David;
I
must comment on your interview with Gordon Price, who is perceived by
many as a transit expert, he is not and not even close. Mr. Price is a
graduate City Planner and has very little knowledge of transport mode
and its application and operation.
I must state that I am not a transit expert but a layman, who
has over the past 30 years have consulted with transit professionals
about metro, light-metro and light rail. I was also the chap who was
responsible for organizing the Rail for the Valley Leewood report about
reinstating the the Vancouver to Chilliwack interurban.
http://www.railforthevalley.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/chilliwacktosurreyinterurbanfinalreportr.pdf
I was once on your radio program in your 'NW days.
So
let's look at the transit situation today. SkyTrain is a vintage
proprietary railway, which after being on the market since the late
1970's has managed to sell only seven such systems under four different
names (ICTS; ALRT; ALM; ART)and only three are seriously used for
regional transit, with the other four being a demonstration line and or
an airport/theme park people movers, all overseas SkyTrains financed in
part by the government of Canada. The vehicle and technological patents
for the SkyTrain system are held by SNC Lavalin and Bombardier.
The Canada Line is not really a SkyTrain at all but a $2.5
billion dumbed down heavy-rail metro, built as a light metro and as
built has less capacity than a streetcar costing a fraction to build!
The Canada Line is also incompatible in operation with the rest of the
SkyTrain mini-metro system.
Mr. Price made much hay about the "90 second headways", to
which I say; "so what", most European LRT/tram systems operate at 30
second headways during peak hours! SkyTrain's 90 second headways are
necessary due to the small cars and small stations which demand short
headways to be able to keep up to traffic loads. As an aside, the Canada
Line has very small station platforms and was at capacity when it was
completed!
Today, it is recognized by transit professionals,(but not Mr.
Price or SFU) that modern LRT does indeed have a higher capacity than
SkyTrain, that's why no one builds with SkyTrain today!
SkyTrain
does indeed carry high ridership, but over 80% are bus passengers
forced to transfer from bus to SkyTrain, about twice the industry
standard, which conveys the message that SkyTrain's ridership is a
forced ridership which is definitely not how you attract new ridership.
With the proliferation of a 110,000 U-Passes for post secondary students
it is easy to see that our transit system is at capacity on major
routes, but with cheap fares, TransLink is going broke carrying the
extra loads brought about by the U-Pass.
From 1994 to 2011 the mode share in the Metro Vancouver region
has remained unchanged at 57% and transit ridership has increased a
mere 3%, hardly a great selling point after an over $9 billion invested
in rapid transit.
