Arbutus: Greenway & Future Streetcar | Proposed

[logicbomb]

The most realistic and easiest solution would have been the City purchasing the corridor at CP's asking price, converting the rail corridor to a multipurpose green-way and selling off plots of land to developers to off-set the cost of land acquisition and rehabilitation/construction costs.

Instead, the corridor is once again reclaimed by nature and property owners who are once again planting their community gardens near 57th Ave.

I think there's a very slim chance of this corridor ever being used for (commuter and industrial) rail transport, so we may as well have a seamless greenway to connect South Van to False Creek and downtown. Maybe even continue the greenway into downtown via a new pedestrian bridge connecting Kitsilano to English Bay.

Just wish the City wasn't so stubborn. They are fighting for developers over the people.

[WarrenC12]

^^^^^ Your idea is a colossal waste of money. Why would the City ever pay that ridiculous asking price. CP's bluff has been called.

What evidence do you have that this corridor won't be used for transportation?

Why is saving taxpayer dollars somehow being on the side of the developers?

Sounds like your hatred for Vision is clouding your reality.

[Migrant_Coconut]

I still fail to understand how CP's asking price is ridiculous. What they'd like is $400M, but they're knocking it down to $100M; still pricey, but as we've seen from other projects, it's well within City Council's budget. Yet Vision's instead rezoned it and said "Well, since running streetcars down it won't get us $100M, how does $20M sound?"

I'd like to try that with a Mercedes dealership - just walk in, find a car, break the windows and engine, then say "Hey, since I'm going to be driving this thing like a used Toyota pickup anyway, the fair price is more like $800. Do we have a deal?"

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

I still fail to understand how CP's asking price is ridiculous. What they'd like is $400M, but they're knocking it down to $100M; still pricey, but as we've seen from other projects, it's well within City Council's budget. Yet Vision's instead rezoned it and said "Well, since running streetcars down it won't get us $100M, how does $20M sound?"

I'd like to try that with a Mercedes dealership - just walk in, find a car, break the windows and engine, then say "Hey, since I'm going to be driving this thing like a used Toyota pickup anyway, the fair price is more like $800. Do we have a deal?"

As has been pointed out in this thread, nobody is going to be using this to run a streetcar or LRT line any time soon. From the City's perspective there is absolutely no motivation to act.

CP is holding this land but it is a non-productive asset, and so would make sense to sell it. They want to maximize the value, so they are free to ask what they want. However they have 1 customer who is in no hurry to do anything.

Your analogy is nonsense. The better analogy is to have a Mercedes salesman following me around trying to sell me a $100k car I don't need, because I'm happy with my 5 year old Toyota.

[logicbomb]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

^^^^^ Your idea is a colossal waste of money. Why would the City ever pay that ridiculous asking price. CP's bluff has been called.

What evidence do you have that this corridor won't be used for transportation?

Why is saving taxpayer dollars somehow being on the side of the developers?

Sounds like your hatred for Vision is clouding your reality.

As someone stated, the asking price is not ridiculous. It's realistic. CP's ability to capitalize off the line has been severely hindered by rezoning policies that have seen all industrial activity cease around this rail corridor. Why should CP sell the entire Arbutus stretch for a measly 20 mil? It's not an issue with Vision, but with previous govts not playing fair.

This corridor would be used for transportation- a fully separated pedestrian/cycling path. Surrounding neighborhoods there will venomously oppose any rail transportation down that corridor, and it would be political suicide to ram any LRT project through.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by csbvan

Vancouver is the third densest large city in English North America. Burnaby's density is 2,463.5/km2 and Vancouver's density is 5,249/km2.

Burnaby has lots of green space left untouched. As they are concentrating on high density nodes, the green lungs of the city, industrial parks and even agricultural lands can always be preserved. This is called sustainable development. When it comes to built-up areas, Burnaby would have a higher density, if not now, soon. A mass transit line mostly only serves the immediate neighbourhoods, which is evident in Burnaby's mass density skytrain nodes. Vancouver's land mass is almost all used up, but mostly by SFH. There is no more agricultural lands, and more residential construction is encroaching the industrial lands. That's the huge difference between the two cities. Vancouver's spread out low-density housing neighbourhoods do not warrant more mass transit lines, especially along Arbutus corridor. Really high density neighbourhoods need to be planned first before any expensive infrastructure is built.

Sometimes, numbers, as in the case provided by yours, do not reflect on reality.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

20 to 40-floor condos in Kerrisdale, aka NIMBY Central... yeah, good luck with that.

There's where the problem lies. If Brentwood, Metrotown, Edmonds, Lougheed Town Centre are populated by such people, these areas would still be like Vancouver's Kingsway today.

[BCPhil]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

I believe you just answered your own question.

Really not sure how CP is the bad guy here. They're just doing what all corporations do: try and get the most money possible ($400M).
Even then, they've agreed to sell at cheaper ($100M).

Exorbitant price? All City Council has to do is cancel one bike lane here, keep one viaduct there, and presto - new transit corridor. Instead, they've lowballed ($20M), tried to get the zoning changed, sued repeatedly, and flat-out refused to negotiate further. That's bad conduct, no matter how you look at it.

Developers are not all over it because they know they can't build on it.

If they thought there was a chance, they too would pressure the city to change the zoning. But they know the city won't change the zoning, especially after winning the supreme court case. And it is not in their interests to damage any relations they have to get their hands on the land.

If the zoning were different, then that land would be worth $400 million.

CP is the bad guy here because they are taking an asset that was given to them, that they used to create an empire and make a fortune, and now using dirty tactics to try and up the value on the real estate.

CP doesn't want to proceed with the salvage value sale because a proper appraisal with the zoning in place would result in a $20 million evaluation ($50M tops). At that price, the city would buy it instantly.

CP is the bad buy because they are using extortion tactics to try and pray on the taxpayer... a taxpayer that was so kind to give them the asset in the first place.

Originally Posted by Kisai

Honestly, the "perfect" solution is to build a Skytrain line down Arbutus (given ridership demand for it,) and build housing around it so the trains exist in something subway-like. This solves several problems:
a) Keeps the ground level space free for bike trails and walking trails like it is under the Expo line.
b) Boxes in the Skytrain to eliminate the visual and noise impact
c) Creates plenty of "cheap" rental housing if appropriately sound insulated.

But what CP most likely wants is to sell the land to Concord Pacific or one of the other Chinese developers who will just build more low-quality "luxury condos" that will end up staying empty.

I don't see a ground LRT/Streetcar being built down the line because it's a slower, noisier option than taking the Canada Line that parallels it. Unless the Canada Line reaches it's absolute maximum capacity and the city of Vancouver loses it's mind, it'll be empty for quite a while.

Modern streetcars are incredibly quiet. When they were running the Olympic line in 2010, you would not believe how quiet it was.

Also, cost is a huge factor. Refurbishing the Olympic line cost $8.5 million for 2km of single track, platfroms, wires, and a siding.

So we could probably refurbish the 11km of Arbutus at $10 million/km (to double track it) before trains. So we are looking at $110 million to get the tracks in there. That wouldn't even buy us 1 km of Canada Line.

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

It is 3 km from the Canada Line. Why waste the money there when there are many, many other transit projects that would benefit the GVA more

In Toronto, St Claire East is 2km away from St Claire station. In the downtown core they are even closer, and York Mills is only 4km form Wilson.

Toronto must be out of their mind! And all their streetcars crossing and paralleling the subways. INSANE in the membrane!

The 016 bus had 7 million boardings in 2014. The 5th busiest bus route in Translink.

To put that in perspective, the 096 and 097 each have less than 3.5 million annual boardings. And look at the upgrades they want/are getting.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

I still fail to understand how CP's asking price is ridiculous. What they'd like is $400M, but they're knocking it down to $100M; still pricey, but as we've seen from other projects, it's well within City Council's budget. Yet Vision's instead rezoned it and said "Well, since running streetcars down it won't get us $100M, how does $20M sound?"

I'd like to try that with a Mercedes dealership - just walk in, find a car, break the windows and engine, then say "Hey, since I'm going to be driving this thing like a used Toyota pickup anyway, the fair price is more like $800. Do we have a deal?"

I think a better analogy was like if I gave a new computer to a struggling Mark Zuckerburg, and he used it to make Facebook. Now he doesn't need the computer anymore (he has thousands of employees and modern servers all over the world), so he asks me if I would like to buy it back, for $100 million.

Now, I think that is more plausible because other people might be interested in the computer because it has an intrinsic value. But the Arbutus Corridor does not. It's only value is what you can use it for. If you can only use it for transit, how much would you buy it for? No one has expressed interest in buying it at $400 million, therefore it is not worth $400 million.

If you had $100 million in cash, would you buy it? It's a steal right? Look at the land around it. But what can you do with it short of starting your own railroad?

Originally Posted by logicbomb

As someone stated, the asking price is not ridiculous. It's realistic. CP's ability to capitalize off the line has been severely hindered by rezoning policies that have seen all industrial activity cease around this rail corridor. Why should CP sell the entire Arbutus stretch for a measly 20 mil? It's not an issue with Vision, but with previous govts not playing fair.

This corridor would be used for transportation- a fully separated pedestrian/cycling path. Surrounding neighborhoods there will venomously oppose any rail transportation down that corridor, and it would be political suicide to ram any LRT project through.

$400 million is ridiculous. If you won the Powerball, would you buy the land? If that interests you, then I'm sure I can find you some land in the ALR to overpay for too.

And how do we know for sure the surrounding neighborhoods are venomously opposed to rail transportation.

They were against the elevated Skytrain Proposal in the 90's. They were against cut and cover RAV proposal in the '00s. Both are radically different from a surface streetcar. But they like transit enough to make the 016 the 5th busiest bus.

[csbvan]

Originally Posted by Vin

Burnaby has lots of green space left untouched. As they are concentrating on high density nodes, the green lungs of the city, industrial parks and even agricultural lands can always be preserved. This is called sustainable development. When it comes to built-up areas, Burnaby would have a higher density, if not now, soon. A mass transit line mostly only serves the immediate neighbourhoods, which is evident in Burnaby's mass density skytrain nodes. Vancouver's land mass is almost all used up, but mostly by SFH. There is no more agricultural lands, and more residential construction is encroaching the industrial lands. That's the huge difference between the two cities. Vancouver's spread out low-density housing neighbourhoods do not warrant more mass transit lines, especially along Arbutus corridor. Really high density neighbourhoods need to be planned first before any expensive infrastructure is built.

Sometimes, numbers, as in the case provided by yours, do not reflect on reality.

Burnaby has mass swaths of spaced out single family homes, you should head out there one day so you actually know what you are talking about. Anyways, many of Vancouver's single family home neighbourhoods are older, street car based neighbourhoods and dominated by small lots, and thus a denser concentration of people compared to the standard suburban housing that is everywhere in Burnaby.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by Vin

Sometimes, numbers, as in the case provided by yours, do not reflect on reality.

Vin I think you're the last person who should be commenting on reality.

Check in on the FSR of developments in Burnaby and Vancouver then report back...

Also, park land? Vancouver's got plenty. Industry? The Port is miiiighty big...

Downtown is substantially denser than any of Burnaby's town centres and larger than all of them put together.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by BCPhil

I think a better analogy was like if I gave a new computer to a struggling Mark Zuckerburg, and he used it to make Facebook. Now he doesn't need the computer anymore (he has thousands of employees and modern servers all over the world), so he asks me if I would like to buy it back, for $100 million.

But I didn't give it to Zuckerberg - I gave it to Facebook. And at last check, corporations do not acknowledge IOUs, even from the Feds.

Now, I think that is more plausible because other people might be interested in the computer because it has an intrinsic value. But the Arbutus Corridor does not. It's only value is what you can use it for. If you can only use it for transit, how much would you buy it for? No one has expressed interest in buying it at $400 million, therefore it is not worth $400 million.

If you had $100 million in cash, would you buy it? It's a steal right? Look at the land around it. But what can you do with it short of starting your own railroad?

And therefore, CP's offer was $100M, since $400M would just be completely ridiculous... yet City Council still thought that was too expensive. If we learned anything from the whole viaduct replacement fustercluck, it's that Vision can find room in the budget for $200M, but okay, whatever.

So from there, they had two options: haggle it down, or just walk away and wait for CP to cave and lower the price. Instead, they rezoned the corridor so CP couldn't sell it to anybody else, decided the new rezoning meant the land was worth next to nothing anyway, and refused to negotiate further.

AFAIK, both sides are in the wrong. They're just poking each other, waiting to see who flinches first, and the city is collateral.

So we could probably refurbish the 11km of Arbutus at $10 million/km (to double track it) before trains. So we are looking at $110 million to get the tracks in there. That wouldn't even buy us 1 km of Canada Line.

I'm with you on that, streetcars would work great there. But I should point out that while construction costs are cheaper than Skytrain, conventional LRT requires a separate rail yard and ops centre, plus driver salaries - operation costs are going to be more expensive.

[squeezied]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Vin I think you're the last person who should be commenting on reality.

I think he refuses to accept that mid-rises in a well laid out neighbourhood can be just as or denser than high-rises in a suburban neighbourhood. Height is all that matters to him it seems.

[logan5]

Originally Posted by MIPS

You are seriously overestimating the demand for rail right now given how we already have very good east/west bus corridoors all the way from 4th to Marine.

I didn't say rail transit. Just build a simple and very cost effective roadway for our existing buses. Because it is segregated from other traffic, you could have a B line that operates at a much higher average speed than you would normally see.

This service would provide a strong catalyst for change along the corridor. People like to live near fast transit, subsequently there would be more incentive for property owners to sell as their properties become more in demand as higher densities would be the expectation.

We're talking about an initial investment of a paltry 100 million dollars to shape smart growth in our city.

[GMasterAres]

You guys arguing that CP rail has once again abandoned the line and Vancouver has called their bluff do realize CP has been blocked in their efforts of restarting the line because of a hearing that was supposed to take place end of this month right?

CP rail can't move forward with anything until that is resolved either between them and Vancouver or the Canadian Transportation agency hears the arguments and decides.

So CP rail hasn't abandoned it once again nor has Vancouver called their bluff because CP rail still has every intention of re-activating the line unless Vancouver changes its tune monetarily. Should probably look up some facts before you spew out nonsense.

[WarrenC12]

Hearing postponed:

https://www.cknw.com/2016/01/28/hear...idor-posponed/

I didn't think this hearing was actually stopping CP from doing any refurbishment on the line. I seem to recall they were continuing to work after the hearing was initially scheduled.

[MIPS]

Originally Posted by logan5

I didn't say rail transit. Just build a simple and very cost effective roadway for our existing buses. Because it is segregated from other traffic, you could have a B line that operates at a much higher average speed than you would normally see.

Again, it's a north-south corridor in a medium density part of the city filled with millionaires and people who generally do not want to see an increase in density. You take any of the east-west buses and you're at a Canada Line station in a couple of minutes. There is absolutely nothing that justifies the conversion of the corridor at this time or in the next few decades into a dedicate bus/rail route, nor is there a problem with it remaining an infrequently active rail line for now, no matter how how much the shortsighted neighbors want to scream about it.

We're talking about an initial investment of a paltry 100 million dollars to shape smart growth in our city.

Robertson can get on his knees and gag on CP's kolbasa after that stupid $20 million offer. City hall can try again in 2030 for all I care because they've blown their chance in front of the press and the general public. CP can continue to mail photocopies of their butts and tubes of lipstick in the meantime because frankly, they have no reason to give in to the city and honestly they can tell the council to take-off.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by MIPS

Robertson can get on his knees and gag on CP's kolbasa after that stupid $20 million offer. City hall can try again in 2030 for all I care because they've blown their chance in front of the press and the general public. CP can continue to mail photocopies of their butts and tubes of lipstick in the meantime because frankly, they have no reason to give in to the city and honestly they can tell the council to take-off.

Not sure why all the vitriol. CP can do the same thing with their offer. As you've mentioned, the line is of no immediate use to anybody (transit or freight rail). So why would the city spend a nickel on it?

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Not sure why all the vitriol. CP can do the same thing with their offer. As you've mentioned, the line is of no immediate use to anybody (transit or freight rail). So why would the city spend a nickel on it?

Exactly. Unless there's some surprise court ruling or CP decides that $20 million in the pocket today is better than some lesser chance of $100 million a few decades from now, the status quo will just continue to keep status quo-ing.

[Jebby]

Originally Posted by MIPS

Again, it's a north-south corridor in a medium density part of the city filled with millionaires and people who generally do not want to see an increase in density.

But that's just not true. There is a lot of densification going on along the route.

Just take a look at Arbutus between Broadway and 16th. You have The Ridge redevelopment just completed and and another building on the corner of 14th and Arbutus. Then take all the mid-rises in the former brewery site.

Further along Arbutus you have the redevelopment of the Safeway site, which will probably add a couple hundred residential units.

Then at Arbutus and 33rd you have a couple hundred condo units.

Then comes Kerrisdale...

[MIPS]

I'm standing by it not being necessary to redevelop or touch it for another 15 years minimum. If you want it, sure but the city has bigger problems and has shown no regard to be serious in buying the line other than to sabotage anything practical that might later require the need for a new north-south connection.

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Hearing postponed:

https://www.cknw.com/2016/01/28/hear...idor-posponed/

I didn't think this hearing was actually stopping CP from doing any refurbishment on the line. I seem to recall they were continuing to work after the hearing was initially scheduled.

That sounds to me like some back-room dealing has been happening, and a deal is close.

Perhaps they (either City or CPR) don't want the CTA to have hearings and make a ruling that monkey-wrenches the back-room deal before its completed.