Surrey Langley Skytrain - Expo Line Extension | Proposed

[nname]

Originally Posted by queetz@home

Oh dear. I'm not sure if nname gave consent and all.

I don't think so... I guess I should stop posting....

[Echowinds]

I say a lot of the people here are too hard on a young transit enthusiast.

[Millennium2002]

No one should leave just because of this. If anything, this should strengthen the dicsussion's resolve to fairly evaluate each and every plan and alternative for Surrey's rapid transit without prejudice.

Because if we don't stick to this goal in the long run, more radical pro-LRT or pro-SkyTrain groups will attempt to fill the void left by us with their propaganda.

These groups will unconsciously derail Surrey's entire rapid transit plans and deal a heavy credibility blow to the transit proponent in all of us through the fragmentation, radicalization and politicization of a discussion that is supposed to be inclusive to everyone and that is crucial to the city's future well-being.

I don't care if you have had current or past biases, or even links to these groups. That part doesn't matter. The key is to maintain a legitimate and civilized debate on Surrey's transit options without making people feeling like they should resort to these extremist measures.

[red-paladin]

Originally Posted by nname

I don't think so... I guess I should stop posting....

I hope you don't stop on account of that.

[TransitJack]

I recently returned from a trip to San Diego and used their LRT a few times. A few comments:

- Downtown the trains run very slowly and take a lot longer to depart a station because people keep opening and holding the doors. The trains are high-floored, so this could be a large contributing factor.

- Outside downtown the trains move quite quickly on their own dedicated ROW.

- I witnessed many a close call between the trains and pedestrians, and was surprised by how many people darted out across tracks behind/in front of the stopped train they just left.

There were congestion points, particularly at a wye at American Plaza/Sante Fe station in the heart of downtown. Lots of crossing arms, tracks, trains. A busy place for sure. Fortunately car traffic is relatively light downtown but even still cars were forced to wait at crossings for lengthy periods of times at this area.

- Depending on one's proximity to the line, the prevailing sound of crossing bells was hard to avoid. Living at any LRT/road crossing must become infuriating. The benefit of an isolated system perhaps spoiled me.

[Jebby]

Originally Posted by andasen

There is always the option at said intersections to have the LRT pass under the intersection. Need not be a full on tunnel but more of an underpass.

That's been done in a few places on Los Angeles' Expo Line LRT. I would think the same would be done on a Surrey LRT at major intersections.

[Whalleyboy]

I doubt it will be at first. Which is actually why I'm not the biggest fan of LRT down king george. If they could tell intersections like 96, 88, and 72 ave would have it pass under I would not see a problem with it. 88th is already one of surreys worst intersections we really dont need to be adding more to make it worse there

[memememe76]

My experiences with LRT were Seattle, Portland and Phoenix. I can't see any of them really working in Surrey. Also, I guess I am spoiled with Skytrain, but LRT is way too infrequent (omg, don't even get me started on Phoenix and Seattle)! How frequent can LRT go? I suppose that while the frequency of LRT would not be any better than bus, the trains would accomodate more people, which I guess is nice.

[Track]

The only place where I could see LRT working is down King George, only because it has more lanes to spare. Limiting 104 to one lane either way will, I imagine, cause a lot of congestion, and there will need to be some major expansion and redevelopment along Fraser Hwy if they want to keep it at 2 lanes in either direction with LRT (or BRT, for that matter) in the middle.

Also, if I remember correctly, LRT has a much higher capacity than BRT, though I don't know whether it's due to frequency, train length, or both.

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by memememe76

Skytrain *and* LRT. Hey, as a Surrey resident, I'm all for it but that seems like a lot for Surrey. I always found it interesting that all the major famous neighbourhoods in Vancouver aren't right beside a Skytrain Station (except Yaletown and maybe Coal Harbour--and Yaletown was after the fact).

I just would like better bus service. The 320 should be a lot more frequent than it is.

Why not? Burnaby has 2 skytrain lines going through it and 5 times the stations and is less than half the population of Surrey. Nothing against you but this thinking is exactly why we are so far behind in overall infrastructure. The trick is to build BEFORE you need it not years after it is needed constantly playing an expensive game of catch up. SFPR with intersections? in 5 years they will need to be interchanges and the cost then to build them will be 5 times easy the cost to do them now. Who will pay for that? Every tax payer.

So why should we build the infrastructure now not when it is needed or 5 years after it is needed?

Simple. Cost. If you build Skytrain today it may cost 1.5-2 billion dollars. Most people will go "WOW that's crazy you don't need it completely today." but in 15 years it will be required. If we build it then it will cost with inflation alone around 3 billion. Same project, nothing changes, except the year. That's 1 billion extra just for waiting.

Now yes other factors go into it like "is it a good time" and all that jazz but just like most things in life that are difficult to make a decision on, the perfect time to do them never actually happens if you wait around.

I always go back to the Alex Fraser bridge. Back when it was constructed, most people thought it was a huge waste of money and that "the money would be better spent on things like education and health care." I am not kidding, the phrasing was that. So see things never change? In 15 years people will think money should be spent on education and heathcare. In 200 years it will probably be the same thing.

Well we can't spend everything on education and healthcare there are a lot of other things required for a society to function. And could you imagine the lower mainland today without the Alex Fraser bridge or East-West connector? Could you imagine the region without Expo line even?

What may not be 100% justified today in 10-15 years will be required. Why not do it sooner than later and encourage more sustainable growth over the next 10-15 years in Surrey is my opinion.

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by Track

The only place where I could see LRT working is down King George, only because it has more lanes to spare. Limiting 104 to one lane either way will, I imagine, cause a lot of congestion, and there will need to be some major expansion and redevelopment along Fraser Hwy if they want to keep it at 2 lanes in either direction with LRT (or BRT, for that matter) in the middle.

Also, if I remember correctly, LRT has a much higher capacity than BRT, though I don't know whether it's due to frequency, train length, or both.

Yah see I still don't think they would need to shrink 104th to 1 lane. I actually think the video was made more to show this nice peaceful feel of LRT and minor car traffic down 104th compared to reality.

If you look at all the maps along the 104th stretch from KGB to 152nd, there is plenty of space on either side to widen by at least 2 lanes. So you could very much widen 104th enough to have 2 lanes either direction + LRT in the center I think.

104th would also make a bit more sense as the cross roads aren't huge traffic hubs. There isn't a lot of traffic from 150th until you hit around 140th. Then beyond that you have Whalley Blvd and you're at KGB. That's really 3 major cross roads along the entire stretch.

Compared to KGB which has 10 to 12 for roughly the same distance.

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by Jebby

That's been done in a few places on Los Angeles' Expo Line LRT. I would think the same would be done on a Surrey LRT at major intersections.

The West LRT line in Calgary (still under construction) has a few stations built as part of an underpass at major intersections:



The www.westlrt.ca website has an archive of pictures and videos of the construction, but you'd better be quite familiar with the area west of Downtown Calgary and have a good understanding of where the new LRT line runs and where the stations are so you can make sense of the photos and videos in the archive.

Note that this station at 45th St & 17th Ave is passing under 45th St (upper right in picture), and west of the station (bottom left of the picture) there is a level crossing (with lights and arms) at 47th St - considered a minor street crossing.

17th Ave was somewhat usable during construction because most of the new track construction was done on the north side of 17th Ave - after clearing out all the businesses and houses and churches and strip-malls between 33rd St and Sarcee Trail. The City of Calgary has been saying since the 70s that they wanted to run LRT (or something like it) along 17th Ave, so all the property owners along 17th Ave have known for decades that land within a 100 foot swath north of 17th Ave would be expropriated sooner or later.

Since LRT in Surrey is a new subject for many people, I doubt anyone with property along 104th or KGB or Fraser Highway in Surrey realises what may need to be expropriated to build LRT or the SkyTrain extension.



Here's the Google Street view of the 47th St & 17th Ave intersection with the AMA building in the background.

https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=51.0...,62.57,,0,2.94


Pan left to see the empty lots ready for LRT construction.

zoom out a few steps to see the satellite view of the buildings that were there before LRT came through.

[CoryHolmes]

Yeah, and it was my time on Calgary's C-Train that has made me leery of at-grade LRT. Every single crossing has to be signalized and train arms and time spent leaving motorists at an idle standstill.

I have nightmares (actual, literal nightmares) of that happening on 88th and KGB...

[Whalleyboy]

I have to agree LRT down king george would just become a huge nightmare in the long run. We have to face facts just cause we get transit doesnt mean traffic number will go down hugely

I'm still thinking the skytrain to newton with BRT to Langley and Guildford is the plan that we should go for.
A future skytrain expansion to Langley from Newton would only be something like 3-5 km longer then a skytrain all the way down Fraser hwy anyways.

Plus could still keep a BRT or if you'd like LRT going down fraser hwy to serve the fleetwood/clayton areas of surrey

something like this is how i see it working I've shown this map before here

https://maps.google.ca/maps/ms?msid=...217284,0.41851

[Track]

My only issue with Skytrain down KGH is that it improves service for South Surrey, but almost no one else. Cutting down Fraser Hwy would decrease travel times for a lot more people overall, with bus routes feeding into the main Skytrain line.

[Whalleyboy]

I would disagree. The population of Newton plus South Surrey out number Fleetwood and the Langley city and town.
the numbers are
newton/south surrey:205760
Fleetwood/Langley city/Langley town:187648
Newton alone has pretty much the population of both Langleys

Please don't try and tell me it will help out people in Guildford. The same arguement can be held that KGB line would help out the rest of Whalley which is the second most populated community. Plus I could add KGB could also help those in North delta

noticed I forgot cloverdale
so with cloverdale it would be
langleys/fleetwood/cloverdale:251468

even then you look at the length and price difference need for it to go down fraser

Its why I think newton to langley with skytrain would better everyone since it pretty much only leaves out Fleetwood

[memememe76]

Please don't try and tell me it will help out people in Guildford. The same arguement can be held that KGB line would help out the rest of Whalley which is the second most populated community. Plus I could add KGB could also help those in North delta

A skytrain down Fraser Hwy would help out Guildford a whole lot more than skytrain down KGB. Say, if I miss the 320 to Surrey Central, then I can cross the street and the get the 320 to 152 and Fraser Hwy.

Newton's population base may be larger but that probably has to do with how big the area is. I am not a fan of Newton. It is so spread out. Except for Costco, I would have no use for it.

[Zassk]

^^^ Isn't Langley and Fleetwood equally spread out? They do not seem to have any efforts or planning toward density at all, from what I observe.

If this is more about creating a dense town centre (rather than service an existing one), then wouldn't it be better to shape Newton into that dense town centre rather than Langley?

Newton has more "satellite" communities surrounding it (and closer too), and could be made far more important than Langley later in the century, depending on decisions made today.

[Whalleyboy]

well first off Langley town is from the fraser river to the border and 196 ave all the way to 276. so I think that even more spread out for a population of just over a 100,000. So I think newton is a lot more dense then that.
Just remember a lot of the township of Langleys population comes from that include walnut grove. where i'm sure many would stick to taking a bus along the hwy to central and Aldergrove which many dont travel out this way.

secondly I think buses would change to better feed people into skytrain if it went down king george.

Plus if you actually look at my map it hold a route where Langley and Cloverdale are both are hit along with Newton. The only loss come to Fleetwood. which the city is not pushing for much more growth in.

[Millennium2002]

Originally Posted by Whalleyboy

Plus if you actually look at my map it hold a route where Langley and Cloverdale are both are hit along with Newton. The only loss come to Fleetwood. which the city is not pushing for much more growth in.

This might not take into account that as of the last release of bus pass-ups a lot of them happened on the 502 between Surrey and Langley. Whether that is just because of the size or frequency buses that are run on the route, or some other reason (aka the mythical mismanagement issue), I think service down that way is still warranted.