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  #81  
Old Posted Oct 23, 2007, 9:44 PM
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^^ exactly ^^
A 50M station could probably serve a 52-55M train, with the new trains also being wider that's a lot of capacity, this corridor is also a lot less populated then the expo/mill line corridors and scheduled to remain that way. With increased frequency techically possible every 45 seconds the line will serve us fine.
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  #82  
Old Posted Oct 23, 2007, 10:16 PM
deasine deasine is offline
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Originally Posted by jlousa View Post
^^ exactly ^^
A 50M station could probably serve a 52-55M train, with the new trains also being wider that's a lot of capacity, this corridor is also a lot less populated then the expo/mill line corridors and scheduled to remain that way. With increased frequency techically possible every 45 seconds the line will serve us fine.
but you see then the problem is that the Canada Line cannot hanndle that train frequency because of all the single tracking at YVR and Richmond.

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That has been thought of before, that the Arbutus streetcar could be a full running LRT line instead.

But the question is, how much would it actually relieve Canada Line congestion?
Well we don't have too many choices left. We can of course rebuild sections of the Canada Lien to include longer platforms, etc. but that will be $$$$$$. We can include more buses... but it won't attract more people to the system adding to the fact that buses don't move too quickly in Vancouver. Then we only have the Arbutus option left...

I think the city of Vancouver wanted a number of rapid transit lines to serve the downtown core including the SkyTrain E & M Line, Canada Line, and they were also looking for a SkyTrain type line for Burrard. Maybe instead of the Arubutus line going on Granville it can go underground to Waterfront Station?

The future LRT/Streetcar network I see:

Route 1: From Waterfront Station underground Burrard St. then use existing rail tracks down Arbutus and end up at Marine Drive Station.
Route 2: (Circle Route) From Waterfront Station underground then goes above ground using the red phase (see map) - extend past Granville Island, goes underground using Route 1 tracks in downtown.
Route 3: From Granville St (blue line) to viaducts, then north using red line then onto the green line towards Stanley Park...


I'm sorry if my writing is really messy... just typing all my thoughts down all at once. I should have done a map. Anyways, the city of Vancouver is at an extent that maybe our Transit system can't handle the amount of people unless we build/introduce new fast and reliable services (i.e. LRT/Streetcar)...

Last edited by deasine; Oct 23, 2007 at 10:39 PM.
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  #83  
Old Posted Oct 23, 2007, 11:34 PM
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Originally Posted by deasine View Post
but you see then the problem is that the Canada Line cannot hanndle that train frequency because of all the single tracking at YVR and Richmond.
Waterfront station's platform is double tracked. It can handle the frequency.
Trains can be short-turned at Bridgeport at the south end of the line to provide a short headway between Bridgeport and Waterfront.
Much of the demand will be due to buses off-loading at Bridgeport. In addition, YVR trains would be largely empty during the morning rush hour.

Remember, downtown Vancouver isn't a huge draw in terms of jobs - there's a lot of cross-suburb commuting in the lower mainland. This isn't Toronto.
In addition, Richmond isn't slated to grow as big as Surrey because it's on a flood plain and will liquify in the big earthquake.

If there's a need, the Arbutus corridor can be used and plans formulated at that time.
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  #84  
Old Posted Oct 24, 2007, 6:16 AM
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If our transit ridership is increased to 30% like planed then this line would not be even close to having enough capacity. If the status quo is maintained then this line should be fine for 20-30 years with the expansion to 50m.

Personally I think our transit ridership is going to increase much faster then some believe mainly because Vancouver has just about reached a critical mass and due to a lack of highways road expansion is impossible, add to this increasing gas prices and strong population growth and you are going to get a rapid increase in transit ridership. A new transit line in to downtown in 2010 is going to take of much quicker then a new transit line in 1986 in my opinion.

In any case its to late to do anything now so all we can do is wait and see.
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  #85  
Old Posted Oct 24, 2007, 6:46 AM
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Originally Posted by cornholio View Post
If our transit ridership is increased to 30% like planed then this line would not be even close to having enough capacity. If the status quo is maintained then this line should be fine for 20-30 years with the expansion to 50m.

Personally I think our transit ridership is going to increase much faster then some believe mainly because Vancouver has just about reached a critical mass and due to a lack of highways road expansion is impossible, add to this increasing gas prices and strong population growth and you are going to get a rapid increase in transit ridership. A new transit line in to downtown in 2010 is going to take of much quicker then a new transit line in 1986 in my opinion.

In any case its to late to do anything now so all we can do is wait and see.
Those are my thoughts as well.....i firmly believe that the Canada Line will take off really quickly. It will be a huge success....but in 10 years, I'm willing to bet that it will become a victim of its own success.

....unless there's an earthquake.
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  #86  
Old Posted Oct 24, 2007, 10:11 AM
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I agree that the SkyTrain Canada Line (hey Im calling it that) will be much more successful than planners thought. Who cares that downtown isn't as huge of a job draw as Toronto's is, there's more to downtown than JUST JOBS, which in itself makes it the biggest draw in Metro Vancouver!!!

This brings a question that I dont understand. You go to most major cities around the world and their subway systems have express trains. Yet Vancouver's doesn't.

Why didn't we build in the capability of having express trains, you know - trains that would run past some of the smaller stations at certain times of the day?

I think, if we had express trains - we could probably increase ridership and get more people out of their cars. Because of this, why didn't we build this capability into skytrain CL? At least the Vancouver to Airport portion or at bare minimum, downtown to Bridgeport.??

What about the other SkyTrain lines? Why dont we have an express Surrey to Metrotown to Broadway to Main Street to the Downtown stations??? Why didn't we build this capability in and why is nobody talking about it?

I think Express Lines are a quick and EASY way to increase ridership.
Ive been in systems in Osaka and Nagoya (also Tokyo) where express trains still follow the same routing (although they use different track) but they just fly by 'local' stations, and local trains do the SkyTrain type of stop and go. That made it VERY VERY convenient for business and tourist to get around AS WELL AS the LOCAL residents who want their local stops. And of course, almost everybody in those cities take the transit.. ...

Would it be possible to have some express trains that are timed as such that they could use the existing track alignment? Could we do this?
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  #87  
Old Posted Oct 24, 2007, 6:28 PM
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Express train systems would require passing tracks to bypass stations. i.e. 3 or 4 track systems - either full length or just around certain stations. That would add a lot to the cost, especially in tunnels.
There are storage tracks on the Skytrain line, but they are not co-located at stations which would allow them to be used as passing tracks. Even if they were co-located at stations, there aren't enough of them to bypass many stations.
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  #88  
Old Posted Oct 24, 2007, 11:49 PM
deasine deasine is offline
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I never really liked the "idea" of express trains unless of course there are many stations over a long distant... if we had the express trains running as normal trains, we would increase the frequency of the system overall. I would say this would be a much attractive system.
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  #89  
Old Posted Oct 25, 2007, 2:13 AM
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that's what I was thinking deasine.

we could increase capacity by dedicating/adding a few trains as express as well as speed up travel for commuting pax. Like I said, the X trains would just go past 'local' stations, and stop only at the major ones; Surrey Central, Metrotown, Broadway, YVR, Bridgeport, Marine Dr., Broadway/City Hall, Main Street, Stadium/Chinatown, Yaletown, Granville, Robson, Burrard, Waterfront.

People taking these xpress trains would only stop at the above stations, bypassing the others. It would be very attractive to those who still believe that SkyTrain is slower/less convenient than driving and certainly would appeal to the office commuters into downtown (since they wouldn't have to stop at EVERY station.

And, if they need to get to a local station, they could just get off at an express stop, wait for a local/normal SkyTrain, and voila.

Anyways, there must be a way we could we could implement this now by timing the current/existing network. Maybe later we could build-in bypass tracks once ridership reaches the next critical level.

Perhaps also, these express trains could operate during rush hour periods and these express trains could be long (8-car Mark I, 6-car Mark II, 4-car Canada Line). Rush hour timing could be 6am-9am, 11am-1pm, 4pm-7pm; and during special events downtown.

Like I said, in my idea - we'd still have the "normal" SkyTrain service, its just that we'd have the longer Xpress variety timed such to be 'inserted' between existing runs and not stop at every station (except the major ones I listed).

For the Millennium Line extension, we could/should actually go ahead and build the bypass track. It could be as simple as inserting a track in the middle of the normal twin track at stations (starting several metres prior and after each station) so that a train can 'hop' onto the bypass and keep going. Eventually, we could implement the express bypass at all stations except those in downtown, Main Street, Broadway and City Hall, YVR, and certain other ones that are busy. We could also extend the platforms of YVR, Bridgeport, Marine, CityHall, and the downtown Canada Line stations later to accommodate the Longer express trains.

I dunno, I think this is a GREAT idea, how we could expand capacity without totally redoing the SkyTrain network and certainly would be more cost savvy.

but for start, we should be able to just put together long SkyTrain cars NOW, and insert them into the current runs during rush, letting them just bypass certain local stops, ala Montreal Metro seen here, http://youtube.com/watch?v=eUVc-qUf3Rg (see how it uses the SAME track, no bypass track - it just keeps going since the stop is a 'local' stop but the train is Express).

Why couldn't we start now with something ala the Montreal Metro clip, were LONG express trains use existing track, timed between existing 'normal' skytrains, in which these xpress trains bypass local stops. Then later, we can add in bypass tracks in the middle. The idea is - Add capacity, increase convenience for commuters, minimal cost - hopefully all translates into more usage of the network and MORE Rapid Transit NETWORK!!!!!

Am I on to something!!!>???
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  #90  
Old Posted Oct 25, 2007, 5:58 AM
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I think the height of the Amacon tower may have been substantially reduced... to about 145m. But who knows what will ultimately happen.
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  #91  
Old Posted Oct 25, 2007, 6:07 AM
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Originally Posted by raggedy13 View Post
I think the height of the Amacon tower may have been substantially reduced... to about 145m. But who knows what will ultimately happen.
Do you have a rendering of it?
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  #92  
Old Posted Oct 25, 2007, 6:08 AM
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^Nope, sorry. I haven't even seen a proper rendering of it. Just a simple elevation.
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  #93  
Old Posted Oct 25, 2007, 3:27 PM
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Lame, the city isn't going to go anywhere skyline-wise if the heights for office towers keep getting cut back to below 150 meters.

what ever happened to the good old days where the office tower was a symbol of power, and was the largest, most bad-ass building in the city?
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  #94  
Old Posted Oct 25, 2007, 6:43 PM
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They still exist, just not here.
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  #95  
Old Posted Oct 25, 2007, 7:06 PM
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If the system was designed and built to handle it, express trains would be great.

Some systems use a "skip-stop" system that I think is more problematic but also reduces travel time (at least for those going to certain stations) and can be implemented where there are no passing tracks. Skip-stop works by having certain trains stop at certain stations and other trains stop at the other stations with, I think, all trains stoppng at major stations.
i.e. say you have green trains and red trains. The green trains would stop at even numbered stations and the red trains would stop at odd numbered stations. Both red and green trains would stop at major transfer stations.
That's fine if you start and end your journey at an even or at an odd numbered station, but if you start at an odd station and end at an even station, or vice versa, you'd need to transfer to get to your final station. I'm not sure how much having all trains stop at the transfer stations delays the system in general.
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  #96  
Old Posted Oct 25, 2007, 7:08 PM
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Well at least as more office stock is added to the city total (short or tall), the less risky it gets for a developer to build a larger office building next cycle - ie adding 1mil s.f. to a downtown total of 21.5 mil has a greater impact on vacancy rate than adding 1mil s.f. to a downtown total of 25 mil, or 30 mil, or 50 mil, etc.

So if we could add a decent amount this cycle in a series of smaller office towers, we would likely see larger buildings next cycle. When that will be I don't know but who knows what the future holds for Vancouver business trends. Maybe our vacancy rate will keep decreasing leading up to and post-Olympics? So for the next 5 years or so. Maybe the market will be stronger than expected and we'll be able to absorb these first few office towers plus a nice ~150+m? Maybe some sort of major tenant will move into town over the next few years? Perhaps that's being too optimistic but you never know, with the upcoming Olympics this is a particularly unpredictable period for Vancouver.

If Microsoft could move into the Metro, why not other major corporations? Maybe Dubai Ports World will build their North American HQ here? Wishful thinking, I know.
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  #97  
Old Posted Oct 25, 2007, 9:18 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by raggedy13 View Post
I think the height of the Amacon tower may have been substantially reduced... to about 145m. But who knows what will ultimately happen.
Thats good I thought that that site wasn't suited for a tall tower and something in 500-550foot range would of been much better as it would add more height variation to the skyline, create more of a dome effect and just fit in better. Though thats not to say that i am against tall towers or that i would of wanted a taller amacon tower proposal changed, but this is more of what I would prefer.
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  #98  
Old Posted Oct 25, 2007, 9:57 PM
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Originally Posted by raggedy13 View Post
Well at least as more office stock is added to the city total (short or tall), the less risky it gets for a developer to build a larger office building next cycle - ie adding 1mil s.f. to a downtown total of 21.5 mil has a greater impact on vacancy rate than adding 1mil s.f. to a downtown total of 25 mil, or 30 mil, or 50 mil, etc.
Erm, it's called Supply and Demand. If there is not enough supply of office space and an actual *demand* for downtown AAA office space, then the first person who builds to meet that demand will have the highest returns, and the lowest risk. The next person to build an office space is likely to have less demand than the previous person, and thus reap the same or lower return.


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If Microsoft could move into the Metro, why not other major corporations? Maybe Dubai Ports World will build their North American HQ here? Wishful thinking, I know.
Unions, Taxes, very low productivity per person and high land cost make it more expensive to do business in Canada than the USA. BC moreso. Vancouver even moreso. So there is little incentive for many blue-chip international companies to make major inroads up here. Until those aforementioned barriers to business are abated, Vancouver will not attract that many head offices. Thus, no major office towers. Yes occasionally some big company moves a major office here, but it's usually for altruistic or personal reasons (e.g., the head of Concord Pacific is based in Hong Kong and his son & heir had Canadian citizenship, so that was handy). But if it's just purely a business decision, don't hold your breath.
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  #99  
Old Posted Oct 26, 2007, 6:54 AM
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Erm, it's called Supply and Demand. If there is not enough supply of office space and an actual *demand* for downtown AAA office space, then the first person who builds to meet that demand will have the highest returns, and the lowest risk. The next person to build an office space is likely to have less demand than the previous person, and thus reap the same or lower return.
I'm aware, but thanks. Either way my point still stands... 1 million s.f. is more readily absorbed into a market total of 30 million s.f. at 3% vacancy than 1 million s.f. into a market total of 20 million s.f. at 3% vacancy. Hence if in 25 years downtown has 30 million s.f. of office space and is undergoing a period of low vacancy (ie high demand) in the business cycle, it will be able to absorb a 600ft office tower more easily than it could today. If it can easily absorb such a tower, a developer is more likely to propose one.


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Unions, Taxes, very low productivity per person and high land cost make it more expensive to do business in Canada than the USA. BC moreso. Vancouver even moreso. So there is little incentive for many blue-chip international companies to make major inroads up here. Until those aforementioned barriers to business are abated, Vancouver will not attract that many head offices. Thus, no major office towers. Yes occasionally some big company moves a major office here, but it's usually for altruistic or personal reasons (e.g., the head of Concord Pacific is based in Hong Kong and his son & heir had Canadian citizenship, so that was handy). But if it's just purely a business decision, don't hold your breath.
Believe me I'm well aware of Vancouver's shortfalls when it comes to attracting business, hence why I said "wishful thinking". But considering the fact that Microsoft came to the metro, it is clear that there are in fact some benefits to operating in Canada and Metro Vancouver. If Vancouver could get its act together it might be able to actually benefit from these advantages however minimal they may appear.

Land costs may be expensive but by international standards this is not a major issue for Vancouver. Also increased site density can help to ultimately offset such costs, assuming the demand is there to warrant greater density (this could be an issue given current COV policies on site densities). Productivity is also not a major issue on an international level as Canada is one of the most productive countries in the world - more so than most Western European nations. In relation to the US though of course Canada is somewhat at a disadvantage but historic trends are not fixed, the US will not always be as attractive as in the past. With their economy taking a major downturn and Canada's still thriving despite this (who knows for how much longer though), who knows what new trends could potentially develope?

Taxes of course are an issue and hopefully one that will be properly addressed one of these days. During the last tax hike, the City showed some mercy to business and kept their rates steady while residential taxes had to pick up the slack. It was a step in the right direction but clearly more drastic measures need to be taken. A lot of people these days seem to have already taken a defeatist attitude and assume that Vancouver will never be more than a resort city, but with the right policies in place, why couldn't Vancouver have the best of both worlds?

Another factor to take into account is homegrown businesses. Vancouver is one of the best cities in the country when it comes to generating startups. If the Province and City could come up with ways of effectively fostering such companies and allowing them to mature before being bought off by some foreign corporation, we wouldn't be as needy of outside interests setting up shop here. But obviously there is a whole other set of issues with this and it requires much more time to pass before seeing any results.

Anyways, I clearly went off on a tangent here. As you may be able to tell, I'm optimistic that Vancouver will one day be successful in more than just condo sales, but only time will tell.
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  #100  
Old Posted Oct 26, 2007, 7:03 AM
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^ Umm your statements about Canada are a tad off. Primarily corporate taxes in Canada are actually cheaper than in the United States, a common miscomception, as Canada actually has one of the lower corporate tax rates in the world; it is Canada's income taxes which are substantailly higher. Canada along with Australia and The netherlands are usually cited as some of the easiest countries to do business in as their beurocratic efficencies and tax options foster a very business friendly atmosphere.

Also I would disagree with you about the low productivity per person.... I mean really do we consider ourselves lazier than Americans?? Sure Vancouver has an aura of being a lazy hippy stoner city, but thats only becuase there are a large number of people who choose to live that lifestyle. The people who are actually involved in corporate Vancouver are no less motivated than any other across the world.

Unions as well have limited impact on the number of corporations HQ'd in Vancouver as unions are generally shut out of teh corporate world, and are much more of a factor in industrial activites. It could be argued that union presences in Vancouver stifle industrial growth, leading to very little homegrown corporations headquarted in Vancouver, however these industrial companies gerenally have smaller office spaces, as the majority of their business is located elsewhere, and therefore would not have a large impact.

Real estate prices are certainly one of the major factors effecting Vancouver's lack of office space, as is competition from neighbouring Calgary which is a city that is much more desirable to many companies due to it's lower taxes and business friendly attitude. If one beleives Richard Florida than this trend will certainly turn around for Vancouver, but as much as I would like to beleive in the power of the cultural class I just dont see the intensity of change which Florida predicted. Vancouver will no doubt benefit from footloose corporations moving operations to Vanocuver due to its desirability, however I just dont see enough proof that it will happen to any major extent.

Vancouver's only hope in regaining its regional dominance is to continue to decrease corporate taxes and offer other financial incentives for corporations to bring their business to Vancouver. There is little doubt that many companies would like to do more business in Vancouver as it is a desirable city for both upper managment and the rest of teh staff, however for many firms it is just not financially feasable. If Vancouver can make itself an attractive destination for firms financially, not just astheitcally, then I think it will really flourish as a business hub... esepcially with its close ties to Asia.
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