both
Metro's
bus transit and MetroLink light rail transit (LRT) systems for the period
1996-2005, using National Transit Database Agency Profile data
gathered by the Federal Transit Administration.
The table below presents
total costs (capital fixed facilities and rolling
stock, and O&M) for each mode over the ten-year period (millions
of US
dollars), and the total passenger-mileage (millions) carried by each
mode
over that period:
St. Louis Metro – Total
Costs & Passenger Mileage, 1996-2005
Capital Costs:
Fixed Facilities Capital Costs:
Rolling Stock O&M Cost Total Cost Passenger-
Mileage
Bus $64.0 $131.3 $1,045.5 $1,240.8 1,389.5
LRT $844.4 $124.2 $262.2 $1,231.2 1,047.7
[Source: Federal Transit Administration, National Transit Database,
1996-
2005]
It is particularly interesting
to note that, even with its heavy capital costs,
when operational costs are considered, St. Louis Metro's LRT in this
period exhibits total costs slightly less than the agency's bus operations.
However, higher total passenger-mileage was carried on the bus system,
so a more complete analysis would require taking into consideration
the
differing life-cycle costs for each mode (e.g., railcars last considerably
longer than motor buses) by annualising capital costs.
To obtain a total annualised
cost figure for each mode, capital costs were
annualised using common economic analysis (see discussion below).
Annual operating costs were averaged for the 10-year period, as was
annual passenger-mileage for each mode – reflecting the advantages
of
the longer lives of both LRT infrastructure and rolling stock.
For bus, average annual O&M
costs were $104.6 million, and average
passenger-mileage was 139.0 million. For LRT, average annual O&M
costs were $26.2 million, and average passenger-mileage was 104.8
million.
Via this "averaging"
method, with annualised capital costs, the total cost
per passenger-mile for each mode was calculated as follows:
• Bus – $0.88
• LRT – $0.74
This suggests that, with
total capital and operational costs considered, St.
Louis's "capital-intensive" LRT ends up costing approximately
16% less
per passenger mile than the agency's supposedly "cheap" bus
system.
This analysis was corroborated
by a slightly different methodology –
calculating the cost per passenger-mile for the final year, 2005, only.
In
this case, the annualised capital costs for each mode were added to
the
O&M cost for 2005, and then divided by the passenger-mileage for
each
mode in 2005 to obtain a total cost per passenger-mile figure for that
year:
• Bus – $0.97
• LRT – $0.82
Through this method (which
adjusts somewhat for more recent inflationary
increases), LRT still comes out about 15% less than bus service in terms
of work performed (i.e., passenger-miles carried).
The assumptions used for
annualising capital costs depart significantly
from those required by FTA (after all, this is a form of benefit-cost
analysis, not an exercise in meeting FTA's New Start project qualification
benchmarks). Thus, an annualization (discount) factor of 5% was used,
rather than the 7% mandated by FTA – given today's interest and
inflation
rates, it is difficult to justify anything above about 5% for a public
works
investment.
In this assessment, a 50-year
life is assumed to be reasonable for LRT
infrastructure because this includes right-of-way (ROW), to which even
FTA assigns a 100-year life. FTA's mandatory life expectancy for railcars
is 25 years, which seems unreasonably low compared with industry
experience. Various sources report a 30 to 35-year economic life for
rail
rolling stock; this analysis has used 30 years.
The FTA's average life for
a bus of 12 years, on the other hand, does
seem reasonable in light of widespread industry experience, and this
is
corroborated by reliable documentary evidence. For the economic life
of
bus fixed facilities, 45 years has been used for several reasons: (1)
Buses
run mainly on public streets, so there's very little need for ROW
acquisition and cost. (2) Many bus facilities, such as sidewalk signage,
benches, etc., are much less durable than comparable items on rail stop
or station platforms. (3) Bus pavement has a shorter life than rail
track
infrastructure, and their salvage value is basically nil.
Bottom Line of this analysis:
At least in the case of St. Louis Metro's bus
and rail operations, examination of actual total capital and O&M
costs
over a ten-year period suggest that investment in LRT has lowered the
total unit cost of providing public transport mobility. And this simply
accounts for direct agency costs, without consideration of the array
of
significant additional benefits of rail service for passengers and the
community.
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