Surrey Langley Skytrain - Expo Line Extension | Proposed

[BCPhil]

I don't think you can do true signal timing without installing crossing gates like in Calgary and suburban Portland. In Portland, where it is not in a dedicated ROW (like along a freeway) it is pretty speed limited. The train needs to be going slow enough to stop incase a car is stuck in an intersection (because of a short left turn because a train is coming). Outside the downtown core Portland also has many areas where the light rail goes under and over almost every road crossing or the intersections are controlled by gates. Look at the crazy overpasses and interchanges they have in Calgary on roads that aren't even as busy as our cross roads are.

I don't think people really know what is going to be required to make this a fast and reliable LRT system. People here are used to the LRT in the downtown cores of Calgary or Portland where it is cute, and I know no one personally that has ever ridden it in Seattle (and I have friends that live there). You ride these systems out to the burbs and the engineering and segregation is insane. People here have never seen that.

It is all the complexity and the same amount of concrete as Skytrain. They just use the concrete to get the ROADS out of the way of the trains. They transfer the cost of building transit to the cost of building better roads to deal with the traffic caused by level crossings. It is just a shell game to make LRT look cheaper in those cities. Hey look, this LRT cost us just a few hundred million, but please ignore the hundreds of millions we are spending on overpasses and interchanges, they are completely unrelated.

With a ROW down the center of the street the entire way, level crossing every intersection, we are basically going to end up with a Spadina Avenue line. It will be good for capacity, but not any faster than the current bus.

[Kwik-E-Mart]

Originally Posted by BCPhil

With a ROW down the center of the street the entire way, level crossing every intersection, we are basically going to end up with a Spadina Avenue line. It will be good for capacity, but not any faster than the current bus.

Talking about the Spadina streetcar, perhaps people like Daryl can take note of the following picture in blogTO: http://www.blogto.com/upload/2015/04...ge-spadina.jpg

It shows the current state of the track replacement/realignment project on Spadina and College to accommodate the newer, longer Flexity Outlook streetcars by Bombardier.

This is what happens when performing upgrades to existing LRT/streetcar lines, and the disruptions they can cause to existing traffic and nearby businesses. The magnitude of things is similar to building a completely new LRT/streetcar line!

[CBeats]

There was a 2 page article about the Surrey LRT plans today in Metro. More extensive detail than I've seen elsewhere actually. Anyone else see that?

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by CBeats

There was a 2 page article about the Surrey LRT plans today in Metro. More extensive detail than I've seen elsewhere actually. Anyone else see that?

Yeah I saw it, it's the same article Daryl posted a link to last night.

[jsbertram]

Been reading this thread for a few months.

One item that I don't think has been figured out is where will the OMC /train yard be located?

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by jsbertram

Been reading this thread for a few months.

One item that I don't think has been figured out is where will the OMC /train yard be located?

OMC/train yard(s), plural. They've been marketing these as separate lines. While I think it's possible they could have a single OMC, that would still involve having some place for the tracks to meet.

Sound Transit's existing OMC is 162,000sq ft for 104 LRV's (they have 62.) They are looking for a 25 acre parcel so they can have 180 LRV's.

So look at Surrey and ask "Where would Surrey want to have a 25 acre facility to fit all future expansion?"

[xd_1771]

Originally Posted by BCPhil

It is all the complexity and the same amount of concrete as Skytrain. They just use the concrete to get the ROADS out of the way of the trains. They transfer the cost of building transit to the cost of building better roads to deal with the traffic caused by level crossings. It is just a shell game to make LRT look cheaper in those cities. Hey look, this LRT cost us just a few hundred million, but please ignore the hundreds of millions we are spending on overpasses and interchanges, they are completely unrelated.

With a ROW down the center of the street the entire way, level crossing every intersection, we are basically going to end up with a Spadina Avenue line. It will be good for capacity, but not any faster than the current bus.

While Surrey seems dead-on in its intent to run at-grade LRT through some crazily busy intersections like KGB & 88, I wouldn't be surprised if other municipalities or the provincial government mandate overpasses of major roads like Highway 15 (for sure - it may be mandated by the province), as well as 200th St and the Langley Bypass, increasing the capital cost to the point where it's beyond budget and it wouldn't make much sense to build with LRT anymore. I'm pretty sure this was a contributor to the turn-around of the now Millennium Line/Evergreen Line from an at-grade LRT line to SkyTrain in the late '90s.

I mean, the concerns on running at-grade lines through these streets are legitimate. Naturally, the higher accident rates don't just pose a risk in terms of vehicle-train collisions - but of service disruptions in the case of track blockages caused by more frequent vehicle-vehicle collisions (imagine that happening at Fraser & Hwy 15, additionally snarling up traffic on Fraser and causing an extremely lengthy detour for replacement shuttle buses, between the nearest 166 St and 184 St stations).

The Township of Langley has set a foot forward by bringing forward this concern, and I wouldn't be surprised if it had some major effects on the whole plan.

This is what happens when performing upgrades to existing LRT/streetcar lines, and the disruptions they can cause to existing traffic and nearby businesses. The magnitude of things is similar to building a completely new LRT/streetcar line!

I'm pretty well aware that the construction process is going to be the hardest thing Surrey residents will face. As an example, anyone who lives in Guildford will basically lose all quality transit access to the metro for 4 years during construction - the closure of the centre lanes of 104 Ave will need to happen the moment the first shovel hits the ground - and every bus route will be caught in between. People will need to dedicate, what, 30 minutes just to get between the mall and Surrey Central. It'll be a gong-show in trade for zero time savings (proposed LRT travel time is 10 minutes - same as the B-Line, longer than the non-stop 337), and I've been trying to let people know that.

Sound Transit's existing OMC is 162,000sq ft for 104 LRV's (they have 62.) They are looking for a 25 acre parcel so they can have 180 LRV's.

Surrey's looking to initially have 25 or so LRVs in service - but in building the OMC the potential need to double tram lengths or service frequencies needs to be accounted for in the land requirements. A 27-km, 2-line network would need a pretty damn big and pricey OMC.

[Sheba]

What if... (yeah I know, cue dream sequence in three, two, one, go) Surrey rail went underground. I was just looking at a topographical map and they could do the L route as a single line that way. Sure there are dips at Bear Creek Park and south of 56th Ave (which is waaaaay in the future). There's a hill heading from Surrey Central to Guildford, so maybe they could run the trains a little deeper and have an underground OMC over there.

Fraser Hwy also dips east of 164th, right around where the greenspace kicks in. They can't really complain about 'dividing communities' when a lot of it's underground.

[xd_1771]

Originally Posted by Sheba

Fraser Hwy also dips east of 164th, right around where the greenspace kicks in. They can't really complain about 'dividing communities' when a lot of it's underground.

Well, the thing is, they really shouldn't have brought up the idea of SkyTrain dividing communities at all. At the end of the day all this seems to have done is fueled the opposition - because few LRT supporters are actually citing this. It makes no sense to begin with - less so because with everything being at the centre of the road, you're not really cutting anything more-so in half than it already is.

Here in Japan, grade-separating rapid transit rail lines is seen as a liberating thing that brings communities back together - whereas at-grade rail lines are seen to split them apart. Many suburban rapid transit rail lines, originally built throughout the first half of the 20th Century, are still on at-grade alignments with level rail crossings (so comparable to, say, the Calgary LRT). But many of these lines have been moved in recent years to elevated or underground alignments - and grade-separation is pretty much the standard for any new railways in urban areas. Browse through the rail transit threads on Skyscrapercity and you'll see a lot of what I mean. I've seen this myself - the famed Hankyu Line between Kyoto and Osaka is investing in grade-separation throughout the route; you can see the new guideways under construction.

The at-grade right-of-ways do a lot to split communities - because the Japanese tend to prioritize speed and quality service, to maximize the usefulness of the rail line. So these rail lines need to be designed to cater to express skip-stop 6-10 car trains passing through stations and level crossings at 110-120km/h. Running at-grade these days becomes a limit to capacity, since you can't run trains so frequently that people can't cross the tracks anymore. Without the limits placed by at-grade crossings, you can have a lot more (grade-separated) "crossings" of the railway and that really brings communities back together. Communities have celebrated the removal of at-grade crossings in favour of elevated or subway alignments - see here:

Like a Fish in Water - Train Culture: Sayonara Fumikiri (Translated: Literally, "good-bye railway crossing". I've visited this neighbourhood by the way, including where the at-grade right-of-way used to be - could post pics)

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

Well, the thing is, they really shouldn't have brought up the idea of SkyTrain dividing communities at all. At the end of the day all this seems to have done is fueled the opposition - because few LRT supporters are actually citing this. It makes no sense to begin with - less so because with everything being at the centre of the road, you're not really cutting anything more-so in half than it already is.

Oh I know - I think that LRT down the middle of the street is more dividing than probably every real world alternative. I would love to see any other lines in Surrey be underground, with the Fraser Hwy run to continue above ground.

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by Kwik-E-Mart

Talking about the Spadina streetcar, perhaps people like Daryl can take note of the following picture in blogTO: http://www.blogto.com/upload/2015/04...ge-spadina.jpg

It shows the current state of the track replacement/realignment project on Spadina and College to accommodate the newer, longer Flexity Outlook streetcars by Bombardier.

This is what happens when performing upgrades to existing LRT/streetcar lines, and the disruptions they can cause to existing traffic and nearby businesses. The magnitude of things is similar to building a completely new LRT/streetcar line!

However, when building entirely new rail lines on a street, the underground infrastructure has to be relocated outside of the rails ROW. You don't want a manhole entrance to the sewers or telephone conduits to be between the rails.

Presumably this was already done when the original rails were put in, so this section only needed to have the new Grand Union installed.

But I just remembered an exception to the exception: the St. Clair street rebuilding in Toronto. Since the street was going to be stripped down to replace the old tracks with entirely new tracks, the other city departments decided this was the right time to fix their infrastucture too.
As did the other companies with utilities under St. Clair street.
With the added lawsuits from the local businesses, this street rebuild took over 5 years to complete.

[BCPhil]

What's really crazy is they just finished widening the Fraser Highway THIS YEAR. It is now 4 lanes from 148 St to Langley City. It seems insane to do all that work just to rip it up to put in a wider median for light rail when large section of the road have reserved green space on the North side of the Fraser Highway. You could easily put in Skytrain on the North shoulder of Fraser with little to no disruption to the road itself. Putting in light rail will mean ripping up the entire road all over again.

[Sheba]

Seemingly my favourite saying 'logic has no place in a good argument' fits in perfectly here

[logicbomb]

Originally Posted by BCPhil

What's really crazy is they just finished widening the Fraser Highway THIS YEAR. It is now 4 lanes from 148 St to Langley City. It seems insane to do all that work just to rip it up to put in a wider median for light rail when large section of the road have reserved green space on the North side of the Fraser Highway. You could easily put in Skytrain on the North shoulder of Fraser with little to no disruption to the road itself. Putting in light rail will mean ripping up the entire road all over again.

Well yeah, but I keep saying this...LRT construction on Fraser Highway may not commence for another decade (if it ever does). The widening was definitely required asap to ease congestion along that part of Fraser Highway.

[scryer]

I personally think that LRT in Surrey will definitely shoot the city in the foot, in terms of the city's potential to develop as a key urban centre in Metro Vancouver.

LRT is not rapid transit unless it is completely grade-separated.

[logicbomb]

Perhaps a sign that the LRT plan is dead right now. Saw a few plans for 104th; these include a widened pedestrian sidewalk and the addition of right turn lanes in Whalley. No plans to construct a ROW for the future LRT route.

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by BCPhil

What's really crazy is they just finished widening the Fraser Highway THIS YEAR. It is now 4 lanes from 148 St to Langley City. It seems insane to do all that work just to rip it up to put in a wider median for light rail when large section of the road have reserved green space on the North side of the Fraser Highway. You could easily put in Skytrain on the North shoulder of Fraser with little to no disruption to the road itself. Putting in light rail will mean ripping up the entire road all over again.

It isn't finished actually. They haven't widened one of the busiest stretches, the stretch through Green Timbers between Whalley Boulevard and 148th. So 7 years later and still not done.

[memememe76]

Oh, I didn't know about that. There seems to be no indication just by driving down that stretch that there is even any intention to do any type of work whatsoever. That would certainly involve a lot of chopped trees.

[paulsparrow]

Originally Posted by logicbomb

Well yeah, but I keep saying this...LRT construction on Fraser Highway may not commence for another decade (if it ever does). The widening was definitely required asap to ease congestion along that part of Fraser Highway.

As well they need to widen other streets around the proposed lines. For instance 104 is going from 4 lanes to 2 so they plan on widening near by roads, probably 100 and 108.

At the speed Surrey moves your looking at 10-20 year completion date.

[logicbomb]

Originally Posted by paulsparrow

As well they need to widen other streets around the proposed lines. For instance 104 is going from 4 lanes to 2 so they plan on widening near by roads, probably 100 and 108.

At the speed Surrey moves your looking at 10-20 year completion date.

108th Ave cannot be widened any further from it's 4 lane configuration.

• There are plans to widen and rename 100th Ave between Whalley Blvd and 148th Ave. This would be the primary E-W corridor.
  
• Two new local arterial roads. 102nd Ave would span from University Blvd to 144th St. 105th Ave would stretch from 154th St and terminate into an intersection at 142nd St @ 104th Ave.
  
• 140th, 148th, 156th and 160th St will be widened to 4 lanes to improve N-S flow.

How much property acquisition will this require? A hell of a lot more than simply widening 104th Ave.

And guys,this is just the Guildford portion. You know that portion that would run through Fleetwood? Yeah.....