Originally Posted by Jared
Finally got a chance to read the report.
- Portland's streetcar is basically a trolley bus on rails; it runs in mixed traffic and stops every couple of blocks. The report suggests you could speed it up by adding a bunch of improvements, but those would be expensive, and suddenly the amount of tram you can buy for $2.8 billion is a lot smaller. But a smaller number isnt quite as dramatic, is it?
- The $2.8 billion figure is (apparently) supposed to be a final-cost figure (i.e. construction costs in 2020 dollars). I have no idea what year they got their Portland costs from (they dont make it clear), but I doubt they assumed another 12 years of construction inflation. Hence, the amount of tram you could built would likely be lower.
- The report automaticaly assumes the tram caused the massive redevelopment of downtown Portland; it it not safe to assume this would not have happened without it. If vancouver built a streetcar along Pacific Blvd in the early 90's, people would claim the streetcar caused Concord Pacific/North False Creek. And yet we know that's false, because all that development happened even without the streetcar. I'm not saying the tram didnt help, I am simply saying the report does not sufficiently analyse the three different possibilities (causation, correlation and co-incidence). Also, there is absolutely no analysis of redevelopment due to SkyTrain, which has shown itself to have, at the very least, a strong correlation to real-estate development. In fact, it would do even better if it wasn't prevented via zoning restrictions (*cough* Broadway, Namaimo, 29th Ave *cough*).
- The study's spending breakdowns for all those European bunch of cities are flawed, since it doesnt examine in which context these different technologies are chosen (i.e. why is there mixed spending and how is technology assigned to different routes). If anything the mixed spending speaks to the sensibility of using the correct technology where appropriate, something I'm sure most of us advocate. Ironically, Paris's Metro system, due to its close station spacing, is too slow to be useful over city wide distances, so they built the RER to cover these long distances. Likewise, use SkyTrain for regional stuff, and trams for localer (i know thats not a word!) stuff. Of course, you have to shrink everything from the Paris context to the Vancouver context, since we're much smaller, but the principle stands. Using Strasbourg as an example is stupid, due to the geographical proximity afforded by being a city of only 250,000, everything is closeby, even if its on the other side of town. A tram system (by itself) would not work in a much larger city, like Vancouver.
- As some others mentioned, building rails along Broadway is more expensive that normal, due to the massive amount of utilities along Broadway.
- They completely ignore all issues surrounding capacity on Broadway. The 1999 report by the CoV predicted, iirc, 120,000 to 150,000 riders/day. It should be noted:
a) report assumed a transfer to Rapidbus at Arbutus
b) numbers were pre-Upass
c) natural population growth has occured since the report
d) people are flocking to transit in droves, for both financial and environmental reason
e) a more built out system by the time the line reaches UBC (canada line, evergreen line already done) makes transit that much more attractive.
- Worst of all is the assumption that speed isnt important, and its station spacing which matters. There's a reason why the 99 B-line is chock-a-block, but the 9, WHICH FOLLOWS THE EXACT SAME ROUTE, doesnt have massive lineups. People want to get where they are going, and they want to get there FAST. Getting to the 99 is a much longer walk for me than the 9, but I still take it. Why...oh right, i save a hell of a lot of time, despite the longer walk. Portlands streetcar averages 16km/h. At 12km to UBC, this would be a 45minute ride, compared to the 40 minute B-Line.
- The map may make a sexy case for trams, but it doesnt in any manner differentiate between the quality of the two systems in the map.
- The notion that the SkyTrain will only serve Westsiders (cant remember if this was in the study or in the article) is silly. The extention is GEOGRAPHICALLY LOCATED in the Westside (which appently extends as far as Clark Dr. now, but whatever...), but it is really where the ridership is coming from that matters. People all over the lower mainland go to the Broadway corridor and UBC, and hence they will all benefit. The report suggests that it would be nice to be able to use the system to get around you own neighborhood (isnt that what buses are for?), but it ingnores the fundamental fact that lots of people need to commute cross-regionally. Last time i checked, not every neighborhood has a University. Actually, come to think of it, the study seems to have a strange notion that more kms of track is automatically better, when in fact it is the ability to attract (current and future) riders that matters.
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All that being said, I dont want to make it sound like I think tram/streetcar/LRT suck. They dont, infact im strongly in favour of building a bunch of them, but buildign them where they are appropriate. Broadway is not such a place.
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