Passenger rail a long way off
Chilliwack Mayor Clint Hames responding to an FVRD report
as the report says, we don’t have anywhere near the commuting population to support a system like this at this time
So both the FVRD and Clint have been sucked in by Falcon’s folly. The technique of repeating something untrue often enough so that it becomes accepted.
“A system like this” is also not what anyone was actually suggesting, right off the bat. And all you need to make a dmu on existing tracks worthwhile is enough people to fill the cars every so often. And all over the world people having been happily ripping up railway tracks, and then wondering why the roads are so congested. If you continue to do what you have always done, you cannot expect a different outcome. And that is what Mayor Hames and Kevin Falcon are worried about. Because they are heavily invested in business as usual. And the idea of Rail for the Valley is – why don’t we try something different for a change? Just like the people in Victoria who said why can’t we time the train on the E&N to bring people to work in the morning and take them home again in the late afternoon? Not exactly earth shatteringly different, you might have thought. Not really risky in any sense. But it was never even attempted.
Perhaps like Mrs Thatcher something nasty happened to them on a train once. She never rode on a train once all the time she was PM. I am sure she hates the fact that rail passenger ridership is up in Britain and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (something she fiercely opposed) is now doing so well.
Rail for the Valley is not a panacea – but it really would not hurt to try would it? A demonstration project using hired rolling stock with minimal station facilities – a portacabin and a bit of hard standing for the platforms. And just on the bits not needed to run coal and container trains.
Of course there is one major risk that we must not ignore. The Mayor and the Minister might have to admit they were wrong. The planners at the FVRD won’t have to worry about that.
I always find it silly that Falcon, TransLink, and now the FVRD claim that “there isn’t the population or density for light rail (LRT) or ‘rail’ transit”, yet they never say what population or density is needed. It’s all a great con job by the roads lobby and the anti rail lobby that there isn’t the density for light rail.
From studies I have seen, LRT operates quite happily in areas where density is 2,000 persons per square km or more; light railways (many European light railways use light rail vehicles) can operate in areas with much less population. The German city of Ulm, population 120,000 has 1 tram line and is busy building a second one. Karlsruhe, Germany, operates some of its 410 zwei system LRT in sparsely populated areas and national forest (schwarzwald).
The key for ridership is not one of density, but one of convenience; does the ‘rail’ service satisfy my transit needs? If the answer is yes, the transit service will succeed.
The lower mainland has a greater per km. population than Belgium, yet Belgium operates 3,500 km. of passenger rail, one metro, and 6 light rail lines. It seems that the authors of the FVRD report did not do much research and resigned themselves to the Campbell government’s rubber on asphalt auto utopia.
Here is a question to the density types, if there isn’t the density for LRT, how can there be the density for a SkyTrain metro system?
D. Malcolm Johnston
March 27, 2008 at 7:48 pm
D, you finished that off with a good point. Maybe they’re waiting for the population to “catch up” by the time they build it… oh wait, they NEVER build anything until after it’s desperately needed.
The young man I sat down next to on the bus happened to notice my two Rail for the Valley pins. He told me the Gov’t uses construction workers’ pension funds to build the SkyTrain (e.g. cement workers) and there’d be problems if they didn’t employ all those cement workers. (Or do favours for their real estate developer buddies as I mentioned.) In all probability they might be doing research but trying to discard the results in favour of their conflicts of interests. Maybe they need to establish some new relationships!
Lately I’ve been following the train tracks whenever I can when I’m on the SkyTrain. Some stop and go… disappear… come back or are overgrown… kind of mysterious really.
Between my parents and I, we’ve been on trains and LRT in Munich, Rostock-Warnemunde, Jyvaskyla-Helsinki, Prague, and Paris-Nice. I did all but Prague… and yet I’ve only been on a train in Canada once: West Vancouver to Squamish about 14 years ago (I’m 22). Doesn’t that suggest something?
Erika Rathje
March 28, 2008 at 12:19 am
Its odd, I heard that cement argument a while ago. The allegation was made that the cement works increased its capacity before the decision on SkyTrain was made. Of course the idea that that might be coincidence was not considered.
Stephen Rees
March 28, 2008 at 8:02 am
I don’t know about the cement worker’s pension funds going to build SkyTrain (RAV’s P-3 is funded, not by the banks, but by the BC public sector pension plan. The late Des Turner calculated the tonnage of concrete used on SkyTrain and it was astounding. There is about 3 times more concrete under ground than above ground!
Malcolm J.
March 28, 2008 at 1:24 pm
As reported on Co-op Radio in Vancouver, Wake Up with Co-op…
The $600 million RAV Line private investment consortium is made up of three partners. Each partner contributed $200 million. Without these funds the RAV Line would never have got off the ground, so to speak (of course in Vancouver it never would have got below the ground).
SNC Lavalin will not only receive returns on its capital investment but will receive a return for building the Line. It was reported however that due to construction cost increases, SNC Lavalin had to contribute a further $100 million making the total private contribution to the capital cost of the Line to $700 million.
The other two partners in the mix are:
BC Investment Management Corporation, this corp is responsible for investing the pension funds of BC’s public sector employees.
Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, they manage the funds for Quebec public sector employees.
Caisse de depot is also the owner of Ivanhoe Cambridge, its principal real estate subsiduary.
Ivanhoe Cambridge just so happens to own Oakridge Shopping Centre at the corner of 41st and Cambie, where one of the major RAV Line stations is being built and also owns Richmond Centre Shopping Mall which will not only be a major RAV Line station but a major transit terminus for all of Richmond’s bus routes.
Ivanhoe Cambridge also owns Burnaby’s Metrotown Shopping Centre, the busiest Expo Line station outside of Vancouver and Guildford Shopping Centre in Surrey.
The BC Government’s recently announced $14 billion transit plan is said to include an extension to the SkyTrain Expo Line to Guildford Shopping Centre.
SNC Lavalin has been a favoured contractor in BC. It has been involved with the Sea to Sky Hwy project, the new Kelowna bridge project and the Golden Ears Crossing. In fact, more than 80% of its global transportation projects are in BC.
Robert Tribe, now an appointed director of Translink was the executive vice-president for SNC Lavalin and was with BC Transit capital projects which included the Expo Line.
Can LRT in the Fraser Valley stand alone? Any ’success’ achieved by the current rail transit lines in the GVRD is not without its backbone, the buses. Prior to operating a rail transit line in the Fraser Valley those fast growing communities in Surrey and Langley require conventional transit services. Without bus routes on every arterial route and community buses on collector roads in these two communities the car will rule the roads. OF course, good land use planning plays the most important role here.
The idea of running a small tourist-style train through the valley may be possible.
Another idea that was late in coming to the region was the idea of the B-Line bus service. San Francisco had this type of transit in the 1970’s. The idea was brought up several times and always criticized because the experts within BC Transit said it would fail.
When the service was finally given the go ahead here on the Broadway-Lougheed corridors it was an amazing success. New transit ridership increased dramatically, one study showed more than 50% new riders to transit. BC Transit felt that they could do without most of the trolley buses on Broadway and removed a significant number of trolley buses off the route. After much anger from riders and long line-ups at the trolley stops, BC Transit increased the trolley service above the pre B-Line period.
Oh, by the way, Lafarge Cement in Richmond doubled their productive capacity not only for the RAV Line and other projected Lines, but mainly for the massive global demand for cement. RAV is a very very small component in global terms and a minor component in terms of cement needs for the many other construction projects taking place in the Golden Triangle which includes the greater Vancouver area.
The Lafarge expansion (1997 ground breaking) was conceived well before any plans to bring the Olympics to Vancouver or even before the BC Crown Corporation Secretariat conducted its study on the feasibility of building the RAV Line in 1996.
P Le Good
April 1, 2008 at 8:46 am
Phil
Thank you for that very informative comment. You will note that I have made the correction you requested.
Welcome to the blog. I hope you join our gang of frequent commentators
Stephen Rees
April 1, 2008 at 8:58 am
The money from the two additional investors – BC Investment Management Corporation and Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec – helped pay for the increases in construction costs – without the project coming back to the government for additional governmental funding (i.e like the Evergreen Line which has continued to esclalate in price – this reflects one of the benefits of using private sector financing).
If you argue that the two investors are tied to the public sector, both invest their funds in private ventures – i.e. as mentioned, Ivanhoe Cambridge – yet people don’t complain about that being a goverment subsidy of a shopping mall. This is simply another investment – they could have invested in CN Rail or Air Canada stock – would those have been public subsidies?
BTW – that’s a good business decision on the part of the Caisse given its Ivanhoe Cambridge’s investment in Oakridge. It’s akin to the Guiness family building the Lions Gate Bridge to the British Properties or the tied development of the streetcar suburbs and the streetcar lines.
Ron C.
July 3, 2008 at 11:10 am