Transit Fantasies

[Canadian Mind]

I've talked about this before, but...

Have a line that runs down Hastings from Waterfront to Willingdon, then down through BCIT to Metrotown, then west through Vancouver until Granville street (or a point further west), then run the line North, under False Creek, through the West End and Coal Harbour, and link up at Waterfront again.

The thing can be built in phases over time, first a Hastings extension of Expo (to China town or even further to Strathcona), then elevated through East Van to Brentwood/BCIT, then to Metrotown. By the time you are extending it to Metrotown, punch a "tail" northwest out of Waterfront through Coal Harbour, the West End, then to an unspecified Broadway Extension" station. From here, you can make the route it's own separate line, with Expo interlining to Brentwood to help with crowding along Hastings*. Last leg would be to connect the the northwestern terminus at an as of yet unspecified Broadway station, and the southeastern terminus at Metrotown, and bring them together via some various route to complete the loop. While some people find loops useless, it will add redundancy to the system in that even if one section of the line fails, all trains can invariably get from point A to point B. Also, the southern rim of the loop that will invariably connect Metrotown to Canada Line will allow for a quicker trip to the airport and Richmond for those coming from Langley/Surrey & Burnaby/New West/Tri-Cities than the current routing would, or even with the Broadway Extension to Canada Line. Hell, it may even be within the realm of possibility to have an arm or two branch off from the line to go through Richmond if and when the Canada Line reaches capacity.


*This would also serve to take pressure off the Expo Line between Commercial/Main and Waterfront by taking Millennium/Evergreen Line passengers from east of Brentwood and having them transfer onto a different, probably quicker link to Downtown. Not all of the pressure, but enough that the balance of passengers on the two lines means neither is ever over-capacity.

[cornholio]

Originally Posted by Zassk

It would be cheaper to move the whole BCIT campus to an existing transit line (e.g. False Creek Flats) than to build a new transit line to the existing BCIT campus...

BCIT is in a great location next to the highway, near enough to rapid transit and in a well developed area, it doest get much better for a school.

What BCIT should be doing is making better use of their land and developing some of it, specifically the southern half of the campus. I think this will happen in the future and any type of rapid transit improvements down Willingdon could spur this, there is huge potential along that corridor. Not to mention the former YDC land thats on the west side of Willigdon across from BCIT that will certainly be redeveloped in the not to distant future.

The BCIT area is going to grow in the future and densify significantly.

Also is Burnaby not buying up property along Willingdon to make it in to a 3 lane road with one lane designated as a Bus lane?

[Zassk]

Originally Posted by cornholio

BCIT is in a great location next to the highway, near enough to rapid transit and in a well developed area, it doest get much better for a school.

What BCIT should be doing is making better use of their land and developing some of it, specifically the southern half of the campus. I think this will happen in the future and any type of rapid transit improvements down Willingdon could spur this, there is huge potential along that corridor. Not to mention the former YDC land thats on the west side of Willigdon across from BCIT that will certainly be redeveloped in the not to distant future.

The BCIT area is going to grow in the future and densify significantly.

Also is Burnaby not buying up property along Willingdon to make it in to a 3 lane road with one lane designated as a Bus lane?

I'm not a Burnaby resident nor a BCIT alumnus, so perhaps I am unaware of some inherent value in its current location, but do you disagree with my statement? Could we not build a new campus in a more accessible location (even within Burnaby) for $1 billion? The existing campus would be worth a significant amount of money if redeveloped for other purposes, which would offset some or all of the costs. A Willingdon line would surely cost more than $1 billion, given the terrain involved, and it seems to me that there is no other business case for building such a line, other than the BCIT campus itself.

[incognism]

Originally Posted by Zassk

I'm not a Burnaby resident nor a BCIT alumnus, so perhaps I am unaware of some inherent value in its current location, but do you disagree with my statement? Could we not build a new campus in a more accessible location (even within Burnaby) for $1 billion? The existing campus would be worth a significant amount of money if redeveloped for other purposes, which would offset some or all of the costs. A Willingdon line would surely cost more than $1 billion, given the terrain involved, and it seems to me that there is no other business case for building such a line, other than the BCIT campus itself.

Connecting two town centres in Brentwood and Metrotown would be one. Also the line would extend down Hastings towards downtown, which is a busy corridor and only should grow further.

That being said, I think any sort of light rail down Willingdon is decades away. BRT would be the first step.

[cornholio]

Originally Posted by Zassk

I'm not a Burnaby resident nor a BCIT alumnus, so perhaps I am unaware of some inherent value in its current location, but do you disagree with my statement? Could we not build a new campus in a more accessible location (even within Burnaby) for $1 billion? The existing campus would be worth a significant amount of money if redeveloped for other purposes, which would offset some or all of the costs. A Willingdon line would surely cost more than $1 billion, given the terrain involved, and it seems to me that there is no other business case for building such a line, other than the BCIT campus itself.

I understand what you are saying but I honestly think that the location is fantastic. Imo the best location for such a school in Metro Vancouver, its incredibly central and the fact its next to the main and only highway cant be downplayed. There is nothing stopping the campus from redeveloping some of their lands and using the funds for improving and increasing the size of their campus and building more branch campus in the Metro area. The southern half of the campus is empty and in a great location, near Metrotown and Brentwood, some sort of future rapid transit, even if its just a B-Line along Willingdon, next to the highway and next to some of the better parks on the Burrard peninsula.

I would like the campus to stay where it is and to start building up, everything south of Fairey st can be redeveloped and a new mini town center can form. http://maps.google.ca/maps?q=bcit+bu...umbia&t=h&z=16. The land that BCIT would be left with would be plenty to work with to double or quadruple the size of the campus if they would want and the funds from redevelopment could bring in a few hundred million dollars or more, maybe a billion plus, its a huge chunk of prime real estate that shouldent have a problem being zoned high density as there are no residential areas around that it would impact.

[trofirhen]

... diagrams would do well here again, provided anyone is interested enough to make them as was done in a flurry a year or more back, with some great designs.

[DKaz]

As a BCIT alumni, I think frequent B-Line service would do just fine.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by WBC

How about a gondola system similar to what was proposed for SFU? Connecting Brentwood, BCIT and Metrotown. With all those elevation changes and limited space that could be a nice fit...

Although I always pictured this segment (Metrotown to Brentwood) being a part of much larger circular line that would connect to Hastings, Downtown, Kits, down Arbutus and than back east on 41st or 49th back to Metrotown.

Like this http://tinyurl.com/6twudoe

budget neutral

Originally Posted by logan5

If it was not for the VGH complex, Skytrain may have been better off going down Main ST. where there is probably more of a transit demographic, and in the East Side in general. Eventually I`d like to see a line down Arbutus tying in to Downtown and an extension of the Expo Line going up Main St., then heading east on Kingsway, then south on Victoria Dr. to Marine. This would put most people in the CoV within, at most, 2 km away from a train station.

We could make light rail and recounstruct the Kitsilano Trestle for transit.

If we ever get Paris like densities along Main St. then we could get our own line.

In the future it would be nice..

Originally Posted by Zassk

It would be cheaper to move the whole BCIT campus to an existing transit line (e.g. False Creek Flats) than to build a new transit line to the existing BCIT campus...

????

[officedweller]

If the SFU Town Centre plan had been followed through, Production Way would have intersected with Gaglardi Way and there wouldn't be a probem with a gondola going over hourse - the RoW would have been over teh street!

Originally Posted by David

Lougheed Town Centre page is up, and unsurprisingly there is a lot of very interesting information I never knew before. In particular is the initial plan for SFU which called for a "1,619 hectare master planned community encompassing most of the northeast sector of the municipality, relating to the new Simon Fraser University". Would have made for a very different region if this had come through.


http://davidpereira.ca/projects/burn...ed-town-centre

[fredinno]

^It would be to steep of a grade for that.

[nname]

There's more school than residential areas???

[whiteshadow]

Also looks like Gaglardi Way was supposed to be a freeway up to SFU with all those interchanges. That would have been nice.

[Jebby]

Originally Posted by fredinno

^It would be to steep of a grade for that.

Too steep of a grade for a gondola?

[BryanMc]

...if we could find a way for drivers to pay by distance and parking wasnt free anywhere we could change the way people think about mobility.[/QUOTE]

the gas tax charges people for not just the distance they travel based on the consumption of fuel but the amount of time they sit idling in traffic, gas hogs pay more. One alternative is to issue new licence plates with embedded RFID tags that can be scanned as a vehicle travels any piece of roadway and a toll for distance could be charged, the gas tax is far more efficient for this purpose but the RFID tags could turn EVERY BRIDGE into a toll bridge and charge people throughout the Lower Mainland a minimal charge (let's say $0.10) everytime they cross a bridge (that's right any bridge; Burrard/Cambie/Lions Gate etc.) with let's say 2-3 million crossings a day the money would pile up pretty quickly and people would start to look for ways (and demand them) to get out of their cars for longer commutes. The biggest traffic snarls throughout the region are related to bridges and these are ideal points to install passive toll systems like this. By tolling every bridge all Lower Mainland residents who use their cars to travel help pay for the building of new infrastructure and they will develop a bias towards mass transit and away from cars. Special RFID's could be issued to exempt or special rate vehicles such as vanpools, transit buses etc. and differential rates could be set for peak and off peak hours. While things like out of Province vehicles wouldn't pay the bridge tolls they are included in the gas tax. Additionally, people who make a habit of going across the line to buy gas could be tolled using the same system; elapsed time less than 3 hours leaving and returning alerts the border that the vehicle is probably avoiding the gas tax and should be pulled over for an inspection - I'm sure that one will go over like the proverbial lead balloon.

[cornholio]

Originally Posted by BryanMc

...if we could find a way for drivers to pay by distance and parking wasnt free anywhere we could change the way people think about mobility.

the gas tax charges people for not just the distance they travel based on the consumption of fuel but the amount of time they sit idling in traffic, gas hogs pay more. One alternative is to issue new licence plates with embedded RFID tags that can be scanned as a vehicle travels any piece of roadway and a toll for distance could be charged, the gas tax is far more efficient for this purpose but the RFID tags could turn EVERY BRIDGE into a toll bridge and charge people throughout the Lower Mainland a minimal charge (let's say $0.10) everytime they cross a bridge (that's right any bridge; Burrard/Cambie/Lions Gate etc.) with let's say 2-3 million crossings a day the money would pile up pretty quickly and people would start to look for ways (and demand them) to get out of their cars for longer commutes. The biggest traffic snarls throughout the region are related to bridges and these are ideal points to install passive toll systems like this. By tolling every bridge all Lower Mainland residents who use their cars to travel help pay for the building of new infrastructure and they will develop a bias towards mass transit and away from cars. Special RFID's could be issued to exempt or special rate vehicles such as vanpools, transit buses etc. and differential rates could be set for peak and off peak hours. While things like out of Province vehicles wouldn't pay the bridge tolls they are included in the gas tax. Additionally, people who make a habit of going across the line to buy gas could be tolled using the same system; elapsed time less than 3 hours leaving and returning alerts the border that the vehicle is probably avoiding the gas tax and should be pulled over for an inspection - I'm sure that one will go over like the proverbial lead balloon.

I might personally disagree on most of these initiatives you propose but you do make I suppose valid points.

My biggest problem is that you cannot get money out of thin air. By increased costs to drivers you take money out of 90% of the working populations pockets and thus reduce other government revenue sources through other taxes. BUT more importantly driving is efficient and overall the mobility it brings is good for the economy, by artificially increasing the costs and changing behaviors you are losing many of the advantages. I dont see how this can be positive for the economy and overall government revenues as a result.

Obviously we need taxation, including gas taxes and some tolls to shape behavior to achieve other long term goals and such, BUT it has to be within reason. Simply saying lets go toll all the bridges and double the cost of driving is a recipe for disaster.

Personally I am all for gas taxes to increase gradually over the years, so long as other tax sources such as income taxes and I hate to say it corporate taxes get lowered in return, thus driving is no less affordable for the average person but the savings in changing their driving behavior are higher. The revenue should then be used for road and transit infrastructure., only problem is that if you rely to heavily on only one tax source you open your self up to fluctuations in the year over year revenue you get from it which makes it hard to plan long term.

/rant

[DKaz]

If revenue from gas taxes decrease due to an increase in transit ridership especially on underutilized routes, you are increasing farebox recovery and reducing subsidy requirements. That's the win win part of the gas tax equation.

If revenue from gas taxes decrease due to a crappy economy where you have less drivers on the road AND less passengers on transit, then you've got a problem.

[BryanMc]

Flat tolls on all bridges increase everyones cost and make rerouting to avoid tolls on one route less desirable. At the moment the Port Mann proposal without tolling the viable alternatives (Pattullo and Alex Fraser) will result in tons of rerouting and the same kind of revenue shortfalls being experienced on Golden Ears because people don't want to pay to save time and gas and continue to drive around and use the Port Mann. While .10 per trip may be too small it only amounts to $1.00/week per commuter who uses a single occupant car . A fee of .25 is far more reasonable and based on 1.5 bridge crossings per day throughout the Lower Mainland would genertate about $98million a year on workdays only. The Port Mann bridge project needs to generate $175-$200M per year to become viable. To achieve this a daily commuter is expected to pay $6 to get to and from work. If spread out over all estimated 1.5m total bridge crossings per work day this would be .44 per crossing. The argument that provicial income taxes should be lowered ignores the fact that they are already the lowest in the country and by and large the reductions have been paid for with increased user fees. A per crossing toll on all bridges across the Lower Mainland (why stop there by the way) is just another user fee and all things considered user fees are far more equitable than taxes on income. The income tax policy should be and is geared towards progressively taxing higher earners but even that has its limits as Great Britain learned a few decades ago (Remember the Beatles tune Taxman?).

[BryanMc]

BUT more importantly driving is efficient

Sorry, I missed this point: Driving is not efficient the way we do it now -3/4 Tonne auto to move 90 kilos of mass is not efficient and never will be if using ICE or even all electric vehicles. Hybrids make a difference but are still not as efficient as mass transit. The problem is building mass transit that is efficient for more people which is hard to do if people insist on living 20/30/40/50 or more kms away from where they work. Of course that opens an entirely different can of worms...

[Vonny]

Note sure this topic belongs to his thread, nevertheless:

Originally Posted by cornholio

My biggest problem is that you cannot get money out of thin air.

Time is money, and congestion costs time -> that is the main rational for all the roadwork you see around, gateway, SFPR,... and they cost your taxpayer an arm and a leg!

By increased costs to drivers you take money out of 90% of the working populations pockets and thus reduce other government revenue sources through other taxes.

Increasing driving cost as suggested, is mostly "internalizing cost", what the driver is paying for, is not paid by the government, so you don't have to worry too much about lower tax revenue

BUT more importantly driving is efficient and overall the mobility it brings is good for the economy,

That is a blanket statement which is untrue...mobility is good for the economy, right, but "driving" is not always the most efficient way to get it.

Let's people pay the true cost of their mobility choice is the best way to sort out what is the most efficient way ... I would suggest that the contractor crossing Port Mann bridge at 5am toward his construction site, is not imposing the "externality" as the bank-cashier crossing at 8am...

but You would like read http://voony.wordpress.com/2011/08/1...for-vancouver/ ...
and you will see it is the best deal for the taxpayer and economy

[WarrenC12]

Somewhat related: the new meters in Vancouver will be used to adjust parking rates based on demand. This is a great idea, but met with the usual mouth-breathing outrage in the comments:

http://www.news1130.com/news/local/a...-change-weekly