Transit Fantasies

[Helvetia]

Originally Posted by GMD

That is the big reason why skytrain down King George would have been so much better. Like the Cambie line, it could have absorbed a lot of east-west traffic into a single north-south route.

I'm not too sure on that. There's a large chunk of industrial land between the two north-south routes in Surrey, the KGB and Scott Road, with few people living in that gap and even fewer east-west bus routes (this goes back to Surrey's incomplete road network but I won't beat a dead horse). Based on napkin math, someone living on the Scott Road corridor would see no time savings if a KGB SkyTrain was built; it would be faster to take the future R6. Perhaps the case is different east of KGB, but there isn't much passenger potential to the west for a KGB SkyTrain.

Scott Road is already well-served by buses, thanks to major service increases in recent years, and we're getting a rapid bus to boot. There are places (e.g. North Shore) that are far more deserving at the present moment for RRT.

[GMD]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

It's more than just existing patterns, though. A diagonal line through the entire region can anchor a proper N-S and E-W bus grid across the whole region, allowing for the drainage you're looking for; we're already seeing plans for a RapidBus along 152nd to Newton and through a TOD hub at Fleetwood. A King George line covers Newton-Whalley and pretty much nothing else.

Don't get me wrong, I am 100% in favour of the skytrain to Langley, and I think it will do well, and I also see a huge benefit in the diagonal path across the grid. I just think that when you look per mile and per dollar, you'd get more on King George/Guildford in terms of ridership return (even in 2045, your graphic, which is a nice one, still shows more on that route). And this route also has the potential for regional connections via extension south to the park and ride, Morgan Crossing, Semiahmoo and White Rock.

But that is OK, we can finish up the route to Langley, then start working on King George next

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

The entire North Shore put together outnumbers North Delta three times over, to say nothing of Hastings or Willingdon. Of course SkyTrain is being pushed there first.

Looks like the NPV dropped to -$316 million four years after the study. Pretty sure that was the same time we found out that it'd only move 2,040 pphpd when it opened.

You have to add the Surrey Newton Area (since Scott Road is shared between N. Delta and Surrey.
Once you do that, the population is actually around the same.


Yes, KGB shares Newton, but Scott Road also shares part of Whalley.

And the ridership on KGB and Scott Road is disproportionately high vs NS (as I have said before) because different types of people live there.

Ridership for some bus lines may not necessarily justify SkyTrain, especially if they're mostly for local service rather than regional service (19 is one of the higher-used bus lines despite copying Expo).

But even just comparing all the other R/B Lines:
2021 Weekday Boardings (I know, pandemic, but this is the most recent data):
240 Lynn Valley/DT: 7,000
R2 Marine Dr: 4,000
250 Horseshoe Bay: 5,000

319 Scottsdale: 14,000
R1 King George: 11,000
321 Semiahmoo: 6,000 (2,000-3,000 for Semiahmoo <> Newton segment)

130 Willingdon: 14,000

406 Steveston: 3,000

99 Broadway: 29,000
49 49th: 22,000
R4 41st: 22,000
R5 Hastings: 13,000

R3 Lougheed Hwy: 2,000


NS is in the same ridership range as PoCo/Maple Ridge on the low end- which has far more development potential (and is growing much faster in both employment and residents)- and on the high end as the 410 and 430 (8,000 and 5,000 respectively), connecting Richmond to MetroTown and 22nd St.


Yes, NS is political- NS residents just use far less transit than the density implies (same as how the east-west Vancouver routes overperform because of college students, but in reverse) due to its older and whiter demographics.
Also, more of them would tend to use buses over SkyTrain due to age preferences.


If Steveston or Nordel/Scottsdale had been town centers of FTDAs (Delta at least wants to have Scott Road as a FTDA... I'm guessing Surrey is stopping it ), it would be more difficult to justify not having a SkyTrain on the nominal plans for North Delta.

Both current and future demand prospects for NS suck.

Basically all the current planned SkyTrain lines out to 2050 but NS have better cost/benefit ratios.

Maple Ridge may have higher or equal ridership by that time, even (the current Metro projections likely underestimate population and employment, as they do not account for the plans for industrial parks in East Maple Ridge).
Semiahmoo too, considering the large amount of underdeveloped land in South Surrey (Grandview Heights and arguably Elgin/Crescent Beach (though I think that's basically the Shaughnessy of Surrey.)

----
Maybe because BRT would have had enough money to widen out 104th and KGB, while LRT wouldn't- while the earlier study assumed LRT also widened the road. Without the details, it's impossible to determine the real reasons why.

Let's put a pin on this until I can get my hands on the original later report.

Originally Posted by GMD

Scott Road is probably the most under-rated corridor in terms of the attention it gets vs. the ridership, I think in part because it has grown really quickly so the narrative hasn't had a chance to catch up with the reality, in part because, I guess, the people who live in that part of town don't have a lot of wealth or connections, and in part because it doesn't line up with any planned 'town centres' and is in fact divided between two municipalities.

Here is a nice map created by Brendan Dawe which is a good reference for visualizing transit routes that might make sense.

It is a few years old, so it underrates the Surrey routes a bit, especially Scott Road, but gives you a sense. Based on this, corridors that would make sense for rapid transit are probably:

Out to UBC on Broadway (duh)
41/49 corridor
Netwon - Surrey Centre - Guildford (should have been done by now, in my opinion)
Scott Road
North Shore Loop via Park Royal/Lower Lonsdale/Phibbs
Hastings St.
Willingdon Corridor
Victoria/Commercial (Route 20)

So maybe it is partly political for North Shore, but not as much as Tri-Cities was, and not too far out of line with what the ridership would tell you to do.

The map doesn't extend to Abbotsford, since it isn't part of Translink (another thing that should have been sorted out by now) so it doesn't show the real value of a route out that way, but you can see how tiny the current ridership through Murrayville and Aldergrove is.

Lots of other corridors that do and will continue to get higher ridership, including:

King George to Semihamoo
Richmond/NW (Route 410)
NW-Brentwood (Via Canada Way)
Coq Centre to Maple Ridge
Richmond Centre to Steveston
etc.

According to the Surrey Rapid Transit Phase 2 Report:

RRT1A (SkyTrain on Fraser + BRT on KGB and 104th) had a total ridership of 10,250 pphpd with capital costs of $2,220

RRT2 (SkyTrain on KGB + BRT on Fraser and 14th) had a total ridership of 9,550 pphpd with capital costs of $1,540.

NPV for RRT1A is higher, but only because of greater development potential (more track length and more town centers/FTDAs/municipalities).


SLS went ahead because planning for Surrey-Langley SkyTrain was further ahead than the KGB option, as TransLink had been working on SLS as 'Phase 2', after the Surrey LRT.

So when the mayors changed, they just moved up SLS instead of restarting the planning to get the KGB SkyTrain instead.

Also, the bus lines in Surrey are generally north-south, not east-west (or in Langley/Clayton, spaghetti.)
So KGB can't anchor any bus lines outside of Newton Exchange unless you completely redesign the bus network.

---
TriCities was also political, yes, but it still would have been developed by now - just after the Broadway segment, rather than before it.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/bus-...evergreen-line

The really political one was Millennium Line Phase 0, which was a white elephant when it first launched in the early 2000s.

Note that the 97B's 11,000 daily ridership in 2013 is much higher than the daily ridership of R2 in 2021

Originally Posted by Helvetia

I'm not too sure on that. There's a large chunk of industrial land between the two north-south routes in Surrey, the KGB and Scott Road, with few people living in that gap and even fewer east-west bus routes (this goes back to Surrey's incomplete road network but I won't beat a dead horse). Based on napkin math, someone living on the Scott Road corridor would see no time savings if a KGB SkyTrain was built; it would be faster to take the future R6. Perhaps the case is different east of KGB, but there isn't much passenger potential to the west for a KGB SkyTrain.

Scott Road is already well-served by buses, thanks to major service increases in recent years, and we're getting a rapid bus to boot. There are places (e.g. North Shore) that are far more deserving at the present moment for RRT.

Note that the area between Scottsdale and Newton actually has the highest number of boardings on the future R6, not the least.

KPU Newton is there.

[GMD]

Originally Posted by fredinno

Also, the bus lines in Surrey are generally north-south, not east-west (or in Langley/Clayton, spaghetti.)
So KGB can't anchor any bus lines outside of Newton Exchange unless you completely redesign the bus network.

Even without KGB skytrain, they desperately need to redesign the Surrey bus network to a grid layout with increased frequency (I have a post on this in one of the threads somewhere!).

But with KGB going in, surely they would have had to have done a redesign to create some EW routes. 64 is obvious, 72/152 would be that much stronger with a KGB skytrain in place, 80/84 makes sense with the 84 connector going in, 88 is clear, 104 is mostly covered by the KGB/Guildford line, so you're just left with 96 that is a bit difficult, although it could still be done.

That is the element that was missed in the projections in my opinion. But it is not like it is a hill I want to die on, it is totally fine with the extension to Langley going ahead first, to me it was a wrong decision not to do KGB first, but not a crazy decision.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by GMD

Even without KGB skytrain, they desperately need to redesign the Surrey bus network to a grid layout with increased frequency (I have a post on this in one of the threads somewhere!).

But with KGB going in, surely they would have had to have done a redesign to create some EW routes. 64 is obvious, 72/152 would be that much stronger with a KGB skytrain in place, 80/84 makes sense with the 84 connector going in, 88 is clear, 104 is mostly covered by the KGB/Guildford line, so you're just left with 96 that is a bit difficult, although it could still be done.

That is the element that was missed in the projections in my opinion. But it is not like it is a hill I want to die on, it is totally fine with the extension to Langley going ahead first, to me it was a wrong decision not to do KGB first, but not a crazy decision.

104th actually was BRT on both options 1 and 2.

The issue is that, even though it connects the 2 biggest Surrey town centers, 104th would require a new line to be built.
You can't split Expo into 3 branches.

If KGB gets built now, it would allow for a 2nd line from Guildford-Whalley-Newtown-Semiahmoo (instead of having a line from Guildford-Whalley-Fleetwood-Langley- or changing the track design later on to allow for the Expo to continue down Fraser instead of KGB.)

Also, such an extensive bus network redesign would probably irk some feathers.
There are also more holes in Surrey's east-west road network.
Eg. 60th Ave, 68th Ave, 78th Ave, 84th Ave, 92nd Ave, 100 Ave, and 112th Ave. do not go all the way across the developed part of Surrey.
Only 144th and 124 have similar gaps from North-South.

Also, extending Expo down KGB would mean going behind Surrey Memorial, rather than in front of it (as it was planned), using the powerline ROW, which is less optimal than using KGB up to Surrey Central.
The problem is King George is clearly pointing in a certain direction, and it's not south.

[Migrant_Coconut]

If Whalley-Newton gets built now, it’ll be as an Expo spur, killing a Guildford line altogether; there is no funding or official plan to make it an independent line as of May 2023. Other threads have speculated how the SkyTrain can get back onto KGB via 140th and the BC Hydro corridor, but that would paint the overall network into a corner.

Originally Posted by fredinno

-snip

That version of Newton covers everything from 112th to 152nd; the R6 very much does not. Nor is there any reason for anybody from outside its catchment to take it past Strawberry Hill or KPU, unlike Deep Cove or West Van riders who’d use a SkyTrain to get across Burrard Inlet to the rest of the city. Come back to this line of argument when the population of West Newton by itself exceeds 100k.

Pitt Meadows/Maple Ridge is even further out than Langley, and despite “potential,” they're both content to be low-density bedroom communities. Even West Van is attempting TOD right across the harbour from downtown. No politics involved - just cold, hard math.

Bus numbers aside, the fact remains that either Gold or Purple are each predicted to see 50k+ boardings/day when it opens, while the pre-lockdown Evergreen segment already struggled to get even a third of that ridership (and an extension over the Coquitlam River would fare even worse than that) so TransLink probably has the right idea when they plan to extend to Port Coq and call it quits. Whatever the future of Metro Vancouver is, Maple Ridge ain't it.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Also note the 97 had a SkyTrain connection and fourteen years to build up its ridership. If it's 2035 and the R2's still lagging behind it even with a connecting RapidBus from Phibbs to Metrotown, then we can start making judgements on it.

[GMD]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

If Whalley-Newton gets built now, it’ll be as an Expo spur, killing a Guildford line altogether; there is no funding or official plan to make it an independent line as of May 2023.

Sure, but nothing is getting built right now, and plans change, as anyone who follows transit developments in Vancouver can appreciate.

Clearly KGB-Guildford would have to be its own line, it would be idiocy to try and make it a spur line from the Expo line, about as much sense as making the Canada Line a spur of the Expo Line would have made.

Politically, with the money being spent in Surrey right now, and practically, with future Surrey developments oriented towards the new line, it makes sense to go to the North Shore next (assuming we aren't doing the obvious next move of extending Broadway line to UBC) as it likely has the best ridership and regional connection potential of the remaining routes. Maple Ridge is not on the radar, nor should it be, although an extension to Poco makes sense.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

If Whalley-Newton gets built now, it’ll be as an Expo spur, killing a Guildford line altogether; there is no funding or official plan to make it an independent line as of May 2023.
Other threads have speculated how the SkyTrain can get back onto KGB via 140th and the BC Hydro corridor, but that would paint the overall network into a corner.



That version of Newton covers everything from 112th to 152nd; the R6 very much does not. Nor is there any reason for anybody from outside its catchment to take it past Strawberry Hill or KPU, unlike Deep Cove or West Van riders who’d use a SkyTrain to get across Burrard Inlet to the rest of the city. Come back to this line of argument when the population of West Newton by itself exceeds 100k.

Pitt Meadows/Maple Ridge is even further out than Langley, and despite “potential,” they're both content to be low-density bedroom communities. Even West Van is attempting TOD right across the harbour from downtown. No politics involved - just cold, hard math.

Bus numbers aside, the fact remains that either Gold or Purple are each predicted to see 50k+ boardings/day when it opens, while the pre-lockdown Evergreen segment already struggled to get even a third of that ridership (and an extension over the Coquitlam River would fare even worse than that) so TransLink probably has the right idea when they plan to extend to Port Coq and call it quits. Whatever the future of Metro Vancouver is, Maple Ridge ain't it.

Branching the Expo from Surrey Central station means you now have 2 parallel King George Stations.
This was a problem for the LRT plan.

Guildford is literally the 2nd biggest town center other than Whalley and home to one of the largest and most popular shopping centers in Canada.

It's also planned on being very densified (and already has lots of towers going up without SkyTrain.)

From Transport 2050:

(Also, note the low growth in NS outside Lonsdale (and Lynn Valley).

104th is one of the most congested roads in SOF and is also an FTDA.
I know it's technically not part of the current plans, but it should be.

It was in the Regional Growth Strategy, so it seems dumb to just get rid of it.


Side note: I just noticed the Surrey Guildford Land Use plans plans for Guildford Mall to be demolished like Burnaby plans for Metrotown Mall.



Fine, cut Newton in half, then.
You have a population of 150,000 for R6 vs 200,000 for NS.
Surrye doesn't parse its neighborhood demographics into smaller pieces.

Considering both ridership trends and transit ridership %, you're still looking at a comparable catchment for less track length and cash (Extending R2 to Ambleside gets you a similar track length to R6.)


Yes, 'TOD'...
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/west...cation-options
9 story OV-style buildings on Marine Dr itself and townhouses everywhere else.

Seriously- Abbotsford's plans are more ambitious.


Yes 50k+ ...by 2050- that was the claim in the phase 2 report you're referring to- specifically 50,000 that would move from automobiles to SkyTrain.


Also, most of the ridership is from the Willingdon and Hastings Lines it's attached to.
You can play the same game with the Millennium + Evergreen, where a high-use segment (Broadway) is attached to a low-use segment (Evergreen).


Also, note that track length for NS (Purple or Gold) is ~19 km from Ambleside, vs 17 km from Maple Ridge Center to Coquitlam Central, or 12km for R6.
Track length for Evergreen is ~11km, or 58% of the North Shore Line.

NS is 'close' as far as the crow flies, but 'far' in terms of how much you actually have to build to service it.



https://www.mapleridgenews.com/news/...dustrial-land/

Maple Ridge also has an industrial/employment target guiding its current employment/industrial lands planning outside the current Metro Vancouver planning regime so that they aren't bedroom communities anymore.
This is a similar situation for Township of Langley, hence the discussion about the Salmon River Uplands.

Usually, these sorts of things pass in later to Metro Vancouver via amendments.

Note that the Metro Vancouver projections show growth from 2011 in Maple Ridge == growth in West Van + District of North Van combined.
And there are 2 other municipalities (Pitt Meadows and Port Coquitlam) on the way there.

Also, the NS line will only speed up travel for either Phibbs or West Van travelers, not both, if they are going by SkyTrain.

So you're cutting out even more potential riders.

The 2nd largest NS center (other than Park Royal, whose development plans are not finished) is Lynn Valley, and more and more development in the City of North Vancouver will be in Upper Lonsdale, which ultimately requires even more track (which has to be deep underground due to the inclination) to capture what riders would want to use a NS SkyTrain.

Note that 430 Lynn Valley has more riders than R2 by a fairly wide margin.


Meanwhile, most of the population in Pitt Meadows + Maple Ridge or North Delta or Port Moody + Coquitlam could be serviced by a single SkyTrain Line that buses funnel into.


Btw, Port Coquitlam Centre is literally right across the Coquitlam River...

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by fredinno

Maple Ridge also has an industrial/employment target guiding its current employment/industrial lands planning outside the current Metro Vancouver planning regime so that they aren't bedroom communities anymore.
This is a similar situation for Township of Langley, hence the discussion about the Salmon River Uplands.


Meanwhile, most of the population in Pitt Meadows + Maple Ridge or North Delta or Port Moody + Coquitlam could be serviced by a single SkyTrain Line that buses funnel into.

I know you really really want Skytrain everywhere - but it's all fantasy with no basis in reality whatsoever (and yes I'm aware this is the fantasy thread). An area building up it's industrial lands (so people there don't have to travel out of the area for work) means rush hour only routes like the WCE, not a frequent all-day service like Skytrain.

Also if you look at an ALR map you'll see the area around Pitt Meadows is all ALR with no chance of densifying. People have a conniption over the section of ALR in Surrey along the Fraser Hwy where the Skytrain will travel - and you're proposing basically double that to reach Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge. Good luck with that...

[cganuelas1995]

Originally Posted by Sheba

I know you really really want Skytrain everywhere - but it's all fantasy with no basis in reality whatsoever (and yes I'm aware this is the fantasy thread). An area building up it's industrial lands (so people there don't have to travel out of the area for work) means rush hour only routes like the WCE, not a frequent all-day service like Skytrain.

Also if you look at an ALR map you'll see the area around Pitt Meadows is all ALR with no chance of densifying. People have a conniption over the section of ALR in Surrey along the Fraser Hwy where the Skytrain will travel - and you're proposing basically double that to reach Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge. Good luck with that...

Oh you can densify, you can do it by building higher on the same amount of land...

[Migrant_Coconut]

Density in Maple Ridge? Don't hold your breath.

Originally Posted by Sheba

- snip -

Best of luck - I've been trying all week.

Originally Posted by fredinno

- snip -

Take it up with TransLink, not me; the plans might change once the SLS is done, but for now, they only want a SkyTrain to Newton... and that graphic still shows more density in the North Shore than Maple Ridge. Way I hear it, Guildford Mall's basically doing as well as Lansdowne, so probably for the best.

More like a third (which is less than 50k), since most of Newton's closer to the R1. How about we let the R6 open and then argue about whether or not a SkyTrain makes sense? So far, all they'd really need is a spur off a KGB line to Strawberry Hill, and then ridership basically disappears.

It's West Van. We're lucky they're considering anything whatsoever.

Pitt River, my bad - point still stands. Ridership for the R3 is even less than the R2. And the three North Shore cities still outnumber Maple Ridge now and in the future.
Don't agree with the above, that's fine, but the metro's planners do: the North East's (Pitt Meadows/Maple Ridge) future is pretty dismal compared to the rest of the region, and yes, that includes the North Shore. If there's any politics involved, it's the politicians being much less optimistic about Maple Ridge than you are.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Sheba

I know you really really want Skytrain everywhere - but it's all fantasy with no basis in reality whatsoever (and yes I'm aware this is the fantasy thread). An area building up it's industrial lands (so people there don't have to travel out of the area for work) means rush hour only routes like the WCE, not a frequent all-day service like Skytrain.

Also if you look at an ALR map you'll see the area around Pitt Meadows is all ALR with no chance of densifying. People have a conniption over the section of ALR in Surrey along the Fraser Hwy where the Skytrain will travel - and you're proposing basically double that to reach Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge. Good luck with that...

Technically, there's also the non-ALR land in the north bordering Malcom Kapp and also the gravel pits, as well as the land between the east-west Harris Road- Golden Ears Connector and Lougheed that Pitt Meadows says they got permission from the ALR to remove from the ALR.
https://www.pittmeadows.ca/homes-dev...area-plan-nlap
https://www.pittmeadows.ca/sites/def...eractive_0.pdf

But most of it will be densification.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Density in Maple Ridge? Don't hold your breath.



Best of luck - I've been trying all week.



Take it up with TransLink, not me; the plans might change once the SLS is done, but for now, they only want a SkyTrain to Newton... and that graphic still shows more density in the North Shore than Maple Ridge. Way I hear it, Guildford Mall's basically doing as well as Lansdowne, so probably for the best.

More like a third (which is less than 50k), since most of Newton's closer to the R1. How about we let the R6 open and then argue about whether or not a SkyTrain makes sense? So far, all they'd really need is a spur off a KGB line to Strawberry Hill, and then ridership basically disappears.

It's West Van. We're lucky they're considering anything whatsoever.

Pitt River, my bad - point still stands. Ridership for the R3 is even less than the R2. And the three North Shore cities still outnumber Maple Ridge now and in the future.
Don't agree with the above, that's fine, but the metro's planners do: the North East's (Pitt Meadows/Maple Ridge) future is pretty dismal compared to the rest of the region, and yes, that includes the North Shore. If there's any politics involved, it's the politicians being much less optimistic about Maple Ridge than you are.

Best of luck - I've been trying all week.

Hey, I've been off for several days at a time.



This is how I know you've never been SOF, because Guildford Mall underwent a major expansion in 2017 and is as profitable as Park Royal, Scarbrough, and Coquitlam Center.
It's almost up there with Metrotown itself.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/most...a-january-2019


It's even more dumb, because they could just demolish the Mall overpass, parkade and the Sears section and that's more than enough land, as well as a complete grid.
It's not even blocking anything, like Metropolis at Metrotown blocks Sussex Ave.



Wait, so you're splitting off the Expo how many times?
4 times in total? (including the Production Way Spur).
Putting Newton Station before the turn probably is a bad idea, considering you're putting it away from 72nd.

https://mapleridge.ca/DocumentCenter...ea-Plan?bidId=
Note that 'town center commercial' is zoned as mixed-use commerical-residential for up to 4.0 FSR (so 12 stories, roughly.)
The maximum for the DNV centers is 3.5 FSR.
And most of that is Lynn Valley, which is much smaller in geographic area (by about 2.5x).

Maple Ridge and Langley (and probably Abbotsford) is over-zoning, while NS is under-zoning (especially West Van, who is actually seemingly at risk of not meeting its growth targets, considering current trends).

So apparently, the politicians want more density in NS... except the NS's politicians themselves.


Ignoring the Inlet crossing, PoCo + Maple Meadows = 215,000 catchment by 2050, and NS = 263,000 by 2050, ignoring Bowen Island and Lions Bay.
So a difference of 50,000, so I'm not sure it's 'that bad' vs current planning, considering the NS crossing will be more difficult than the Pitt River crossing (Pitt River is not a shipping route.)


I'd like to point out that the current estimates likely assume SkyTrain to NS and no SkyTrain to Ridge Meadows, considering how much the former has been pushed for, and the fact it's in all the current planning and is backed by some of the largest municipalities in Metro Vancouver.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by fredinno

Guildford is literally the 2nd biggest town center other than Whalley and home to one of the largest and most popular shopping centers in Canada.

It's also planned on being very densified (and already has lots of towers going up without SkyTrain.)


Side note: I just noticed the Surrey Guildford Land Use plans plans for Guildford Mall to be demolished like Burnaby plans for Metrotown Mall.

Guildford Mall is not one of the largest and most popular shopping centers in Canada - it doesn't even make it into the top 10 (it just barely makes it into the top 20). If you'd said in BC you would have had a point.

The Guildford area is one of the town centres in Surrey so of course it's densifying. I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised to hear phase one for the mall being demoing the overpass, old Sears section and adjacent parking north of 104th (as you suggest) and going with towers atop retail podiums. I could see phase 2 being the same thing south of 102A as it's mostly parking.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Sheba

Guildford Mall is not one of the largest and most popular shopping centers in Canada - it doesn't even make it into the top 10 (it just barely makes it into the top 20). If you'd said in BC you would have had a point.

The Guildford area is one of the town centres in Surrey so of course it's densifying. I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised to hear phase one for the mall being demoing the overpass, old Sears section and adjacent parking north of 104th (as you suggest) and going with towers atop retail podiums. I could see phase 2 being the same thing south of 102A as it's mostly parking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...alls_in_Canada
"As of May 2017, there are 3,742 enclosed and strip malls in Canada that are larger than 40,000 square feet (3,700 m2).[4]"
So being in the top 30 is still "one of the largest and most popular shopping centers in Canada.

Note that Landsome isn't on the list, which is what Migrant was comparing Guildford to.
It's not even a close comparison.

Even relatively successful ones like Willowbrook and Aberdeen are not on that list.

The problem isn't the densification of the parking lots.
It's the demolition of the mall into Station Square 3.0 like Burnaby wants to.


Guildford has 'no SkyTrain planned' and is still getting lots of towers.
Which is concerning, because R1 is pretty slow on 104th already.

Surrey has not been pushing for SkyTrain on 104th since the LRT plans died though, so it's not on the current plans.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by fredinno

- snip -

And you obviously haven't been NoF, so we're even. But transit's about more than local personal anecdotes, it's about the region as a whole... and Maple Ridge doesn't really figure into it. For the record, malls are measured in sales per square foot. Lansdowne pre-lockdown got "over" $700/sq ft while Guildford, Metrotown, Park Royal and Pacific Centre were at $906, $1,042, $1,342 and $1,865 respectively. So yes, Guildford is closer to Lansdowne than PR or Pacific - not great, not terrible. I'll concede Metrotown.

As part of a hypothetical Newton-Guildford Line that's not part of the Expo, obviously. Point is, all the R6 ridership is between Newton and Scottsdale; the rest of a SkyTrain line would pretty much sit empty.

50k more people, from a metric standpoint, works out to 100k more potential daily boardings. And since Port Coq's getting a SkyTrain as well, it's really more like 116k more people than Ridge Meadows, as well as 60k more homes and 68k more jobs.

You're the one saying Scott Road and Maple Ridge should be getting priority ahead of North Van or the process is biased. Not me.

[fredinno]

boardings from after Newton to Scottsdale, including scotsdale and excluding Newton: 7255
the total is around 8173 from Scottsdale to Scott Road.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

And you obviously haven't been NoF, so we're even. But transit's about more than local personal anecdotes, it's about the region as a whole... and Maple Ridge doesn't really figure into it. For the record, malls are measured in sales per square foot. Lansdowne pre-lockdown got "over" $700/sq ft while Guildford, Metrotown, Park Royal and Pacific Centre were at $906, $1,042, $1,342 and $1,865 respectively. So yes, Guildford is closer to Lansdowne than PR or Pacific - not great, not terrible. I'll concede Metrotown.

As part of a hypothetical Newton-Guildford Line that's not part of the Expo, obviously. Point is, all the R6 ridership is between Newton and Scottsdale; the rest of a SkyTrain line would pretty much sit empty.

50k more people, from a metric standpoint, works out to 100k more potential daily boardings. And since Port Coq's getting a SkyTrain as well, it's really more like 116k more people than Ridge Meadows, as well as 60k more homes and 68k more jobs.

You're the one saying Scott Road and Maple Ridge should be getting priority ahead of North Van or the process is biased. Not me.

I go NoF all the time...not so much the North of the Inlet, so fair enough.

Guildford also had major expansions in 2017 and 2013, so obviously $/sqft would be lower than if all the storefronts were full.
It's still a major destination.
I doubt any more people would be happy at losing Guildford as they would losing Metrotown.

Shows decent ridership of around 600 boardings/departures from Scottsdale to 96 Ave (basically, where Scott Road swoops down to South Westminster, which is mostly low-intensity industrial.)

Removing the section from Scottsdale to Scott Road actually cuts ridership by half if you calculate the total boardings/departures.


Maybe it's fine to just have a spur for Phase 1 (even though it's difficult to put Newton Exchange station at 72nd while going that), but it's going to have to be split off into a new line eventually and extended to Scott Road.

And half of PoCo is on the opposite side of the rail yards to the current exchange, which massively reduces your potential ridership unless you extend it across the rail yards too (which is actually probably as hard as going over the Pitt River, if not harder)
I doubt they'll do that for the PoCo Extension, so it still makes sense to include the PoCo residents in the number.

I'm saying that Maple Ridge/North Delta/Guildford all have enough ridership/km than they would be at least considered for the near-term if there was as much of a push as there is for the North Shore.
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I've already pointed out that the reason for Langley-Fraser going before KGB was largely due to politics as well, as well as building the Evergreen before Broadway. Also, the Canada Line's design was very political.

Politics plays a huge part of these discussions, unfortunately.
Planners have to work within political constraints and demands.


The NS line does still make sense, but there's a reason a North Shore Line has been on the books since the first rapid transit plans in Vancouver were made in the 70s and has still not been built.

There's always just some other line with equal or better cost/benefit ratio, and by the time you finish it, other lines have better cost/benefit ratio, or political winds shift, so they change the line order again.


Most of the lines on the books right now other than NS have higher cost-benefit ratio. That's my point.

North Shore is the odd one out (unless KGB includes a section going to Semiahmoo) and is on the upper end of the 'lines that make sense but are on a lower tier of ridership' (like Maple Ridge) vs KGB, 104th, 41st, Hastings, etc.

I guess PoCo technically too, but that's probably a 1-station extension. Not a big commitment.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Like I said, we’ll have to see how much ridership is actually there when the R6 opens... and when the Newton SkyTrain (which is definitely going first) opens and convinces many of said R6 riders to use that as their N-S transfer instead. There’s really nothing in-between to anchor a Scott Road-Scottsdale line.

Does Oxford Heights benefit from a SkyTrain to central Port Coq? Yes. Do they benefit more if it goes to Maple Ridge? No. So no, they do not count towards Ridge Meadows.

And yet there’s substance behind recent politics (Kennedy Stewart’s loop notwithstanding). The West Side will be getting the UBC extension to take some pressure off 41st, Newton/Guildford will be BRT any day now, and Hastings would need to be anchored by Willingdon anyway, so the North Shore really is at the top of the list.
As of three years ago, connecting the North Shore gets TransLink 200k+ residents, 2-3 town centres, four FTDAs, one university and three densifiable malls, not counting the ones on the CoV/Burnaby side: it's high cost, but also high reward.

Maple Ridge and North Delta have less than 100k each, and no town centres, unis or FTDAs; it's really strip malls, SFHs and the occasional townhouse (or tower in the case of North Delta) all the way down. Low cost, no reward. If they want a SkyTrain, then they’re going to need serious TOD along the R3 and R6, or planners will understandably dismiss them each as 9-15km worth of Holdom and Lake City Stations.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Like I said, we’ll have to see how much ridership is actually there when the R6 opens... and when the Newton SkyTrain (which is definitely going first) opens and convinces many of said R6 riders to use that as their N-S transfer instead. There’s really nothing in-between to anchor a Scott Road-Scottsdale line.

Does Oxford Heights benefit from a SkyTrain to central Port Coq? Yes. Do they benefit more if it goes to Maple Ridge? No. So no, they do not count towards Ridge Meadows.

And yet there’s substance behind recent politics (Kennedy Stewart’s loop notwithstanding). The West Side will be getting the UBC extension to take some pressure off 41st, Newton/Guildford will be BRT any day now, and Hastings would need to be anchored by Willingdon anyway, so the North Shore really is at the top of the list.
As of three years ago, connecting the North Shore gets TransLink 200k+ residents, 2-3 town centres, four FTDAs, one university and three densifiable malls, not counting the ones on the CoV/Burnaby side: it's high cost, but also high reward.

Maple Ridge and North Delta have less than 100k each, and no town centres, unis or FTDAs; it's really strip malls, SFHs and the occasional townhouse (or tower in the case of North Delta) all the way down. Low cost, no reward. If they want a SkyTrain, then they’re going to need serious TOD along the R3 and R6, or planners will understandably dismiss them each as 9-15km worth of Holdom and Lake City Stations.

It takes the same amount of time to go from Oxford Heights to Coq Central as it does to PoCo Exchange.
Same thing with the rest of North PoCo.

There is a reason all the PoCo buses north of Lougheed end on the Evergreen.


Honestly, the North PoCo buses would benefit more from Lincoln being extended across the Coquitlam River and Hyde Creek so that the bus network could be an east-west oriented grid extending to the Evergreen.
Bonus points for extending Victoria Dr to Guildford.


We don't have any solid plans for true BRT anywhere.
We have bus lanes that are incomplete and don't go through the most congested spots because they would require road widening.
And I really wish we DID have plans for true BRT.

Hastings would be anchored by the Kootenay Loop (or continue on to Westridge if Chevron finally sells its land and consolidates the oil tanks with the other former oil refineries).

41st SkyTrain would also divert riders from 430 and 410 (going from Expo to Richmond) - which each have higher ridership than R2- so it balances out much of the losses from Broadway.

TBF, Holdom will be huge in a decade or two once Brentwood fills out.
It was seriously hampered by the fact that there's no station on Delta Ave, so the Delta Ave area wouldn't fill up earlier and spur more development on Holdom.
Holdom is more disconnected to Brentwood than Gilmore, and that hurts it.




Either way, right now, there's 2 town centers on R2 (minus PoCo)- with Maple Ridge Center being a regional center.
(This is the same designation as Langley City, Richmond Center, Coquitlam, and Metrotown, which is important to take note of.)

I'm not sure we need to wait for R6's ridership, since 319 bus has higher ridership than R2, the supposed 'mainline', but still-
Delta treats Scott Road as an FTDA anyways, despite never getting official approval for an FTDA.
Towers are already getting approval there and starting to go up across the corridor.


Plus, if you're going to include Park + Tilford as a 'major mall', you should also add Meadowtown, Haney Place, Strawberry Hill, and Scottsdale Center.
Also, KPU.
The North Shore line (probably) won't go up to Capilano University.


There's not as many FTDAs, but as I pointed out earlier, NS is under-zoned anyways, and in any case, all of the FTDAs and city centers outside of Lonsdale would fit inside Maple Ridge Center in terms of both land area and maximum built-out population.

And NS is not competing with Maple Ridge, it's competing with Hastings and Newton.

[Migrant_Coconut]

That’s what I’ve been saying: Port Coq really just needs its own extension (currently planned), and then they’re relatively happy. So it makes no sense to include them in the Ridge Meadows catchment: that extension has to stand on its own... or not.

Metro Van’s got plans for bus lanes and for limited signal priority, sometimes even both at the same time; none of the corridors so far justify 100% BRT except for the 99, and that’s not going to be around by 2050. Anybody who's been near Kootenay knows it really doesn’t anchor anything, Metrotown-Oakridge isn’t really an urgent priority at the moment, and the 319’s been around much longer than the R2 has, so direct comparisons are a little unfair; a fairer one would be how the R2 gets over twice the ridership of the R3 despite both opening the same year – that’s another nail in the latter’s coffin.

The SkyTrain won’t go to Cap, no. What happens is that it’ll make it easier to get to the buses that do, and yes, that’s a pretty big deal.

“Densifiable mall” - given location, demand and somewhat more urbanist politicians, Park & Tilford is probably getting an overhaul long before any of the strip malls along 120th or Lougheed Highway. I’ve already conceded that Newton-Scottsdale had a decent case, while guessing most R6 passengers will (when it opens) switch to a future Newton SkyTrain and leave it empty from there to Scott Road Station, highrises or no.

See previous report: the DNV actually outnumbers Maple Ridge at present; ditto West Van and Pitt Meadows. And no matter how you cut it, the North Shore contains a lot more municipal targets than they, Hastings or Scott Road do.