Surrey Langley Skytrain - Expo Line Extension | Proposed

[BCPhil]

Originally Posted by Whalleyboy

Thats not a good argument point there cause if you go down fraser your making people in newton and south surrey miss out which alone(going by the numbers on the cities site) is 201320. Thats not including people in north delta and white rock.

Plus if you look at the cities plans there aren't really any plans to really grow the fleetwood area. But newton and south surrey are huge growing areas and only set to expand rapidly for a while. If you look at the future numbers the city is projecting the top three in order for population are newton first, whalley second, south surrey third. Skytrain would better suit this route going to newton while LRT would suit going out to langley

A station at Fraser Highway and 152 St would actually improve transit services (marginally) for many residents in East Newton.

But perhaps one of the major points of my argument was lost, and that is not just the number of people who are helped by RRT expansion, but the magnitude of the change they receive. Think of it as an equation, people helped multiplied by the average time saved. And translink does think of this (as it is a pretty standard measure of utility), with the RRT down Fraser having the largest total time savings per year for the people of Metro Vancouver.

For almost all residents of Newton, the time savings of RRT down King George would be mere minutes at best, while everyone in the rest of Surrey experiences no change at all. By going down Fraser some in Newton do experience some change still, but the change for the entire population of Fleetwood is significant. Buses have an OK time on King George as the traffic is light. Buses on Fraser Highway have a much longer distance to travel and frequently get stuck in bad traffic.

Originally Posted by invisibleairwaves

You know, I used to feel pretty strongly about the Fraser Highway vs. King George debate, but honestly at this point I've given up on RRT expansion in Surrey being a worthwhile issue at all. Until the city smartens up and stops allowing or building idiotic, anti-pedestrian, transit-unfriendly projects along its major corridors, neither route should even be considered for rapid transit. And judging by the sheer number of brand-new strip malls and subdivisions along both corridors, it's fairly obvious that this change isn't going to happen any time soon.

I'm sorry, but I have to say "so what?"

Skytrain is an integrated, inter-regional transit system. We have one of the most effective bus feeder systems in the world. If everyone walked to Skytrain today, it would have horrible ridership. Therefore Skytrain is not 100% dependent on high density town centers to work.

Today, trains leave Surrey full. That's 4 stations that pack trains at the peak hours. That ridership isn't 100% people that live at the stations. Most of the ridership takes buses to get there. And that is not just a Surrey phenomenon. Look at how busy the bus loops are at stations like Metrotown, Edmonds, Lougheed, 22nd St and others. Even Nanaimo and 29th Ave are busy stations, yet I don't see many towers around them.

And how many towers surround Commercial Drive, Sapperton, Braid, Production Way, Lake City Way, Sperling, and even Holdem or Renfrew or Rupert? High Rise towers are not the only way to achieve density around stations and ridership. Metrotown isn't a busy station because of the rich people towers along Kingsway, but because of the lowrise, low income apartment blocks to the south.

Also, you don't need the development in place first. How many towers were along the Millennium line before it was built? Gilmore was nonexistent. Lougheed was a fraction of what it is today. And what was New Westminster and Joyce before 1985?

Yes, Coquitlam is built up in anticipation of Evergreen, but don't put the cart before the horse. They have been promised the Evergreen line for decades. DECADES! They have been told exactly where it will be (or at least that it will pass the Coquitlam Center area 100% for sure). They have built up density based on the promise that the Evergreen line was going to be FINISHED 10 years ago. As well, that hasn't stopped Coquitlam from it's own suburban sprawl. SFH climb the freaking mountain as far as the eye can see! All in the last 20 years. Yet, those homes, as suburban as they are, will still feed the Evergreen line with ridership.

Now look at Surrey. We can't even say for sure that Surrey will get further Rapid Transit, let alone where it might go. How is Surrey supposed to plan for that? "Hey Surrey, here is our Rapid Transit plan for you: meh. Now get ready for it." So what were they supposed to do? Housing developments are driven by the market, and who in this market (even at the height) is going to drop $300,000+ on a condo out in the suburbs, miles from the freeway, where there are no official transit plans. Profits were maximzed by townhomes and SFH. But even so, the newer developments from the past 10 years are significantly higher density than the Surrey specials from the 90's. Even monster homes have at least 2 suites in them, and are typically shared by a large family.

Richmond wasn't built on it's transit plans, it was built on market demand. There was empty land that alot of people wanted, and the best way for developers to maximize profits was condo towers. And because it is significantly closer to Downtown (and has a strong Asian community feel for residents looking for that) it was an easier sell, even without 100% guaranteed transit plans. Since the Canada Line (RAV) was announced as happening, development skyrocketed.

So without an official transit plan from the province, it is hard to focus development and demand (and thus the prices required to fuel the construction costs) on specific centers. In this reality, Surrey has done a good job recently of mixed use development. Clayton, while sprawlish, is more dense than many parts of Vancouver and Burnaby proper. Fraser Highway is lined almost exclusively with lowrise condos or town/row homes.

Originally Posted by Whalleyboy

I'd would actually bet on it being fast for much of N.Delta to travel to skytrain from 96 onwards since they would just have to take a bus down to king george and not all the way to scott road like what current buses do.

Also why do you only think about people from white rock going to Downtown. What if people want to go to new west or metrotown or even maybe broadway? After all we don't live in place where dt is the only destination.

But still, you then have to subtract the number of people in South Surrey who wouldn't benefit from RT expansion from the total. Not everyone goes downtown, but a huge number do (enough to clog 6 lanes worth of crossings over the Fraser). The buses bound for the Canada Line are easily as busy as buses bound for Surrey. Therefore you have split demand.

In Fleetwood and Cloverdale, everyone would interested by Skytrain. There are not other significant commute paterns that Skytrain down Fraser doesn't meet in some capacity and improve over what exists today.

In SS, many existing transit riders will KEEP riding the buses to Canada Line and never touch an extension to Newton. Meanwhile almost every single existing transit rider today in Fleetwood and Cloverdale (and Langley) would benefit and ride Skytrain down Fraser (at least a few stations) as almost every bus rider travels down Fraser today at some point.

Skytrain down Fraser Hwy fullfills everyone's needs. Skytrain to Newton fulfills a specific market (smaller subset of society).

I'm not saying Skytrain to Newton would be a lost cause and waste of money. But in a world where one is likely to be built instead of the other (or at least decades before) then my feeling is that going down the Fraser Highway would be a bigger benefit to Metro Vancouver as a whole.

Originally Posted by twoNeurons

Something to be considered.

RRT down Fraser Highway is essentially Surrey's Expo Line. The SkyTrain Expo line is successful because it was built through largely industrial areas and TOD was built around it. The less successful areas were already established. Fraser Hwy has a lot of space for TOD. More space than Newtown and Guildford.

In addition, Newton is close the to the highway into Richmond (Alex Fraser) and Guildford is close the the #1 highway. A Fraser Highway extension would have less competition with cars.

Although I like the idea of traversing along 104th, I'm warming up to a straight shot down Fraser Highway. Excellent post, BCPhil.

And not just with TOD around the stations, but it provides a high speed backbone through the region that bisects the bus grid, much like the Expo Line in Vancouver and Burnaby. There are a lot of areas that are just a short bus ride away from Fraser Highway that can be developed higher density.

And yes, there is much less competition from highways along the corridor. Traffic is horrible on Fraser, and the number lights really slows down riding long distances on the bus. At least today, King George flows comparatively well to most roads in the Metro. Skytrain down Fraser would have the biggest time savings over driving or riding the bus compared to other routes. And thus you are more likely to win over current drivers as they see Skytrain fly by at 80km/h while they crawl along at 30km/h, and waiting at lights. Many people avoid transit because it is a crazy long, crowded bus ride with a lot of passups; most would rather go broke driving that live that hellish life. Replace it with 5 to 10 minute bus rides to high speed inter city metro that connects to every other point in the region: problem solved.

[Millennium2002]

BCPhil, I'm very much in favour of SkyTrain down Fraser Highway given the key points you highlighted previously; however, I am curious as to what your solution may be to potential rapid transit and traffic on King George Highway given the limited reserved ROW that exists at present.

[Whalleyboy]

I still have a problem with Fleetwood and Langley city centre not putting up population number to warrant the price of skytrain right now.
Plus if we go to newton we can still branch out via newton to hit Langley and Cloverdale in the future. If we make go fraser hwy route we can not branch of and hit newton with out splitting the line slow amount of trains by who knows what.

I just see out of all surreys options RRT 2 with skytrain to newton and BRT to Guildford and Langley being the best since its helps everyone. It would get the best number for boarding too. saves everyone traveling time too
Cuts Langley times to central from 49 to 30 (RRT1 to Langley 21 min. so 9 min difference)
Cuts Cloverdales time to central from 43 to 36 mins(RRT1 to Langley 31 min. so 5 min difference).
Cuts Fleetwoods time to central from 21 to 14 (RRT1 to langley 9 mins. so 5 min difference)
While at the same time cuts Guildford, Newton and White rock trips to central
Cuts Guildford to central from 17mins to 10 mins.
Cuts newtons time to central from 25min to 10min
cuts white rock to central from 54 to 42 mins

Plus the price difference between
RRT1 to Langley in my book is $1.9B
RRT2 to newton with BRT to Langley and Guildford $1.4B

Plus the worst thing about the Langley RRT proposal is thats all SOF will get skytrain to Langley. There is no BRT routes between Guildford and central and no BRT routes with Newton let alone white rock.
If we want skytrain to Langley its all we are getting in the plans. So basicly more then half of surrey is let out of this plan so cloverdale fleetwood could get 5 mins fast then BRT could get them to central. Oh and langley gets 9 mins(which isnt bad to admit).
But while those people get those Guildford and Newton and white rock get to suffer.

[Millennium2002]

Just throwing a question out there... which route is the busiest? 320/502 to Langley, or 399/321 to White Rock, or the mess of routes that head to Guildford?

Also, Whalleyboy: from a different perspective, your figures still seem to favour Langley, as cost per km is cheaper... Langley is two times the distance from Downtown Surrey but if it were really expensive I would have thought it'd cost double the Newton line's price.

Thinking of what's been said before:

- Fraser corridor using RRT will see the most significant improvements with RRT due to shorter wait and travel times + less traffic delays, and is cheaper in terms of cost per km (although still very high at nearly $2 billion). The only problem might be the wide ROW that by design was for LRT service.
- King George corridor using RRT will serve less customers and may only save them a few minutes, but cost less by default due to shorter distance (but more expensive in a cost per km perspective), and in addition would require less land expropriation (with related additional costs) if elevated due to lack of reserved ROW.
- Guildford corridor LRT will serve the least and may cost a lot depending on how land expropriation goes, but it may make connecting transit buses more efficient and frequent due to less routes duplicating each other.

mmm... my bets are still on RRT to Langley. Not to say that Newton gets thrown out permanently, but it'll probably have to wait (and admittedly, yes that may take up to 10 or 15 years after Fraser line construction depending on economy and politics). Actually such a move might be a good thing... during that time the Newton Corridor could be progressively widened to allow for future LRT service (which I think fits the Newton corridor the best) between Guildford and Newton without having to break the budget all at once.

[Whalleyboy]

The price gave is also including BRT in its own lanes. If you want just skytrain to newton it was only something like $600 million. Its the BRT lanes to Langley that likely bring the price way up

[nname]

In the latest TransLink Listen survey, they've bring down the cost of RRT quite significantly for all lines (RRT goes from being twice as expensive as LRT to about only 40%-50% more? Langley line is now only 1.5 or 1.6 billions?)... I wonder if anyone got the screen capture of the cost and projected ridership saved...

[twoNeurons]

If you're comparing RRT to Langley, you have to compare Apples to Apples and compare the cost of running SkyTrain to South Surrey, past Newton.

Please compare RRT to 168th with Rapid Bus to Newton and Langley.

Personally, I don't think RRT is needed to Langley at this point. RRT to 168th will do wonders for Langley/Fleetwood/Newton.

Remember, this area is deep in the heart of Surrey. Not close to any major freeway, and surrounded by busy arterials. Getting anywhere isn't easy. Newton is close to the Alex Fraser/99. Guildford the Port Mann.

In other words, it's a good place to run transit. In addition, as has been mentioned already, it will run along a road that bisects every major bus route in the city.

[Canadian Mind]

I still don't understand why Surrey could have a second BRT/LRT line that Loops around the city to connect Guilford and Newton to an Expo line that is extended down Fraser Highway.

[Whalleyboy]

Originally Posted by twoNeurons

If you're comparing RRT to Langley, you have to compare Apples to Apples and compare the cost of running SkyTrain to South Surrey, past Newton.

Please compare RRT to 168th with Rapid Bus to Newton and Langley.

Personally, I don't think RRT is needed to Langley at this point. RRT to 168th will do wonders for Langley/Fleetwood/Newton.

Remember, this area is deep in the heart of Surrey. Not close to any major freeway, and surrounded by busy arterials. Getting anywhere isn't easy. Newton is close to the Alex Fraser/99. Guildford the Port Mann.

In other words, it's a good place to run transit. In addition, as has been mentioned already, it will run along a road that bisects every major bus route in the city.

I would have compared a BRT to newton and guildford with RRT to langley except thats not an option in the plans.
Like i said if RRT to Langley happens thats all the upgrade we get.

[GMasterAres]

I don't understand why people still think Surrey = urban sprawl. The majority of Surrey per acre is higher density than even Vancouver. Surrey for 10 years now has been cramming 100 townhouse units into the space 10 houses take up in Vancouver currently.

I wouldn't call that sprawl. Just because you don't see 9,000 high rises popping up everywhere doesn't mean Surrey is not densifying.

What presents a problem for Surrey are the vast distances required to reach each urban area. That isn't sprawl's fault but rather geography. Surrey is physically the size of Vancouver, Richmond, and Burnaby COMBINED. If you were to put those 3 cities together and call them Vanrichaby then you'd have the same argument as people make against Surrey but I'd shoot it down saying the new Vanrichaby has 3 major transit lines already to Surrey's 4 skytrain stations.

So please leave "Sprawl" out of the argument. It's not quite correct.

I do agree thouh Surrey does need to focus more on densifying the specific urban centers but it has been. It's a difficult thing to balance what you want with what developers want to build. Developers want to make a lot of money and they make more money buying land further away from centers. Unless you as a city start saying NO MORE GROWTH which would never happen, that won't change until the land is largely filled up.

[GMasterAres]

I still stand by BRT/LRT to Newton/Guildford and SkyTrain to Langley. Skytrain is backbone transit. It isn't local transit. While it does in places overlap a bit, there's a reason why busses still run up and down Cambie even though the fancy Canada Line runs underground.

Same thing here. SkyTrain's purpose it connecting major city centers. That would be Langley not Newton. If the question was SkyTrain through Newton out to South Surrey vs to Langley then I could see a more valued argument, but to run SkyTrain down to Newton, a distance that right now takes 10 minutes by car and bus to do, seems a bit pointless. Does the population require it? There's more people along a Fraser Highway route than there are in all of Richmond, yet Canada Line was built. I don't really agree with a population argument.

Besides, even though "Newton" has the largest population of any area in Surrey, it is also the largest land wise. It is quite vast and currently the densities are the lowest of any other area in Surrey. Clayton for example and even Fleetwood have lower population counts but are smaller and vastly more dense.

Not to mention 9 times out of 10 I read people on these forums complaining about how we're so reactionary when it comes to Transit and roads. How things should have been built 10 years ago not when the population and congestion force us to. Then the ironic happens and people argue "Don't build _UNTIL_ Surrey has 900 high-rises in Surrey Central or 1 million people live in Langley!!!!" Seems just funny.

[deasine]

Given my personal driving experience through Surrey the other day, I would still consider it to be suburban sprawl. But I realize this is matter of subjectivity and perspective, so I'll try to respond in a different way:

I think one needs to consider the types of development that occur, and I don't mean high-rise or townhouse. At the end of the day, while new developments in Surrey are dense relative to traditional North American urban development expansion, much of it can be considered sprawl because much of the urban development is still focused on the automobile. It's like the difference between Transit Adjacent Development and Transit Oriented Development.

Let's look at the following map:

(via Transportopolis)

There definitely needs to be a change in focus here: adding density is not enough; it needs to work in conjunction with developments that decrease the reliance on cars and increase the reliance on alternative transport methods, including walking, cycling, and transit. And note that Vancouver is not the only city that enjoys high walkability, but New Westminster has reached a high neighbourhood walkability level in its central core.

[nname]

Originally Posted by jhausner

I still stand by BRT/LRT to Newton/Guildford and SkyTrain to Langley. Skytrain is backbone transit. It isn't local transit. While it does in places overlap a bit, there's a reason why busses still run up and down Cambie even though the fancy Canada Line runs underground.

Well, rapid transit, by definition, is not local transit. LRT that serves local is more or less the same as streetcar, and probably everyone agrees that streetcars are not rapid transit. If you tries build a line that tries to serve both, it may fail in both. For instance, the Eglinton line in Toronto tries to act as both local and rapid transit, and you see people complain about it has too many stations and too slow (25km/h) for regional trip, and the local complain about the stations are too far apart (400m).

Evergreen Line, when it was still LRT, also proposed to have local service (C24) that go along almost the entire route. Even if you look at the B-Lines we have here, they also have local service counterpart: 99 have 9, 16, and 17; 97 have a combination of 151, 156, 160, C24, C27, C28, and C29; even the 399 have 321 and 351 as local service (although I would argue that no local service is needed between Hwy 10 and South Surrey P&R and the B-Line can serve the two local stops in the middle of nowhere that got maybe less than 10 riders a day). For any Surrey LRT line that serves as rapid transit rather than streetcar, most likely they'll still keep local service. Hence your argument wouldn't make sense...

And.. the bus ride may only take 10min (actually 25min peak and 20min off-peak from the schedule), but trips north of Surrey Central may take as much time to transfer as the ride time.. If you add 10min for walking/waiting/boarding time for the transfer, 20~25min per trip is the net saving for trips that involve the transfer.

[Rico]

Jhauser take a look at the map of residential and job density (originally by Voony) posted by Squeezed on Feb 26. Surrey = Sprawl.....although it is not the only offender. I also like the walkability map posted by deaseline.

[Whalleyboy]

Originally Posted by jhausner

I still stand by BRT/LRT to Newton/Guildford and SkyTrain to Langley. Skytrain is backbone transit. It isn't local transit. While it does in places overlap a bit, there's a reason why busses still run up and down Cambie even though the fancy Canada Line runs underground.

Same thing here. SkyTrain's purpose it connecting major city centers. That would be Langley not Newton. If the question was SkyTrain through Newton out to South Surrey vs to Langley then I could see a more valued argument, but to run SkyTrain down to Newton, a distance that right now takes 10 minutes by car and bus to do, seems a bit pointless. Does the population require it? There's more people along a Fraser Highway route than there are in all of Richmond, yet Canada Line was built. I don't really agree with a population argument.

Besides, even though "Newton" has the largest population of any area in Surrey, it is also the largest land wise. It is quite vast and currently the densities are the lowest of any other area in Surrey. Clayton for example and even Fleetwood have lower population counts but are smaller and vastly more dense.

Not to mention 9 times out of 10 I read people on these forums complaining about how we're so reactionary when it comes to Transit and roads. How things should have been built 10 years ago not when the population and congestion force us to. Then the ironic happens and people argue "Don't build _UNTIL_ Surrey has 900 high-rises in Surrey Central or 1 million people live in Langley!!!!" Seems just funny.

Sadly thats not an option given to us. If you have been listening to what I've been saying. If we take the RRT to Langley option thats all we get.
There will be no LRT or BRT for Guildford and Newton. It will do nothing to help Surrey control its growth in its biggest centres.
If skytrain to Langley came with BRT or LRT to Newton and Guildford i'd probably support it then. But it doesn't and seeing how long it takes to get this going alone I dont want to have to wait any longer.

[squeezied]

Originally Posted by jhausner

I don't understand why people still think Surrey = urban sprawl. The majority of Surrey per acre is higher density than even Vancouver. Surrey for 10 years now has been cramming 100 townhouse units into the space 10 houses take up in Vancouver currently.

I wouldn't call that sprawl. Just because you don't see 9,000 high rises popping up everywhere doesn't mean Surrey is not densifying.

What presents a problem for Surrey are the vast distances required to reach each urban area. That isn't sprawl's fault but rather geography. Surrey is physically the size of Vancouver, Richmond, and Burnaby COMBINED. If you were to put those 3 cities together and call them Vanrichaby then you'd have the same argument as people make against Surrey but I'd shoot it down saying the new Vanrichaby has 3 major transit lines already to Surrey's 4 skytrain stations.

So please leave "Sprawl" out of the argument. It's not quite correct.

I do agree thouh Surrey does need to focus more on densifying the specific urban centers but it has been. It's a difficult thing to balance what you want with what developers want to build. Developers want to make a lot of money and they make more money buying land further away from centers. Unless you as a city start saying NO MORE GROWTH which would never happen, that won't change until the land is largely filled up.

I'm not sure how you define majority but Surrey is nowhere near as dense as Vancouver. Sure there are select areas of Surrey that are denser than low-density areas of Vancouver but that wouldn't be a valid comparison. And I'm not too sure what you mean by the majority of Surrey per acre is denser. The unit of density is in "per land area"...

The overall urban landscape of Surrey is still typified as sprawl despite lots of townhouse being built. Sprawl isn't necessarily defined by low-density single-family houses; there is such thing as dense sprawl. Below is a picture of a neighbourhood in Las Vegas. Cul-de-sacs, wide arterial roads, surface parking, etc. Just because there's apartments (ie density) doesn't mean it isn't sprawl, dense sprawl exists. Transit would be terribly ineffective here despite its reasonable density.


http://urbanist.typepad.com/.a/6a00d...6dfe970b-popup

Anyways density is not the only thing people should be looking at when planning for transit. Density is important, but meaningless when one does not consider the location and form of that density. Los Angelas is denser than New York, but that's not a valid case for Los Angelas to have better transit than New York. Obviously New York has better transit than Los Angelas. Los Angelas' density is spread out in low-rise apartment blocks over large areas (similar to the Las Vegas example above); New York's density is concentrated in skyscrapers in Manhattan. That's the location of density. For the form of density, again just look at the above picture: high density, but terribly inefficient for transit.

My point is solely looking at Surrey's growth and density alone is not a business case for transit. Surrey needs to strategically locate growth in town centres and in a form that's oriented around pedestrians and transit. Surrey's been quite good at that in the recent years but that does not undo years of sprawl. Hence transit service is not viable at levels seen in communities north of the fraser.

[BCPhil]

Originally Posted by allan_kuan

BCPhil, I'm very much in favour of SkyTrain down Fraser Highway given the key points you highlighted previously; however, I am curious as to what your solution may be to potential rapid transit and traffic on King George Highway given the limited reserved ROW that exists at present.

For starters, it is pretty much for sure happening that Surrey will get a B-Line. So I hope and expect to see a White Rock - Whalley - Guildford B-Line in operation before any of the rest of the debate is settled.

Even with Skytrain on Fraser, B-Line service would still be acceptable for that route. In some of the more congested areas, bus lanes or queue jumpers could be built to help speed up service (and there is space along the shoulders of King George in most areas to implement that at very low cost).

Originally Posted by allan_kuan

Just throwing a question out there... which route is the busiest? 320/502 to Langley, or 399/321 to White Rock, or the mess of routes that head to Guildford?

It's hard to say, and it's also hard to use that as a predictor to the effects of rapid transit (in this case at least).

Guildford might be the busiest in pure terms of numbers, but that might only reflect the level of service and current proximity to Skytrain. The bus ride takes as little as 10 minutes from Guildford to City Center. That's good for Surrey feeder routes. So, even if you were to loop Skytrain around and up to 104 and to Guildford, how much do you think it would actually increase mode share for transit or increase density in an already dense neighborhood? I think you would end up spending money just to treat people who already have it good in comparison and not attract many new riders.

Same with sending it to Newton. From Newton to King George it takes about 15 minutes (depending on how often the bus stops, and sometimes it barely stops because there isn't that much between Newton and 96ave).

But the 320/502 is a bit different. Mainly because the routes are so long, with no alternatives, there must be many people along the route who avoid the bus at all costs. First, it can be difficult to get to the Fraser Highway for some people. Because it is not a rapid transit line, no real feeder system in in place, so transfers are unreliable at best.

So it is a two fold problem affecting ridership. You have people far out who avoid the bus because of how long it takes to get to Downtown Surrey (long rides and unbearably longer if you make transfers). And you also have people closer to Downtown Surrey who avoid it because it is a frequent victim of passups. So RRT along that route would solve a lot of problems. Distance, Transfers, and capacity. That would attract new ridership to Translink that currently drive.

Originally Posted by twoNeurons

If you're comparing RRT to Langley, you have to compare Apples to Apples and compare the cost of running SkyTrain to South Surrey, past Newton.

Please compare RRT to 168th with Rapid Bus to Newton and Langley.

Personally, I don't think RRT is needed to Langley at this point. RRT to 168th will do wonders for Langley/Fleetwood/Newton.

Remember, this area is deep in the heart of Surrey. Not close to any major freeway, and surrounded by busy arterials. Getting anywhere isn't easy. Newton is close to the Alex Fraser/99. Guildford the Port Mann.

In other words, it's a good place to run transit. In addition, as has been mentioned already, it will run along a road that bisects every major bus route in the city.

Well, I sort of was using RRT to 168th as the base case of my argument. I did say that even sending RRT only as far as 168th would have a larger effect on the public than sending it to Newton, because of how significantly closer it gets and how it cuts down on one of the worst sections of the bus rider.

However, I also don't think that is a fair comparison to make because I don't think it would be between ONLY those two options.

I think it would be impossible for Translink to build RRT only to Newton and do nothing else. As I've stated before, it would do nothing to improve transit every where else in the Valley and only marginally improve things for people who already don't have it too bad. How do you get that passed a populist board? How could you spend so much money and do nothing for other people?

Therefore there would have to be more to the plan than just Newton RRT. Some form of BRT would need to be built to Langley. They need improved transit too badly to ignore and you need Langley (city/township) votes to get something this big through the board. And reworking Fraser Highway (it was just rebuilt almost everywhere) would be incredibly expensive, even if all you did were to add queue jumpers at lights.

However, I think Skytrain all the way to Langley, with no infrastructure improvements anywhere else would pass. It would still help a huge number of people. All the buses and drivers tied up in the 320/502 corridor (not to mention all the other routes that make their way from Langley, or through Fleetwood to City Center) could be re-purposed for improved local service and service to/from White Rock. With fewer riders travelling through Guildford from Points Beyond, capacity issues could be resolved in the Guildford area (plus you could go West or South depending on where you are to get to Skytrain).

So I think the two real options concerning RRT are either you build Skytrain to Langley and improve local bus service, or you build Skytrain to Newton and implement (at least limited) BRT style service to Guildford and Langley.

Originally Posted by deasine

Given my personal driving experience through Surrey the other day, I would still consider it to be suburban sprawl. But I realize this is matter of subjectivity and perspective, so I'll try to respond in a different way:

I think one needs to consider the types of development that occur, and I don't mean high-rise or townhouse. At the end of the day, while new developments in Surrey are dense relative to traditional North American urban development expansion, much of it can be considered sprawl because much of the urban development is still focused on the automobile. It's like the difference between Transit Adjacent Development and Transit Oriented Development.

Let's look at the following map:

(via Transportopolis)

There definitely needs to be a change in focus here: adding density is not enough; it needs to work in conjunction with developments that decrease the reliance on cars and increase the reliance on alternative transport methods, including walking, cycling, and transit. And note that Vancouver is not the only city that enjoys high walkability, but New Westminster has reached a high neighbourhood walkability level in its central core.

Is it just me, or are many parts of Surrey more "walkable" than Richmond according to that map? And Richmond has Skytrain. Aldergrove looks like a brigher blip than No 3 road.

Also, how can you possibly achieve the walkable neighborhoods without Rapid Transit?

Many of those walkable areas in Vancouver are walkable because of the history of the Streetcar and interurban in Vancouver, and the recent history of high frequency high capacity trolley lines (that replaced the streetcars). Those areas weren't walkable and then people went, "oh hey, lets put transit there." Transit came first. Either in the form of interurban or streetcars that stretched their way into the untamed forest before there were even homes along them. More recently, Skytrain has been the predecessor to high density neighborhoods. I think Richmond is many times more walkable now than 5 years ago. And it was made that way in anticipation of Skytrain's completion, not because of a pipe dream it might happen.

At the very least you need to tell Surrey and Langley where the transit will go. That way they can prepare. All they have had to go on up until now was the finger point southeastward that is King George Station. It seems the intent was to lay Skytrain down Fraser Highway (why else put that station where it is?). And you can tell.

Surrey has done it's best. The higher density developments are closer to Fraser Highway than not. The street is mostly lined with either commercial properties or town homes and low rise condos. There are only a small handful of SFHs along the Fraser Highway from King George to Langley. There are even a large number of empty lots that sit undeveloped. I believe the developers are waiting for rapid transit so they can actually sell larger condo developments. I believe the whole area around Fraser and 64ave is waiting for transit so they can build condos. Without rapid transit, it is almost impossible to sell condos in the Valley, so why would they be built by now?

If you want the higher density in the Valley you have to give them transit. And there are parcels of land waiting for that. But the longer we wait, the more likely the developers and land owners won't be able to hold out, and just build what they can sell now in the Valley, more sprawl.

[deasine]

Originally Posted by BCPhil

Is it just me, or are many parts of Surrey more "walkable" than Richmond according to that map? And Richmond has Skytrain. Aldergrove looks like a brigher blip than No 3 road.

This map was completed in 2005, when the Canada Line was not in service.

Aldergrove looks brighter because there's a large area that's surrounding it in red. And honestly, No. 3 Road really isn't that "walkable" (especially back in 2005). Even today, only the side with the SkyTrain guideway has a fairly nice-sized continuous sidewalk, but over on the west side of the road, there's often little distinction made between sidewalks and gas stations, strip mall parking lots, etc. Even then, having parking lots in the front don't contribute much to the walkability of an area.

Originally Posted by BCPhil

Also, how can you possibly achieve the walkable neighborhoods without Rapid Transit?

Many of those walkable areas in Vancouver are walkable because of the history of the Streetcar and interurban in Vancouver, and the recent history of high frequency high capacity trolley lines (that replaced the streetcars). Those areas weren't walkable and then people went, "oh hey, lets put transit there." Transit came first. Either in the form of interurban or streetcars that stretched their way into the untamed forest before there were even homes along them. More recently, Skytrain has been the predecessor to high density neighborhoods. I think Richmond is many times more walkable now than 5 years ago. And it was made that way in anticipation of Skytrain's completion, not because of a pipe dream it might happen.

Surrey has done it's best. The higher density developments are closer to Fraser Highway than not. The street is mostly lined with either commercial properties or town homes and low rise condos. There are only a small handful of SFHs along the Fraser Highway from King George to Langley. There are even a large number of empty lots that sit undeveloped. I believe the developers are waiting for rapid transit so they can actually sell larger condo developments. I believe the whole area around Fraser and 64ave is waiting for transit so they can build condos. Without rapid transit, it is almost impossible to sell condos in the Valley, so why would they be built by now?

I disagree. These two are completely separate concepts. On the other side of the equation, presence of rapid transit doesn't necessarily equate to high walkability of an area. Looking at the map, areas along Surrey's portion of the SkyTrain network don't have a high walkability index. The same can be said for areas along the Millennium Line in Burnaby. This has to do with a multitude of factors, such as (but not limited to) land-use and how the area is designed (pedestrian amenities, etc.). Another example is Calgary and it's LRTs, where some stations are in the middle of a highway, with footbridges connecting to vast parking lots.

Even areas in Southeast Vancouver, where transit frequency is not super frequent (keep in mind that this map was done in 2005) has fairly high walkability indexes. Aside from density, much of that has to do with urban street configurations that cause low degrees of connectivity's: large block sizes, cu-de-sacs, and inconsistent street patterns [1]. So has Surrey done it's best? I don't think so. And this doesn't need high density in order to achieve. Sprawling single-family homes built in 1970s in Vancouver have already achieved this.

This may seem ironic, but I'm actually not against cul-de-sac road infrastructure. I think they can work to develop a highly walkable community as long as it features high degrees of low-speed connectivity. What I mean is that I think pedestrian and cycling transport should have a grid, but that road transport does not have to be aligned in one. Certain communities in Surrey and Richmond do this to a limited extent, whereby pedestrians are able to access the main roads via a pathway between houses, but I don't think there's enough emphasis on the design of these pathways. It shouldn't feel narrow and cramped, almost as if it was an afterthought, as many of these do. They should be wider and be more integrated into the rest of the urban environment (i.e. treating the houses around it as if it was a corner lot to improve connectivity with the pathway shortcut).

Sources:
[1] University of British Columbia: http://health-design.spph.ubc.ca/res...ability-index/

[cornholio]

Originally Posted by squeezied

Anyways density is not the only thing people should be looking at when planning for transit. Density is important, but meaningless when one does not consider the location and form of that density. Los Angelas is denser than New York, but that's not a valid case for Los Angelas to have better transit than New York. Obviously New York has better transit than Los Angelas. Los Angelas' density is spread out in low-rise apartment blocks over large areas (similar to the Las Vegas example above); New York's density is concentrated in skyscrapers in Manhattan. That's the location of density. For the form of density, again just look at the above picture: high density, but terribly inefficient for transit.

New York city has over 8.175mill in 1213sqkm. Los Angeles city has 3.8mill in 1213sqkm. The metros are both sprawling making both look bigger then they really are, I mean New York and LA are big, but not that big, lots of much bigger cities in terms of population. Problem is that they group 30,600sqkm in to New Yorks metro area (for comparisons sake Vancouver Island is 31,200sqkm(edit: looks like the true size is only 17,500sqkm, the higher number is the extended metro...still grossly over sized, too many resources pass of the extended metro as the metro when listing size and population) , just a notch bigger). Meanwhile LA metro consists of 12500sqkm, still a laughingly huge area but much smaller then New Yorks, and that is where people get the incorrect idea that it is denser. Just bugs me this misconception, plus the one where people think LA or New York are even close to being among the biggest cities in the world population wise. Hell Sao Paulo's extended metro is about 30% smaller and the population is about 30% higher then New Yorks, there are dozens and dozens of significantly larger and denser cities out there...ok going of topic. /rant

Point is that urban LA is not even close to being as dense as New York, so this is a flawed example.

[nickinacan]

Originally Posted by deasine

This map was completed in 2005, when the Canada Line was not in service.

And Surrey also added 73,000+ people between 2006 and 2011. That is just over 25% of the total amount of people the province took in. So theoretically Surrey's areas became quite a bit brighter.

I think Translink's biggest mistake is not giving Surrey (And the rest of the SoF for that matter) more options and more frequent options to take transit. Surrey is actually not that difficult to plan for. The super blocks are about the same size as the ones in Vancouver and it is a grid pattern. The only difference is that Vancouver was fortunate enough to have been developed in a time when "Suburbia" meant farmlands and the sticks, so they escaped much of the mish mash that Surrey has between the super blocks. Regardless of this, the main streets are all straight and easy to run buses up and down, just like Vancouver.

The largely urban North Surrey is barely different than East Vancouver in design. But much of the development in Vancouver has occured due to the frequent trolley buses making travel much easier around Vancouver. You would be hard pressed to remember a Vancouver bus route that had 1 - 2 hour intervals, something that is pretty easy for people in Surrey to remember.

Surrey has a population that is growing quickly, and frankly, Translink is dragging their feet. They are not taking advantage of potential NEW customers that will bring in much needed revenue. People in Surrey do not take the bus because it is not frequent and does not go to where people want to go. The ones that do are very well utilized, such as the 502, to the point that they have to run the (Vancouver/Burnaby hand-me-down special) buses back to back. And when they leave, the line has replenished itself.

Smaller routes that were well underutilized, such as the 337, had the service scaled back to a community shuttle. They decided to run it more frequently in the community shuttle configuration and suddenly people started to take the bus. So much so that there were quite a few pass ups and they had to start reinstating full sized buses for rush hours. Now they have reverted it back into a full route, the 337, with frequent service throughout the day.

The packed buses frequent service buses that run the Surrey Central to Langley, Surrey Central to Fleetwood/Guildford and Surrey Central to Newton/South Surrey should be replaced with LRT to allow buses to fill in the gaps. With more frequent service, you would definitely see much higher ridership as it would make it infinitely easier to travel not only within the SoF, but it would feed into Surrey City Centre, which is planned to be the core for the SoF anyways. They did this with Downtown Vancouver, and look how that turned out.