North Shore Rapid Transit | Park Royal-Metrotown via 2nd Narrows | BRT/RRT

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

TransLink said it themselves:



So TransLink misinterpreted TransLink's priorities? Or could it be that you're wrong about TransLink's plans, and TransLink might actually know what TransLink's plans are?

No.
Transport 2050 states that there are 2 tiers of 'rapid transit corridors':
BRT/RapidBus on existing roads, and possible grade-separated transit.

Grade seperation is only to be considered on:
41st/49th, Willingdon/Hastings/2nd Narrows (ie. spur to Phibbs, which isn't that useful by itself), UBC, Langley, PoCo, and Burnaby Mountain Gondola.
Only Langley, Burnaby Mountain Gondola, and UBC are confirmed to be in the 10 year priority for construction.



That press release says 'rapid transit for 9 corridors', as if TransLink is studying rail on Marine or Scott Road (it's not, at least for now.)

The 10 year priorities state, however:

Metrotown to Park Royal (BRT + study alternatives)
In recognition of the acute congestion challenges facing the North Shore, the region commits to delivering a
traffic-separated rapid transit connection between Park Royal and Metrotown as soon as possible:
• Recognizing that this is a highly complex and constrained corridor, we will immediately begin the
required planning work to advance a BRT option so that construction of rapid transit can begin
within years 0-5.
• In parallel, we will advance business case development to confirm whether the ultimate technology
will be Bus Rapid Transit, Light Rail Transit, or SkyTrain (or a combination), and to confirm the
associated alignment, terminus locations, and degree of grade separation including options for a
dedicated transit crossing of Burrard Inlet.
• In the meantime, the region commits to increased bus service and transit priority measures, as
feasible, between Park Royal and Metrotown to improve bus travel times, operating costs, and grow
ridership in advance of more permanent rapid transit investment.

As a result:

Immediately advance the required planning, engagement, and design work to confirm the best alignment, technology, grade separation, terminus locations and phasing for a rapid transit connection between Metrotown and Park Royal via the Second Narrows corridor to be implemented in the latter half of the plan, while delivering better bus service in the short term.

The statement is technically true, but quite confusing, and should never have been written like this by TransLink Media Relations.

It implies grade-separation on the entire corridor, when no grade-separation in NS is currently being considered.
NS is not listed as eligible for grade-separation in Transport 2050 other than the Phibbs Spur.

Park Royal <> Metrotown via 2nd Narrows will become rapid transit- but not as rail, as it is not eligable for grade seperation.
Metrotown <> Phibbs may.
(Not sure what the point of stopping at Phibbs is, IWMB isn't even the main congestion point- it's getting on and off the bridge.
I guess maybe bus reliability off IWMB, but Scott Road Bus Exchange has more riders than Phibbs even today despite most buses being moved off it to Surrey Central and King George. )

[djmk]

Imho, a NS line would do nothing for the ferry, Whistler or local mountain traffic.

The population of nv is completely different than Surrey (and generally the rest of metro Vancouver). And the population centers run north/south rather than east/west (and on some serious slopes)

Along the lower level, zero people live between Phibbs and Lonsdale.

I don't think a line in nv would work

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by djmk

Imho, a NS line would do nothing for the ferry, Whistler or local mountain traffic.

The population of nv is completely different than Surrey (and generally the rest of metro Vancouver). And the population centers run north/south rather than east/west (and on some serious slopes)

Along the lower level, zero people live between Phibbs and Lonsdale.

I don't think a line in nv would work

On reading your statement, it crystallized some ideas that had been at the back of my mind, such as the industrial zone between Lonsdale and Phibbs, and the north/south traffic flows, plus those steep slopes.
>My question to you is: Would any sort of rrt line in NV work at all, or is it an idea best forgotten? Or is there another alignment for going to the North Shore that would work? It's a "sticky wicket" for sure.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by djmk

Imho, a NS line would do nothing for the ferry, Whistler or local mountain traffic.

How could you say something so bold to the people in this forum?
They'll crucify you!

The population of nv is completely different than Surrey (and generally the rest of metro Vancouver). And the population centers run north/south rather than east/west (and on some serious slopes)

Along the lower level, zero people live between Phibbs and Lonsdale.

But yeah, Lonsdale-Lynn is the busiest corridor, but would also be the most expensive (deep stations due to slopes and tunnels needed).
Marine has to be built first as well to be able to connect it to the wider network.


On the lower level, there's the East 3rd FTDA, though that still caps out at 4 stories.

I don't think a line in nv would work

I ultimately think that NS SkyTrain will only happen once TransLink can no longer add SeaBuses and normal buses across the inlet.
That will take a while.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by djmk

Imho, a NS line would do nothing for the ferry, Whistler or local mountain traffic.

The population of nv is completely different than Surrey (and generally the rest of metro Vancouver). And the population centers run north/south rather than east/west (and on some serious slopes)

Along the lower level, zero people live between Phibbs and Lonsdale.

I don't think a line in nv would work

The main population centres at Lonsdale-Lynn do run north-to-south; the overall commute runs east-to-west, and that's starting to fill with density.

You’re right that SkyTrain won’t get most skiers, ferry passengers or Sea to Sky drivers to use it, but those don’t make up the majority of North Shore traffic – it’s mostly commuters from the other side and locals trying to get around the NS and/or across the inlet, and they definitely will.

[madog222]

Originally Posted by djmk

Along the lower level, zero people live between Phibbs and Lonsdale.

Then don't have a station there, no big deal. From the North Shore Connects study's numbers I think they were eyeing five stations on the North Shore, I see them likely located at: Phibbs/Main St, Lonsdale, Capilano Mall, Norgate, Park Royal.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by madog222

Then don't have a station there, no big deal. From the North Shore Connects study's numbers I think they were eyeing five stations on the North Shore, I see them likely located at: Phibbs, Lonsdale, Capilano Mall, Norgate, Park Royal.

It doesn't. It only lists the number of stations.
https://northshoreconnects.ca/wp-con...ment_Final.pdf

Also, that's way lower than the number of stops in R2+R5.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

The main population centres at Lonsdale-Lynn do run north-to-south; the overall commute runs east-to-west, and that's starting to fill with density.

You’re right that SkyTrain won’t get most skiers, ferry passengers or Sea to Sky drivers to use it, but those don’t make up the majority of North Shore traffic – it’s mostly commuters from the other side and locals trying to get around the NS and/or across the inlet, and they definitely will.

The main connectivity problem in NS is the lack of a functioning arterial road network, especially east-west, and especially north of the Upper Levels.

This is also how you get that 2-hour commute.
If there were good alternative routes, you would divert traffic away from the Upper Levels and Marine in high-congestion situations rather than continuously funneling traffic into them.

This is why North Shore Connects wanted the Lower Lynn interchange and wants the extension of Lower Levels westwards.


There are thus also no east-west bus routes other than on Marine. (And also no commercial centers other than on Marine or Horseshoe Bay in West Van, but they're trying to fix that.)

Eg. if you want to go from Edgemont to Lynn Valley, it takes 10 minutes driving.
There is no single arterial road the entire way (which increases congestion), but still.

On bus, the most optimal route is to transfer onto another north-south bus line, extending your commute to over 30+ minutes.
This is not solved by any SkyTrain network on Marine.

It's solved by fixing the arterial road and bus network.

[madog222]

Originally Posted by fredinno

It doesn't. It only lists the number of stations.
https://northshoreconnects.ca/wp-con...ment_Final.pdf

Also, that's way lower than the number of stops in R2+R5.

Read the post before responding, I never said it did. Logically looking at the alignments one can work out how many would be on the North Shore.

[Migrant_Coconut]

The 222’s got six stops: Metrotown, BCIT, Brentwood, Hastings, Kootenay, Phibbs. Ten minus six is four other stations for the North Shore, so it would appear that madog is correct, unless TransLink opts to pencil in more stations overall. As for their plans, they pitched two options to the public during the Transport 2050 open houses: Network A prioritized SkyTrains, and Network B prioritized express buses and BRT... and both options had Metrotown to Lonsdale via Second Narrows as a SkyTrain line. There really isn't a lot of room for argument on this one.

To get from Edgemont to Lynn, you take West Queens, then 29th; swap the parking lanes for bus lanes, and then there’s your arterial. Knocking out a four-lane East Queens Road through suburbia just to have it fill up on opening day is a non-starter.

Likewise, give the TCH or any arterial on the North Shore two more lanes, and that’s less than 20k vehicles’ worth of capacity; you get maybe a week’s worth of smoother flow, then everybody finds out about the new shortcut, and traffic’s stuck again. A SkyTrain would add six highway lanes’ worth of capacity to Marine/3rd/Main and remove 50k-60k drivers from the road network in Year 1, which in turn frees up space on the TCH and all the arterials and side streets, providing room to run more buses.
The North Shore’s been trying to solve their traffic through road expansion for decades and all they’ve gotten is more traffic, so now they want to stop moving cars and start moving people.

[djmk]

Horseshoe Bay and Whistler combined have about 6 million passengers/visitors annually. Virtually, all of them take either bridges.

Connecting Lonsdale with Pemberton with rail would probably do wonders.

[Migrant_Coconut]

6 million/year works out to 16k/day; that's a lot of people, yeah, but it's a small fraction of the almost 200k trips (not counting buses) that use the Lions Gate and IWMB daily. Gotta help the other 184k first.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

The 222’s got six stops: Metrotown, BCIT, Brentwood, Hastings, Kootenay, Phibbs. Ten minus six is four other stations for the North Shore, so it would appear that madog is correct, unless TransLink opts to pencil in more stations overall.

To get from Edgemont to Lynn, you take West Queens, then 29th; swap the parking lanes for bus lanes, and then there’s your arterial. Knocking out a four-lane East Queens Road through suburbia just to have it fill up on opening day is a non-starter.

W Queen is not connected to W 29th, meaning you have to make 2 turns to get onto Edgemont, which is not good for capacity.

SoF is building more east-west routes through its suburbs for the same reason.

Give the TCH or any arterial on the North Shore two more lanes, and that’s less than 20k vehicles’ worth of capacity; you get maybe a week’s worth of smoother flow, then everybody finds out about the new shortcut, and traffic’s stuck again. A SkyTrain would add six highway lanes’ worth of capacity to Marine/3rd/Main and remove 50k-60k drivers from the road network in Year 1, which in turn frees up space on the TCH and all the arterials and side streets, providing room to run more buses.

Except the TCH and arterials are more convenient overall than Marine if you're going east-west.
Marine is at the southernmost part of the region, with a lower catchment area due to being on the coast, limiting its usefulness for east-west transfers or as an 'anchor' to the rest of the bus network.


Combine this with the low existing bus usage, and a 'best bus' scenario with a complete arterial road network across the entire region may improve congestion more overall, despite Marine itself being slower.

This is what the current near-term plans for NS seem to be.


tldr: NS needs a bus grid first - then maybe a SkyTrain.


Upper Levels is also planned to get shoulder bus lanes, which might help a bit in this aspect, especially to get to the rest of the region (similar to 555 for Langley).
Park Royal <> Hastings is only 13 min in good traffic via Upper Levels.
If they get full center-lane HOV, it would be even better.


North Shore Connects is focusing on both for a reason- and will probably get the road grid faster and cheaper, considering Marine isn't even in Transport 2050 as grade-separated, as I pointed out before.

The North Shore’s been trying to solve their traffic through road expansion for decades and all they’ve gotten is more traffic, so now they want to stop moving cars and start moving people.

NS has the worst case of spaghetti roads in Metro Vancouver outside Silver Valley.

That's partially the inclined elevation, but also a case of bad planning.
Coquitlam was at least smart enough to build David Ave.


Remember: the disconnected arterial road network impacts all forms of transportation, not just cars.
The concept of arterial road grids predates widespread automobile usage, because it was useful for streetcars, not cars.

[Migrant_Coconut]

If there were that many people trying to get from Edgemont to Lynn in the first place, there'd already be a more convenient bus, either down Queen and 29th, or down to the Westview ramp and then back onto Lynn Road; many local routes in the metro already use the highway for short bursts before coming back to the regular grid.
Nah, there's a reason why the FTN is laid out that way: because that's where the demand is. Lynn's the only town centre not on Marine, and so a Best Bus grid, while something to aspire to, is less useful than in Surrey (which also has much more empty space for roadworks than the North Shore does).

Grade separation on Marine is in Transport 2050, you just don't want to listen.

There's already a grid: down in the Lower Levels, where most transit and ridership is, and where most future population growth is going; that's the focus. Sprawling up the Upper Levels would just be a second wrong trying to make a right.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

To get from Edgemont to Lynn, you take West Queens, then 29th; swap the parking lanes for bus lanes, and then there’s your arterial. Knocking out a four-lane East Queens Road through suburbia just to have it fill up on opening day is a non-starter.

There are plans for a community shuttle or maybe something more from Lynn Valley-Edgemont-Park Royal.

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by trofirhen

Yes I think you are 100% correct. My next question would be: WHICH route or routes do you see as the best for this? If it's the IWMB can it support the extra lane width and added weight of rrt? Big-time addition.
(I am assuming that you prefer the purple and gold routes over the Lonsdale or Stanley Park Park tunnels.) as these are too $$$$$. I refer to the necessary major IWMBridge re-engineering. Surely a "must."
Or ... are the western, tunneled lines to West Van and Lonsdale included in your idea as well. Imagine it!! All the lines are built out to the max. What amazing inter-city and interregional transportation Metro Vancouver would have!

I prefer the Metrotown-Brentwood-Phibbs-Park Royal alignment because it would route thousands of passengers who have no need to go into DT Vancouver (e.g., someone living in Surrey and working in Norgate) around the DT. This route would have the potential to capture passengers currently taking IWMB AND LGB buses, relieving capacity constrains on both crossings. I take a bus over the LGB a couple times per week and have also taken a bus over the IWMB a number of times. Personally, I think the delays for the IWMB buses are much worse.

Based on snippets of press releases and interviews by politicians and Translink, it seems like a bridge crossing at Second Narrows is almost a sure thing compared to a tunnel or bridge elsewhere. And the Mayor's Council seems to prefer Willingdon+NS over Hastings+NS. I think the main question (aside from when this line would start construction) relates to phasing. I.e., will we get Metrotown to Phibbs initially? Brentwood to Phibbs? Phibbs to Park Royal? As fredinno pointed out, the entire line would be a huge undertaking, so I imagine it will be broken up into at least two phases if not more. Unfortunately, I can see a world where we initially only get the NS crossing, which would amount to Phibbs to Brentwood, with the "tails" taking decades more to fund and construct.

Originally Posted by djmk

Horseshoe Bay and Whistler combined have about 6 million passengers/visitors annually. Virtually, all of them take either bridges.

Connecting Lonsdale with Pemberton with rail would probably do wonders.

I don't know how many people take a bus to Horseshoe Bay, but for those living SoF a rail connection to Park Royal and a shorter express bus to Horseshoe Bay would be a big improvement. However, I agree that a heavy rail connection from DT Vancouver to Pemberton with stops at Horseshoe Bay, Squamish, and Whistler would be the dream.

[cairnstone]

Originally Posted by fredinno

Was Port Mann really at the end of its life before being replaced?

The original Port Mann had had a half life upgrade in the early 2000s the same time the HOV lanes were built. Thats was why originally it was to be a twinned but the Liberals wanted a huge single span so 500 M roughly was flushed down the drain.

[mcj]

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

I prefer the Metrotown-Brentwood-Phibbs-Park Royal alignment because it would route thousands of passengers who have no need to go into DT Vancouver (e.g., someone living in Surrey and working in Norgate) around the DT. This route would have the potential to capture passengers currently taking IWMB AND LGB buses, relieving capacity constrains on both crossings. I take a bus over the LGB a couple times per week and have also taken a bus over the IWMB a number of times. Personally, I think the delays for the IWMB buses are much worse.

Based on snippets of press releases and interviews by politicians and Translink, it seems like a bridge crossing at Second Narrows is almost a sure thing compared to a tunnel or bridge elsewhere. And the Mayor's Council seems to prefer Willingdon+NS over Hastings+NS. I think the main question (aside from when this line would start construction) relates to phasing. I.e., will we get Metrotown to Phibbs initially? Brentwood to Phibbs? Phibbs to Park Royal? As fredinno pointed out, the entire line would be a huge undertaking, so I imagine it will be broken up into at least two phases if not more. Unfortunately, I can see a world where we initially only get the NS crossing, which would amount to Phibbs to Brentwood, with the "tails" taking decades more to fund and construct.

In terms of phasing, it makes little sense to leave the Metrotown-Brentwood leg uncompleted in the first phase. You're leaving out a connection to Metrotown, which is now the second busiest station on the entire network (#1 Waterfront has 3 mass transit connections whereas Metrotown only has the expo line). Any passengers from Surrey or Langley will be coming on the Expo line and connecting at Metrotown too, without a connection there the ridership will likely just take the seabus as changing at Commercial-Broadway and backtracking to a Brentwood - Phibbs line would be ridiculous.

If anything the actual connection to the North Shore over the bridge can (and should imo) be part of the second phase of this project. The first phase should be Metrotown - PNE via either Gilmore or Brentwood. With the option of completing a Hastings line for a future phase.

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

I don't know how many people take a bus to Horseshoe Bay, but for those living SoF a rail connection to Park Royal and a shorter express bus to Horseshoe Bay would be a big improvement. However, I agree that a heavy rail connection from DT Vancouver to Pemberton with stops at Horseshoe Bay, Squamish, and Whistler would be the dream.

Coming from New West and taking the Expo Line in, it actually isn't that inconvenient to just go straight downtown and get on a 250 / 257 on Georgia. The value in a North Shore line for me would be to get to all the places east of Park Royal that require 1 or more transfers with the existing system to get to (i.e. Lynn Valley or the Lower Seymour Reserve, or Deep Cove). But the largest draw for me personally with this would be making the connection from the Expo Line to the PNE much quicker and more convenient. Currently every rider going to the PNE that lives along the Expo Line has basically 2 options to get there, either go all the way downtown and then backtrack on the R5 or take the 16 from 29th Avenue station which has such low frequencies you might as well have taken the R5. Currently if I go to the PNE from New West, I'll usually just drive or take an Evo there and Uber back.

Heavy rail connection is a fantasy at this point, if this ~20km Skytrain line is a massive undertaking, can you imagine double tracking 200+ km of twisting and turning rail lines (which as has been pointed out in the past have a lower speed limit than the highway). Give me an easy connection to Phibbs and then express buses to Whistler that leave every 15 minutes and I'll take them much more than I would a slow train navigating a single tracked winding rail line.

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by mcj

In terms of phasing, it makes little sense to leave the Metrotown-Brentwood leg uncompleted in the first phase.

I agree that leaving what might be the busiest segment of the line to phase two would be disappointing. But the bridge is the ultimate bottleneck for any bus line between the NS and south of the inlet. If BRT on Willingdon and Marine works well, building rail across the inlet would vastly improve not only the BRT line but also any bus line crossing the IWMB. Also remember that Brentwood has a rail connection to all of the Tri-Cities and SoF (albeit, with some annoying transfers from Expo to Millennium).

[Migrant_Coconut]

In theory, Metrotown-Phibbs should be "affordable" enough to be one phase; Phibbs-Park Royal and Metrotown-UBC can come later when there's more budget.