Vancouver Surface Street Car to UBC $800 Million Light Rail : (Now this is Green Mayor Robertson

We would like to draw your attention to the following article "Why Is TransLink s Price for Light Rail Triple What Other Cities Pay? - Arguments for spending billions on SkyTrain along Broadway rest on oddly high estimates for the alternative: light rail. By  Kathryn Mandell and  Patrick M. Condon .  So our Translink folks are at it again. They will soon make a decision on what  to do with Broadway Skytrain.  Again the numbers are skewed ez rent a car orlando airport in favour of skytrain and again the City of Vancouver and Translink have not listened to the residents who are ultimately footing the bill.  Mayor Robertson has his head in the soil, council is asleep again but we the tax payers are paying for it, while the city, the region and the province is swimming in red ink.
The taxpayers are being dubbed again (4th time around) with a story that Skytrain is cheaper then surface light rail.  We should spend close to another ez rent a car orlando airport $3.0 Billion of your (the tax payers money).  In the mean time we know that Translink is broke and will be raising fares again in January.  Great way to encourage transit ez rent a car orlando airport use (what an ox ymoron) And wait! We have not even talked about the additional charges that will appear on your property tax and at the gasoline pump .  But trust your councilmen and women and our unelected transit board and above all the province to make good fiscally sound decisions for you.  Think again folks.
Translink is broke (financially and morally). The Province is in deep deficit (current account deficit more the $1.5 Billion (we were snookered on that too).  Our long term debt is now in excess of $60 billion.  Still we keep on spending $3.0 Billion on a 10 lane New Port Mann bridge to encourage more transit use (Ha Ha). Now Translink wants spend an addition $3.0 Billion on Skytrain ez rent a car orlando airport to UBC. And in the near future Surrey wants its rapid transit, using existing corridors into Vancouver.  Soon many skytrains will be so full that you will be left on a station platform so we created another problem. ez rent a car orlando airport  Is it not time we all say  NO to gold plated Skytrain system.  There are cheaper options.  Was this  proposed expenditure on any election platform during our last municipal election.  The answer is NO .
What Translink keeps doing is comparing apples with oranges. Comparing different routes with different technologies.  Instead of saying what a surface light rail system costs all the way from Commercial Broadway to UBC  compared  to  a Skytrain to UBC over the exact same route, we get different routes and different costs. We did some of our own analysis that supports the findings using Translink numbers and come to different conclusions.
Vancouver Surface  Street Car to UBC $800 Million   Light Rail :  (Now this is Green Mayor Robertson no concrete and affordable photo from Tyee/Patric Condon article) -  Affordable and fiscally responsive rapid transit.
Commercial Drive – VCC Station to UBC  estimated costs $370.7 Million  (Using unit costs from City of Vancouver from 2005 adjusted to 2009$) Even if we double the City of Vancouver cost estimates for a Street Car/Light Rail operation to $740M (including higher ez rent a car orlando airport vehicle costs), the Streetcar/Light Rail operation is still well below Translink's estimates. ez rent a car orlando airport    (Translink's ez rent a car orlando airport Light rail using a comparable distance Commercial – VCC station to UBC Cost  we estimate $998.7 Million (From Translink Study 1999 adjusted to 2009$ include vehicle adjustments)
Our first lemon of deception : Translink Skytrain Commercial VCC – Arbutus Rapid Bus Arbutus –UBC - $885.3 Million (From Translink Studies 1999 adjusted to 2009$)     Our second lemon of deception : The real sky train cost using the same route all the wau to UBC is closer to $2 Billion   Skytrain (Adjusted number using unit costs VCC – UBC  $1,984.9 Million (From Translink Study to reflect total Skytrain Route adjusted to 2009$)  We would like to add that our costs for a Skytrain extension from Commercial to UBC may still be 30% underestimated and could go as high as $2.8 Billion.  Still Translink is still making us believe that their Skytrain is one of the most cost effective system.. They keep on comparing apples with oranges, as stations are not at the same location, route options ez rent a car orlando airport are shortened and a host of community impacts tend to be under estimated.
W e conclude that surface light rail is cheaper.  Yet Translink likes us to believe that their Skytrain is cheape r.  We are sure you all agree that the above numbers tell a different story.  Hardly a fiscally responsible proposition expected from our mandarin bureaucrats. Do we want to go the same route like the US and Europe, over spending and more over spending    But if we cannot justify Skytrain on costs, lets throw another monkey at the tax payers.  We need skytrain because our ridership in the Broadway corridor is (artificially) high.  UBC – Commercial corridor carries 80,000 per peak hour.  This too is a lie, as UBC has maximum 50,000 people coming from all parts of Metro and many are certainly not traveling all via Broadway (and certainly not at the same time).  What Translink has been doing is adding riders of all busses to UBC and pretend that they all go via Broadway (to justify their taste to justify their mammoth projects).  Come clean Translink, don't fog us with this one and have an honest discussion that is not manipulated by PR guru's in highly controlled public meetings.  You see what Translink like to do is to take all the ridership from buses on Fourth ez rent a car orlando airport Ave Broadway, 10th Ave, 16th Ave, 25th Ave, 41st, 49th and SW Marine and then say that peak hour is 80,000 riders and let them travel over Broadway thus creating an artificial demand.
We as citizens should be very concerned with the so called consultation process that have been carried out.   We should be very skeptical about the cost numbers Translink is reporting on. We should demand fiscal accountability that includes ez rent a car orlando airport debt financing and we should all say NO to schemes to justify skytrain including massive high rise developments in residential communities (witness the proposed developments around 41 st Cambie)  Hardly a green solution. And for those who say we need skytrain because is faster.  Think again the travel time is 5 minutes less compared to surface light rail.  So another first for Vancouver a city to be know for its most expensive 5 minutes at a price tag of $2.0 Billion of our money .
This entry was posted in British Columbia , Democracy , Government Goofs , Municipal Issues , Municipal Mismanagement , municipal mismanagment , Neoliberalism in BC , Vancouver City , Vancouver Developers and tagged bc government , BC Liberals , BC Municipal Issues , BC Politics ez rent a car orlando airport , bc scandals , British Columbia ez rent a car orlando airport deficit , British Columbia scandals , city of Vancouver ez rent a car orlando airport , municipal budget , neoliberals , rapid transit ez rent a car orlando airport , skytrain , Translink , Vancouver , Vancouver City Council , Vancouver mayor , Vancouver taxces . Bookmark the permalink .
We have been raped by the liberal govt. for years now.When are British Columbians going to stand up and be counted?This ez rent a car orlando airport is the most meek bunch of people I have ever seen.Have you ever asked the Question ez rent a car orlando airport (Who pays their wages?????This province is almost bled dry,how much more do we have to bare? Linda Wraight.
Thank you Linda we fully agree, our ultra right neoliberal government got our province deeper and deeper in debt. We say ENOUGH The sad thing is no-one is investigating our municipal and translink clowns objectively. We cannot trust our engineers, all they want is bigger projects with more billable hours. So much for what his good for BC. A new vision ez rent a car orlando airport is needed here!
Artificially high? Do you even use transit? ez rent a car orlando airport The lower mainland has roughly 3 million people living here and we have the most mis-managed transportation system of any modern city in North America. And let s face it, we are a NEW city. Vancouver is not that old and the decisions of the past are helping to lock up the city traffic wise (re: viaduct, bike lanes, construction, parking and no freeway into the downtown core).
The Broadway corridor is the most heavily used bus route in North America. If you took the B-Line at rush hour you would know this. And as someone who bikes, drives and uses transit, an underground train is ideally the best solution. The businesses on that route will suffer less with a skytrain. With an above ground ez rent a car orlando airport rapid transit line there will be zero parking for customers along that route.
This city is growing fast. Real estate is highly over priced in compared to other Canadian cities and good paying jobs are scarce. Rent is high across the board as land lords continue to raise rent year after year to bring it to what they think market value is. Gordon Campbell decided we needed a new roof for BC place even though the citizens of this city didn t ask for it. BC Place is only used for 6 months of the year.
I live in the Broadway corridor and see many buses going by empty as for most dense corridor. Have you ever been to New York, London, Paris Amsterdam, Chicago. Let me assure you Vancouver is not a dense corridor and do you want to pay for a $3.0 Billion expense Happy to send you out tax bill
-Hopefully the new skytrain will be bored underground, rather than the cut n cover that we saw with the Canada line. This would explain the high cost, but would be worth it as local businesses and traffic wouldn t be destroyed as much as our last debacle.
-A street car would be too slow, especially to get a 4-5 car train through an intersection such as Cambie and Broadway. I shudder to think how Translink would bumble turning right from Broadway onto Cambie over a set of rails with an oncoming train would be dealt with. Not to mention how useless drivers are in this town.
-Ever driven or cycled ez rent a car orlando airport down Broadway? One lane for parking, then two travel lanes. There are only left turn lanes at some of the intersections, which means that there s really only one lane for driving. Given how much people screw around when driving in this town, that one