The success of the Canada Line is wonderful and should be celebrated. I ride it every day and it’s a delight to use. However, the Line has a sour taste just the same. The folks that built it have certainly done no favours for Cambie Village and as far as I can tell, they got away with it.
If you live in the Lower Mainland, it’s impossible not to know about the devastation that Canada Line construction wrought on the Cambie merchant community. What was supposed to be a tunneling job became cut-and-cover, and then it transformed into cut-and-wait-wait-wait-then-wait-some-more-and-finally-cover. Business came to a standstill. Merchants were devastated.
Well, the wait is finally over for the ones that survived. Well, no, actually it’s not. The City, for reasons that I don’t understand, has rendered Cambie (the surface street) almost impassable with traffic lights every block or two for the full stretch from the Cambie Bridge to King Ed.
Now, back in the good old days before this all began, Cambie was an efficient way to get out of downtown heading south. No more! It’s crawl and wait, wait and crawl. While the theory probably was that calmed traffic was more business friendly, the real outcome is that I, and many more like me, will simply stay away. I’m thinking that the well intentioned (but misguided) goal was to remake Cambie Village in the image of South Granville.
But our planners (probably the same folks that forgot to put storm drains on the Blenhiem repaving job) forgot to build a Fir Street-style through-traffic bypass route. South Granville is a successful commercial area because Fir Street channels the through traffic away. Cambie has no bypass route. I know because I tried Ash one day, figuring it was one street to the west and it had a three-letter tree name just like Fir, so maybe it would work the same way. No dice. You can go east or west off the Cambie bridge fairly easily. South? Well, it’s a traffic jam every time.
Well, if the roads aren’t helping the merchants, what about the Canada Line? Well, while people in cars can’t move because of all the stops, people on the Canada Line can’t stop. For reasons that totally baffle me (safety perhaps) the Line built a station at Second Avenue. It’s labeled “Olympic Village” but frankly it’s the stop nobody needs. It was the tunneling machine entrance point, so they built a station there. For the moment there are a small number of buses that intersect it, but otherwise it’s a long way from, well, pretty much everywhere. Olympic Village station could have been left out and nobody would have missed it.
The place they absolutely should have built a station and didn’t is Cambie and Sixteenth. When you look at the Village, it’s obvious that a station there would have been transformational. It would be within walking distance of everywhere that people want to go. Pedestrian traffic from Richmond and downtown would have access to great restaurants, stores and other attractions. After all the disruption that merchants endured, it would have been a real return on investment for them. Instead, tens of thousands of potential customers hurtle by under their feet every day. So near and yet so far.
So, the Cambie Village merchants got pillaged coming and going. Surface streets are impassable most of the time, transit has abandoned them, and they’ve graced with a beautiful new neighborhood that’s designed to be hard to get to.
I wish them all the best.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
The Insanity of Our Bus System: Transit or Welfare?
The definition of insanity is that you keep doing the same thing while expecting a different outcome. Well, if we want people out of their cars and onto transit, we’re going to have change the way we think about our transit system.
If you ride the Coast Mountain buses (the Translink operating company) in the Lower Mainland, you know just how depressing most of them are. Most are old, noisy, smelly (inside) and simply not an attractive alternative to riding in your own vehicle. That, and the schedules are sparse on most routes, and they’re rarely on time.
Why is this, d’ya think? Well, the root cause is that buses are not viewed as a transportation system delivering mobility. They’re seen as “transportation of last resort for people who can’t afford a car”. The conventional wisdom is that anybody who can afford a car won’t take the bus. Therefore, buses don’t need to be an attractive option because for the people using them, buses are the only option.
It’s this tacit acceptance that buses are for people who have no other options that has allowed buses to become part of our social welfare system. Bus fares, as the Bus Rider’s Union will stoutly protest, have to be kept low to assure easy access to the system. Their logic seems to be that raising fares and improving service will keep lower income people off the buses. Their reasoning is probably sound, but I'm not sure that relieving the travails of poverty is Translink's mission.
If we want people who can afford cars out of their cars, then it’s time we act on the notion that that people who spend thousands of dollars a year to own and operate a car can be attracted to an attractive bus service. Getting an “attractive” bus service will require more buses, denser schedules and higher maintenance costs to keep the vehicles attractive. How do we pay for it? Simple! Raise fares and charge what it costs to provide good service on buses that don’t smell. If someone will pay five thousand dollars a year for gas, depreciation, parking, insurance and maintenance, twelve hundred bucks a year for an attractive transit option will look like good value.
In my case, when I switched to transit from my car, my cash saving was about $3,000 a year and I still own the car and use it for recreational purposes.
But what about those people who can’t afford higher fares? News flash: welfare is the welfare system’s problem. If low income or fixed income people need transit to get around, then subsidize them directly.
The insanity must end. We have to leave our transportation system free to adjust to a new role as a better way to get around Vancouver and the Lower Mainland than the automobile.
If you ride the Coast Mountain buses (the Translink operating company) in the Lower Mainland, you know just how depressing most of them are. Most are old, noisy, smelly (inside) and simply not an attractive alternative to riding in your own vehicle. That, and the schedules are sparse on most routes, and they’re rarely on time.
Why is this, d’ya think? Well, the root cause is that buses are not viewed as a transportation system delivering mobility. They’re seen as “transportation of last resort for people who can’t afford a car”. The conventional wisdom is that anybody who can afford a car won’t take the bus. Therefore, buses don’t need to be an attractive option because for the people using them, buses are the only option.
It’s this tacit acceptance that buses are for people who have no other options that has allowed buses to become part of our social welfare system. Bus fares, as the Bus Rider’s Union will stoutly protest, have to be kept low to assure easy access to the system. Their logic seems to be that raising fares and improving service will keep lower income people off the buses. Their reasoning is probably sound, but I'm not sure that relieving the travails of poverty is Translink's mission.
If we want people who can afford cars out of their cars, then it’s time we act on the notion that that people who spend thousands of dollars a year to own and operate a car can be attracted to an attractive bus service. Getting an “attractive” bus service will require more buses, denser schedules and higher maintenance costs to keep the vehicles attractive. How do we pay for it? Simple! Raise fares and charge what it costs to provide good service on buses that don’t smell. If someone will pay five thousand dollars a year for gas, depreciation, parking, insurance and maintenance, twelve hundred bucks a year for an attractive transit option will look like good value.
In my case, when I switched to transit from my car, my cash saving was about $3,000 a year and I still own the car and use it for recreational purposes.
But what about those people who can’t afford higher fares? News flash: welfare is the welfare system’s problem. If low income or fixed income people need transit to get around, then subsidize them directly.
The insanity must end. We have to leave our transportation system free to adjust to a new role as a better way to get around Vancouver and the Lower Mainland than the automobile.
Score One for Translink – Canada Line is a Success
I guess it just goes to show that when you build a transit system between communities with enough people that need one, people will use it. Since I ride the Canada Line daily, it’s pretty clear to me that it’s the right line in the right place. It’s so busy, just a few months into its operating life, that it can be challenging to board at rush hour.
So, how did this success come about? Well, you have to look first at the ones that didn’t work. Let’s say, the Millennium Line. It was a political boondoggle on an even grander scale than the Fast Ferry debacle. Billions were borrowed and spent to build an elevated transit system that stitches together a bunch of staunch NDP ridings. Residential densities along the line are low, ridership is low, and Translink’s operating cost picture is distorted by the ongoing cost of the debt service and operating cost of a line that had no economic rationale when it was built. In the end, through Translink fare boxes and taxes, the entire lower mainland is paying the bill for this folly.
Political decisions driving Translink’s costs are the rule, not the exception. Not only was the Millennium line an economic bust, it took nearly thirty years for the Expo line to break even, even though Translink’s analysis shows that it’s one of the lowest-cost transit lines in the world (you can thank the computer-controlled system that has no high-cost human drivers on each train). Why so long to start paying its way? Simple. Like the Millennium line, there were just not enough riders in the communities along the way for the first decades of its life.
Not only did Translink and the Canada Line planners build the Canada line in the right place, they drove a stake into the heart of one of the most bizarre Skytrain philosophies: for the original construction of the Expo line, the transit purists in charge decided that people who didn't live near a Skytrain station should be confined to using the bus for access. The original Expo line was completely devoid of Park-and-Ride facilities. In response to the inevitable public pressure, later Surrey extensions in 1990 and 1994 included the first two designated lots. The Millennium line, even though it runs though large areas with low housing density and sparse bus service, only added one more lot. While the lack of parking may have contributed to slow growth of Skytrain traffic in the past, it hasn't happened this time. While the Canada Line is only a fraction of the length of Expo and Millennium, it had two Richmond lots open on day one! Well done!
Where does that leave us for the future? Well, there is no shortage of heavily traveled routes to upgrade with trains. The unbridled growth of UBC is putting enormous strain on the road infrastructure. Cross-town routes like Broadway have reached saturation. The next stop is grade separation, a polite term for building a rail line above or below the road. Ditto, the expansion in the tri-cities, where commuters are choked through narrow traffic routes to get to work.
If our political leaders are at all serious about getting us out of our cars, there have to be real alternatives available. Computerized rail is costly to build, but inexpensive to run. We need a long-term commitment to extending it between communities in the lower mainland.
So, how did this success come about? Well, you have to look first at the ones that didn’t work. Let’s say, the Millennium Line. It was a political boondoggle on an even grander scale than the Fast Ferry debacle. Billions were borrowed and spent to build an elevated transit system that stitches together a bunch of staunch NDP ridings. Residential densities along the line are low, ridership is low, and Translink’s operating cost picture is distorted by the ongoing cost of the debt service and operating cost of a line that had no economic rationale when it was built. In the end, through Translink fare boxes and taxes, the entire lower mainland is paying the bill for this folly.
Political decisions driving Translink’s costs are the rule, not the exception. Not only was the Millennium line an economic bust, it took nearly thirty years for the Expo line to break even, even though Translink’s analysis shows that it’s one of the lowest-cost transit lines in the world (you can thank the computer-controlled system that has no high-cost human drivers on each train). Why so long to start paying its way? Simple. Like the Millennium line, there were just not enough riders in the communities along the way for the first decades of its life.
Not only did Translink and the Canada Line planners build the Canada line in the right place, they drove a stake into the heart of one of the most bizarre Skytrain philosophies: for the original construction of the Expo line, the transit purists in charge decided that people who didn't live near a Skytrain station should be confined to using the bus for access. The original Expo line was completely devoid of Park-and-Ride facilities. In response to the inevitable public pressure, later Surrey extensions in 1990 and 1994 included the first two designated lots. The Millennium line, even though it runs though large areas with low housing density and sparse bus service, only added one more lot. While the lack of parking may have contributed to slow growth of Skytrain traffic in the past, it hasn't happened this time. While the Canada Line is only a fraction of the length of Expo and Millennium, it had two Richmond lots open on day one! Well done!
Where does that leave us for the future? Well, there is no shortage of heavily traveled routes to upgrade with trains. The unbridled growth of UBC is putting enormous strain on the road infrastructure. Cross-town routes like Broadway have reached saturation. The next stop is grade separation, a polite term for building a rail line above or below the road. Ditto, the expansion in the tri-cities, where commuters are choked through narrow traffic routes to get to work.
If our political leaders are at all serious about getting us out of our cars, there have to be real alternatives available. Computerized rail is costly to build, but inexpensive to run. We need a long-term commitment to extending it between communities in the lower mainland.
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