Transit Fantasies

[GMD]

Originally Posted by fredinno

King George is ~7.9km, 152nd St is ~8.1 km. Plus, 152nd st skips the S. Surrey Park and Ride.

It's a question I've pondered, whether King George or 152 is better. Thanks Fredinno of saving me the time to check the distances.

Agree that King George catches the park and ride, also a station at 148/32 and King George seems better situated than the equivalent station on 152.

The advantage of 152 is that you could have a Panorama station at 152/ highway 10.

I don't have the stats on this, but I'd guess the biggest advantage of King George would be a wider right of way. Plus you'd have greater visibility of the train to drivers.

Overall, I think King George makes more sense, but it is not crazy to consider going down 152.

As an aside, not to declare a war on cars, but if there ever was skytrain down King George to Highway 10, it would be nice to see that overbuilt intersection reconfigured to something a little more urban (i.e. a single intersection).

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by GMD

It's a question I've pondered, whether King George or 152 is better. Thanks Fredinno of saving me the time to check the distances.

Agree that King George catches the park and ride, also a station at 148/32 and King George seems better situated than the equivalent station on 152.

The advantage of 152 is that you could have a Panorama station at 152/ highway 10.

I don't have the stats on this, but I'd guess the biggest advantage of King George would be a wider right of way. Plus you'd have greater visibility of the train to drivers.

Overall, I think King George makes more sense, but it is not crazy to consider going down 152.

As an aside, not to declare a war on cars, but if there ever was skytrain down King George to Highway 10, it would be nice to see that overbuilt intersection reconfigured to something a little more urban (i.e. a single intersection).

You're welcome.

Hwy 10 is a major truck route- the biggest reason why it's not more full is because the SFPR moved traffic away from Hwy 10; the Hwy 10 expansions did not account for the SFPR when they were built.

Don't worry, by the time we move down the priority list to a line in Hwy 10 to downtown Cloverdale, the excess space will already be used up.

[DKaz]

Originally Posted by fredinno

And Willoughby is larger than Walnut Grove both in land area and population size- and a line up 200 St would support North Clayton and possibly Maple Ridge as well, with extensions. All of which are going to get to medium-density in the (relatively) near future.

I always thought an LRT on 200 St from Brookswood to Maple Meadows Station would make sense, although it could do Langley Centre to Walnut Grove to start. I'm not sure where it would go past Maple Meadows, I'm hoping Maple Ridge eventually gets a Skytrain extension.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by DKaz

I always thought an LRT on 200 St from Brookswood to Maple Meadows Station would make sense, although it could do Langley Centre to Walnut Grove to start. I'm not sure where it would go past Maple Meadows, I'm hoping Maple Ridge eventually gets a Skytrain extension.

It doesn't have to, from experience, I know that the general directions for transportation from North Langley are West and South.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by fredinno

It doesn't have to, from experience, I know that the general directions for transportation from North Langley are West and South.

Hence the 501?

[lokyin]

Originally Posted by waves

What does Metro Van look like to you in 2068?

See more details via my map on MapHub (I got frustrated with Google MyMaps). Zoom in, see all the station names, turn lines on/off, download for youself to play with.




See full size imagine here:https://i.imgur.com/z3NapIs.png

I firstly want to say, WOW! Great work on putting all this together!!

A few thoughts:
- Would there be more benefit if the Hastings portion of the blue line be higher priority than 2042? It seems the route is high bus ridership already but also the redevelopment potential and higher density potential along Hastings. The car-abandonment probability is much higher along this route than suburb routes. We can densify much more of Vancouver proper (with the use of transit) spawning from expanding downtown, compared to the far off suburbs
- For the north shore portion of the green line, I wonder if it's more beneficial to funnel it into the Hastings line because so much of the north shore traffic would be headed downtown, and making Hastings/Willingdon an interchange too busy unnecessarily.
- Downtown looks underserved despite some new stations. Perhaps an LRT around false creek from granville island to olympic village up to gastown to waterfront station could be weaved into this plan for relatively cheap.

[fredinno]

Hey, Waves, I noticed something in the transit calculator: Cut-and-cover is cheaper than elevated. Why? Curious.

I know it's based off real data, but it seems strange to me.

[waves]

Originally Posted by lokyin

I firstly want to say, WOW! Great work on putting all this together!!

Thanks for the kind words!

Hastings: It's a good question. It's really hard to say. In a somewhat pessimistic but also a sad reality of building out our skytrain network in very tiny phases. In light of recent news, 2022 SFU Gondola, 2025 Expo to Fleetwood, 2024 Millennium to Arbutus (or maybe to UBC?), 2030 Expo to Langley, 2035 Millennium to UBC, 2040 Lonsdale Line or Hastings Line?

Hastings & Willingdon: This is a big puzzle that I don't really know the best solution. Lots of North Shore transiters go downtown because getting downtown is easy. By contrast, getting from Phibbs to Millennium Line is a very slow windy infrequent bus ride (28 or 130). For example, getting to Metrotown mid-day from Phibbs is actually more reliable and even sometimes faster to take the 210 downtown, then get on the Expo Line. It's stupid slow no matter what way you go. Car, by contrast, takes 20min typically so it's no wonder that with the North Shore's lack of housing that everyone is living in Burnaby and commuting to work in North Van by car. Translink has said that a Phibbs to Metrotown skytrain has been studied as not having enough potential ridership currently but I question how that was determined because if it was based off current ridership I would argue that with the horrendousness for bus-transit in that area, it's no wonder ridership is not growing/is not high to begin with. I would argue that the regional connectivity would be enough to provide that ridership considering it would connect all of the North Shore, Brentwood, BCIT, Metrotown, and by connection Surrey. Also if you are going anywhere west of Cambie on Broadway, it's also faster to go downtown first, but with a line to Brentwood, it'd be faster to go there, then hop on a Millennium Line (which at that point would be extended to Arbutus or UBC). I think I guess I am just seeing a potential for equal ridership in that direction than as Phibbs to downtown. You could try and interline it, but the T-intersection + a station there... idk... it's a challenging thought problem. What are your thoughts?

Downtown: Downtown is actually pretty small in area. Studies have shown that 50% of people within 500m will walk to a metro station. If you look at the image below you can see that with the Hastings Extension and Lions Gate Extension you actually provide really good coverage. I just don't see the usefulness of an LRT from a transportation perspective when you could accomplish the same objectives by using electric trolley buses with some transit only corridors (kind of like all the trolley buses now which use Granville St).

[Alex Mackinnon]

FYI, you're missing Olympic Village Station.

[waves]

Originally Posted by fredinno

Hey, Waves, I noticed something in the transit calculator: Cut-and-cover is cheaper than elevated. Why? Curious.

I know it's based off real data, but it seems strange to me.

We don't really have enough of a sample size to say definitively why, but I can guess.

You'll notice that for ALRT lines, Canada Line is the only line I have which used cut and cover. The others that used cut and cover were LRT and I am suspicious of their costs being higher for LRT with their typically larger train-cars and overhead AC (meaning they have to dig out substantially more than they would have to for third rail Skytrain.

However, even though Canada Line is the only line, I fee inclined to trust it since it's a very recent number, a very local number, and the above grade seems to be more expensive per km than the evergreen line (expected since Skytrain Marks are LIM and much lighter).

For reasons why though my guesses are:

- Cost of concrete is high (lots of concrete needed for above grade)
- Engineering cost is probably about the same
- Construction speed is faster with good soil, takes up less space, and is much easier.
- Stations are cheaper (a building on the ground is cheaper than a building in the air: you just dig a wider hole).
- You end up redoing the road surface in either case (North Road got rebuilt for the above ground Evergreen Line, and No.3 and Cambie for Canada Line)
- Don't need fancy bridge building cranes, equipment and workers.

[waves]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

FYI, you're missing Olympic Village Station.

Good eye - Thanks! Updated below.

[scryer]

Waves, this has to be one of my favourite fantasies (outside of my own lol ).

My only piece of feedback is that the Expo line gets too messy around downtown. I'm going to attempt to clean it up via vague description: The E extension to 23rd from Commercial-Broadway, for me (and all this feedback is purely subjective btw) could be cut since the Burrard line serves as a E-W line AND as a connection to the inner-city. Also because you have the Expo connecting again to the North Shore via Stanley Park, I feel that the Expo extension to 23rd is a little over-kill and probably very difficult to design as it is going up a mountain. I feel like two final destinations in each direction for the Expo line is effective and simple enough to use, also it doesn't over crowd the line with trains going in all kinds of directions. But yeah, thanks for showing the west-end some much needed love!

I haven't really been reading the thread but did you ever consider putting in the Arbutus LRT line into the map? I think that has a realistic chance of happening in the future. And what did you do to our beloved WCE ?

But yeah, bravo!

[Bdawe]

Ya, if I had one critique it would be splitting the Expo Line at Commercial Broadway. Commercial Broadway-Downtown is the busiest segment of the expo line and is likely to always be thus. Splitting at Commercial is essentially short changing the busiest segment for peak capacity.

[waves]

What if you had 1:4 ratio of North Shore : Downtown on the main Expo Line and then 1:1 ratio of Commercial-Broadway:Surrey on the Lonsdale Line?

(Essentially every 5th train north (~10min assuming 2min headways on expo) would go the Quay from Surrey, and every 2nd train south from the Quay would terminate at CB so you have 5min frequency service to CB and 10min to surrey?)

CB now has the third platform which would allow it to have that flexibility for trains to turn back to the North Shore at CB.

It is a good question though if even that sort of interlining would be too much. If we look at the graph below, we can see the modeled on/off with the Langley extension. If you tally up all the alightings up to and including CB that number is 15371. After CB is 15366. 50% of all riders travelling on the Expo Line are not going past CB - So if you were to take 20% of the line and split it to North Van would that cause problems with capacity for downtown? According to these numbers at least, my thoughts are that it wont?



I understand the sentiment about complexity though.

As for whether it goes up to 23rd, there are some tall towers going up all along the Lonsdale corridor (like 20+ stories). As for engineering difficulty, check out my last post on the Lonsdale Line where I drew out a profile showing that it can be done in under the 6% grade: http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...postcount=1491. I agree with you that its not very simple, but I do think it could be achievable.

As for the Arbutus LRT, ehhh I don't really care for it so much just because I think other regional priorities are more important. It's 2.5km away from the Canada Line, heck it's only a 10 min bus ride to the Canada Line.

[officedweller]

Cool map.

I'd take the opportunity to add a station in the West End.
Maybe Robson & Cardero area so it's not too much a a detour (Davie would be too far south)
and still near commercial areas (to avoid NIMBY backlash).
... or 2 stations on Robson @ Jervis and @ Denman.
Those are still close enough to Coal Harbour to serve them (and the affluent / absentee residents there may not use transit anyways)

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by waves

What if you had 1:4 ratio of North Shore : Downtown on the main Expo Line and then 1:1 ratio of Commercial-Broadway:Surrey on the Lonsdale Line?

(Essentially every 5th train north (~10min assuming 2min headways on expo) would go the Quay from Surrey, and every 2nd train south from the Quay would terminate at CB so you have 5min frequency service to CB and 10min to surrey?)

Multiple potential switch failures aside, that reduces the other two Expo branches to three minutes, and the Lonsdale Expo still won't be any more frequent than the SeaBus. Surely there's a way to add a second platform at Burrard and have either First Narrows or Hastings operate as an independent line?

[fredinno]

Yeah I agree with the others, I don't see why Hastings-1st narrows can't just be another line. Waterfront is crowded, but there's still space for 1 more station platform opposite to the Canada Line platform, and potential to disperse crowds by making a direct link to the Canada and Expo by digging under the station (not a guarantee if this is feasible, considering you'd have to be careful not to destabilize the building in the process, making this a slow, and expensive expansion, if possible.

But even then, you could also crowd-control by making a tunnel from Vancouver City Central, and Granville, so that Canada Line transfers would be dispersed across the two stations. Not to mention, the potential for a small mall there.

It's just not efficient to maintain 4 spurs on a metro due to frequency, and less capacity-flexibility.

I also wonder, would it ever make sense to build one in the 2nd and First Narrows? It's not like anyone is planning a 2nd Fraser River Skybridge, despite likely overall greater future usage, and I'm pretty sure the capacity and cost of tunneling the Lonsdale would discourage any new bridges across the Burrard.

The 1st Narrows would be beneficial for mostly downtown and West Vancouver, while the 2nd Narrows is more optimal for east of Lonsdale, and for transfers from East of Lonsdale south of the inlet, to east of Lonsdale, north of inlet.

Of course, there is the benefit of cutting down transfers, but still; I feel that at least one removed wouldn't be a bad idea.

Are you from the North Shore?

Originally Posted by waves

We don't really have enough of a sample size to say definitively why, but I can guess.

You'll notice that for ALRT lines, Canada Line is the only line I have which used cut and cover. The others that used cut and cover were LRT and I am suspicious of their costs being higher for LRT with their typically larger train-cars and overhead AC (meaning they have to dig out substantially more than they would have to for third rail Skytrain.

However, even though Canada Line is the only line, I fee inclined to trust it since it's a very recent number, a very local number, and the above grade seems to be more expensive per km than the evergreen line (expected since Skytrain Marks are LIM and much lighter).

For reasons why though my guesses are:

- Cost of concrete is high (lots of concrete needed for above grade)
- Engineering cost is probably about the same
- Construction speed is faster with good soil, takes up less space, and is much easier.
- Stations are cheaper (a building on the ground is cheaper than a building in the air: you just dig a wider hole).
- You end up redoing the road surface in either case (North Road got rebuilt for the above ground Evergreen Line, and No.3 and Cambie for Canada Line)
- Don't need fancy bridge building cranes, equipment and workers.

Yeah, I'm making cost estimates for my own transit map using the calculator (thanks for it!), and I'm not exactly sure if cut-and-cover is even viable for the future. I'm most using it on less-NIMBY routes like Hastings where above-ground isn't possible.

[waves]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Multiple potential switch failures aside, that reduces the other two Expo branches to three minutes, and the Lonsdale Expo still won't be any more frequent than the SeaBus.

Sorry I think I meant 1:5 ratio not 1:4. Lonsdale Expo could definitely be more frequent than SeaBus - see the scenarios below:


2min Expo Headway with 80% to Downtown
Northbound @ CB platform 2: Headway of 2min: Waterfront, Waterfront, Waterfront, Waterfront, 23rd St North Shore-from Langley, repeat...
Northbound @ 1st: Headway of 5min: 23rd St North Shore (from Langley & CB platform 2), 23rd St North Shore (from CB platform 3), repeat...
Southbound @ LQuay: Headway of 5min: CB, Langley, repeat...

90 Expo Headway with 83% to Downtown
Northbound @ CB: Headway of 90 sec: Waterfront, Waterfront, Waterfront, Waterfront, Waterfront, 23rd St North Shore-from Langley, repeat...
Northbound @ 1st: Headway of 4.5min: 23rd St North Shore (from Langley & CB platform 2), 23rd St North Shore (from CB platform 3), repeat...
Southbound @LQuay: Headway of 4.5min: CB, Langley, repeat...
OR
Northbound @ 1st: Headway of 3min: 23rd St North Shore (from Langley & CB platform 2), 23rd St North Shore (from CB platform 3), 23rd St North Shore (from CB platform 3), repeat...
Southbound @LQuay: Headway of 3min: CB, CB, Langley, repeat...

Surely there's a way to add a second platform at Burrard and have either First Narrows or Hastings operate as an independent line?

Burrard is already one of the busiest stations on the line though. Plus with it's depth and proximity to all the tall towers there isn't a lot of space even to make more room for the station as it is now to be expanded to have even a second entrance.

One alternative is to have a third platform & forth platform at Waterfront, side by side with the Expo and have the Hastings Line continue towards the First Narrows. Or have the First Narrows run down the center of Georgia and have its terminus at the Library with a transfer at Vancouver City Center - just keep the Hastings and Expo one continuous flow (trains run from Langley straight through waterfront all the way to the end of the Hastings Line, then back).

I would disagree that the Waterfront Expo station is crowded - I'd argue it's the least used of the downtown stations and has the best flow with exits on both ends of the platform that are not very long or deep. And you aren't putting nay more trains through Waterfront that would already be on the Expo Line since all the trains would just continue on through Waterfront through onto the Hastings (essentially Waterfront wouldn't be a terminus station on the Expo Line anymore)

Also note that if you have some trains continue from Burrard Station towards the first narrows you end up reducing the number of cars continuing to Waterfront, and therin, the Hastings Line, so you could adjust the frequency of the Hastings Line and the Lions Gate Line without impacting the frequency of the Expo Line.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by waves

Sorry I think I meant 1:5 ratio not 1:4. Lonsdale Expo could definitely be more frequent than SeaBus - see the scenarios below:


2min Expo Headway with 80% to Downtown
Northbound @ CB platform 2: Headway of 2min: Waterfront, Waterfront, Waterfront, Waterfront, 23rd St North Shore-from Langley, repeat...
Northbound @ 1st: Headway of 5min: 23rd St North Shore (from Langley & CB platform 2), 23rd St North Shore (from CB platform 3), repeat...
Southbound @ LQuay: Headway of 5min: CB, Langley, repeat...

90 Expo Headway with 83% to Downtown
Northbound @ CB: Headway of 90 sec: Waterfront, Waterfront, Waterfront, Waterfront, Waterfront, 23rd St North Shore-from Langley, repeat...
Northbound @ 1st: Headway of 4.5min: 23rd St North Shore (from Langley & CB platform 2), 23rd St North Shore (from CB platform 3), repeat...
Southbound @LQuay: Headway of 4.5min: CB, Langley, repeat...
OR
Northbound @ 1st: Headway of 3min: 23rd St North Shore (from Langley & CB platform 2), 23rd St North Shore (from CB platform 3), 23rd St North Shore (from CB platform 3), repeat...
Southbound @LQuay: Headway of 3min: CB, CB, Langley, repeat...

I don't follow. The maximum headway is 75 seconds; a Hastings > Park Royal > Hastings > Park Royal > Lonsdale configuration means a 375 second (6 1/4 minute) cycle where as soon as the northbound Hastings train leaves Commercial, it's 150 seconds (2 1/2 minutes) until the next one, then 225 seconds (3 3/4 minutes), then the cycle resets. That averages out to three minutes per train for both main branches - also, the existing frequency for the Canada Line, which currently resembles a tin of sardines at rush hour.

Six minutes for Lonsdale is technically an improvement over the SeaBus' ten, but why do that when it's possible to separate all of them into individual lines, and get three minutes or less for each?

Originally Posted by waves

One alternative is to have a third platform & forth platform at Waterfront, side by side with the Expo and have the Hastings Line continue towards the First Narrows. Or have the First Narrows run down the center of Georgia and have its terminus at the Library with a transfer at Vancouver City Center - just keep the Hastings and Expo one continuous flow (trains run from Langley straight through waterfront all the way to the end of the Hastings Line, then back).

Either of those sound good too. All I know is that this plan would have the Expo doing too many things at once.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

All I know is that this plan would have the Expo doing too many things at once.

Exactly

Having to transfer between Skytrain lines isn't the kiss of death. Separate lines means a problem on one line doesn't shut down everything.