According to this population and density map comparing the use of the B-Line with the rapid-transit lines, there is the equivalent of five Metrotowns along Central Broadway:
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This effectively illustrates the case of the City of Vancouver for the construction of rail rapid-transit along the Broadway corridor.
The B-line is said to be the busiest bus route in North America, carrying more than many light-rail lines. It carries about half the hundred-thousand transit users in the Broadway corridor.
Already Broadway has a transit usage equal to the Canada Line – and yet only about 20 percent of those in B.C.’s second largest downtown are using transit. Compared to the Central Business District, the potential is actually greater – probably closer to 35 or 40 percent could be on transit.
But too many people have given up and are not prepared to use an overcrowded system no matter how frequent the buses. At any rate, there just isn’t room for more buses, argues the City, and the demand will be further driven up once the Evergreen Line is constructed. Other routes could take some of the load, but the only real solution is to get some form of rapid transit connecting to UBC, the largest single transit destination in the entire region.
This remains a somewhat academic discussion, given that there’s no money for anything – not even a B-line on King George Boulevard in Surrey. And no doubt Surrey has dibs on any new major investment. There’s no way to imagine that South of the Fraser would accept being bumped again so that another line could be built in Vancouver first – and expect them to help pay for it.
No matter how many Metrotowns there are along Broadway.
Would be interesting to see this graph extended to Surrey…
What a great way to conceptualize transportation needs. As a resident of Fairview, the Canada Line has been a godsend for the sake of convenience, productivity, and a stress reducer. It would be nice to have the same benefits when going east-west. I can only hope the addition of a Broadway rail line will happen quicker than anticipated.
Thanks for this Gordon. I have sometimes thought that one reason the “Broadway Corridor” doesn’t have a skookum transit system is because it doesn’t have a name. The “Broadway Corridor” isn’t a place, it’s a corridor and to many a corridor goes from one place to another place. Also the “Broadway Corridor” is only a small part of the broader “Broadway Corridor”. The area that needs the best transit was where the old streetcar went in a loop from Main Street to a bit past Granville Street which was called the Fairview Beltway in those days. The Beltway referred to the entire loop and not just the Broadway portion. The area in question is in Fairview but isn’t Fairview. Maybe it’s harder to convince faraway governments to put in lots of money to a place that doesn’t have a name.
1. “there just isn’t room for more buses” – not quite sure what that means. There are no dedicated transit lanes on broadway, so there’s still room for more buses.
2. I hope the rapid transit is hugely oversized to cope with induced demand. It’ll have to be underground, because of the surface robots.
3. I predict bixi-ing from Fairview to the Olympic Village Canada Line station, and from Broadway – City Hall back (along 8th or 10th off-broadway) will be extremely popular.
Well Mr. Price you certainly have a pretty picture there, Five Metrotowns on Broadway, and I love your choice of colours too.
You go on to write, “This effectively illustrates the case of the City of Vancouver for the construction of rail rapid-transit along the Broadway corridor. Definitive! Kaplunk! Mr. Price has spoken and that’s the end of that!
Ummmmm, on what grounds do you make such a gratuitous judgment?
Five Metro towns?
Now you know, Sir, that is not only a numerical exaggeration but also a profound misinterpretation of the function/amenity purposes of the strip: to say the least, the distribution of amenity and population along Broadway is N/S lineal whereas Metrotown is geometrically the opposite.
Bear with me please as I make my case once again.
Mount Pleasant, the fulcrum of Broadway, Main and Kingsway, is replete with the potential for a variegate function/figure ground . . .
http://members.shaw.ca/theyorkshirelad72/working.mount.pleasant.html
. . . in the context of Vancouver’s historic neighbourhoods . . .
http://www.theyorkshirelad.ca/1yorkshirelad/vancouver.re-boot/Vancouver.re-boot.html
. . and it is merely one example of how the city can come to life with a multitude of autochthonous urban villages, communities and neighbourhoods each with their own special character. Identity and community participation being the purpose recognizing the old top-down paradigm id out of date (i.e. Rize Alliance, Broadway.
I remember the planning process before Ray introduced public participation. Incrementlization would take us one leap further beyond having our say at City Hall. It would give each of us a say in what goes every day at a scale we can grasp.
You are suggesting a system, El Subte Buenos Aires, the Tube London (mind the gap) and Metros all over: we know them all so well: some (DF) need to segregate the ladies!
So . . .
Ugh! You are proposing another dark, dank underground clankity-clank when the sky is blue up top and the birds are singing in the rain . . .
Thanqu for giving this cantankerous old geezer a platform: although I am well into my dotage and you are in the prime of intellectual youth anytime you would like to debate the issue publically, let me know.
Yes, that is a good illustration.
Nevertheless, the Example of Canada Line show it is not necessarily good enough to make a case for rapid transit (Bridgeport and airport concentrate low job/population, and still are very busy station! )
That said, it should obvious that the extension of the Millenium along the Broadway line should be the highest priority of the region…
Not only because it serves the second highest concentration of job in the region, but also because it fills the gap marring the current network…in that instance, it not only benefit to central Broadway, but beyond, to Richmond, Burnaby, New West, and yes, Surrey too…
Isochrones can help to visualize how many people can be impacted by an investment…
See
http://voony.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/freedom-map-with-broadway-rapid-transit/
According to Translink studies, The financial sheet of this line make it by far a much stronger proposition than any other transit line in the region.
So if you stay on rationally economic ground,and if you want develop a cohesive, fiscally responsible, transit network serving the transportation need of the region -and hence its economy- you go with the Broadway line first.
If you believe that Translink investment should be done disregarding economic fundamental, but to please some political agenda, well you could beg to differ…
…but don’t be surprised to see our transit agency in financial distress.
Great Post, and we can only wish that we had the cash.
Or maybe, if the final thing the libs do, maybe, there’s a chance that we could get a referendum to increase sales tax to pay for Rapid Transit. Just to put it out there.
Using Employment and Population may be misleading, though with 3 metro towers (and translink’s offices), Metrotown is a shopping destination (commercial), though a major destination, the scores would be lower than say…
Willow and Arbutus (which only recently was added as a B-Line Stop), are not as major destinations and town centres as Metrotown, but do contain many towers of employment. These high densities do not have a strong a magnet as Metrotown.
I believe that the main difference is, as I think Jarrett Walker wrote, not average density, but how many areas with Super-High Density. ie. Metrotown concentrates its density within a few steps from skytrain connected by elevated seperated walkways, and it’s density can be circled with a 200m radius. Stops on the 99B rather, though the average density is similar, it can only be accessed by a few block long walk, or a short bus ride. Also incomparable are the amenities ie. library and 2 malls at metro.
Anyhow, great comparisons, and as you say, rapid transit IS the answer. It’s not whether, it’s when. We’ll build it sooner or later. and lets hope it’s the former, as we NEED rapid transit, and the costs will stay the same no matter construction is now, or in 2025.
A little correction here… Willow has been a B Line stop for many years. You may wonder why Willow is a stop at all, while Oak, which makes sense as a transit transfer point, is not. It’s because there is a major destination at Willow. This stop is roughly at the midpoint of VGH, the largest hospital in BC.
Great post & analysis. I think translink has always thought of service to the burbs first. Vancouver needs rapid transit & lrt to service the city first (like most great urban centres globally) and then seek to expand WCE to the burbs.
I was on a few standing room only trips (well after peak) on the 99 B Line from Cambie to Commercial this summer, lurching along in stop and go traffic. Ugh, how do students do this for 80 minutes day after day? 20 minute subway ride vs singing birds… Sorry Surrey, to me “Evergreen Line to UBC Loop” sounds a lot better than “Expo Line to Guildford Town Centre”. At least Skytrain came to Surrey in 1990, Coquitlam is still waiting. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=qHBmAAAAIBAJ&sjid=rYwNAAAAIBAJ&pg=5005%2C506090
This graph says it all.
Broadway should be the top priority in the region. It should have been built before the Evergreen Line, and it’s a shame that people say there isn’t any money. Because there is; it’s just being spent on other things, like a 10-lane bridge to suburbia (which, while it will be tolled, so is transit – and taxpayers all over the region pay the construction costs. Keeping in mind the tolls on Golden Ears don’t even pay the full costs.)
And enough about wanting to hear the birds sing. I love riding trams as much as the next person, but I also like to get places on time and comfortably. The B-line fails, epicly at this. This is the area of the city MOST in need of grade separated rail transit, and maybe not just regular skytrain, but extra-long train platforms and grand stations like a traditional metro. And that doesn’t have to mean ugly: see Stockholm, Moscow, Montreal, etc.
I expect ridership on broadway could easily double with rapid transit. As it is now, the system is somehow chugging along with ridership well above any official capacity figure. Any increase in service would immediate be eaten up by riders.
And there is no reason to say Metrotown is more suited to transit than Broadway. Broadway also has large employers, VGH and the city in particular, as well as many office buildings. There are many ways in which Broadway is more suited to transit than Matrotown.
-Interconnected pedesetrian-friendly streets, whereas going anywhere in Metrotown that isn’t Metropolis mall by foot is a nightmare. Or try getting to Kingsway after the mall closes.
-A major disincentive to driving in the form of traffic congestion and limited paid parking, whereas Metrotown sits on one of the largest parking lots in the region.
Really, Broadway is more like downtown than Metrotown, and last I checked downtown got high ridership.
It’s time to put the “we don’t have money” lie behind us. We find money for all sorts of things, from stadium roofs to new highways, that are not as important as this. It’s time we just sucked it up and paid the cost and got it built.
And if you’re looking for a compromise with Surrey voters, find the money to build both at the same time.
Translink can’t even get enough money to fund it’s existing system.
The province is already running deficit budgets and you can expect the largest ticket item – healthcare – to be an even higher cost as our society increasingly ages.
There’s hope to get some joint contribution from the feds for projects – but good luck pulling two billion out of the them in a riding they have no chance of securing.
So just where would you find this huge sum of money (not to mention a bit more to try to placate the soon to be raging over the tolls south of fraser community!)? Checking the couch for change isn’t going to cut it…..
in a word: taxation.
The province just spent $3 billion on a new, largely overcapacity and unnecessary road bridge, it’s spending billions more on other Gateway projects and it’s gearing up to spend another $1 billion on a new Patullo Bridge. It just spent $450? million or so on a new stadium roof and upgrade, and not long before that it spent more than $800 million (if I remember correctly) on a convention centre.
Not to mention that building the skytrain on UBC will actually decrease operation costs for the existing system, by making all those much more expensive to operate B-line buses unnecessary. That little detail is in Translink’s technology comparison documents.
Oh, and the feds very much hope to win Joyce Murray’s seat.
Of course the money is there.
It’s so frustrating that nothing can get done due to political gridlock. God I would love to see this thing built. I live in Port Moody and I attend SFU. In theory, with the evergreen line and the Broadway line finished, I could get on one train 5 minutes from my house and get off the same train at UBC an hour and 15 minutes later later (or something to that effect considering evergreen line planners estimate taking the train from coquitlam to downtown would take 40 minutes). That would save so much time compared to driving, and I could sleep for the whole time.
However, if UBC ever gets this line, I think SFU deserves this little beauty:
http://www.translink.ca/en/Be-Part-of-the-Plan/Rapid-Transit-Projects/Burnaby-Mountain-Gondola.aspx
@Tessa & David,
Though Bdwy is in dire need for Rapid Transit, Surrey must still be the priority. BC’s 2nd largest city is experiencing the same type of growth Vancouver got in the 1950s. There are (like vancouver in the 50s) 2 paths surrey can take for its future: 1) Car Centred Sprawl with more cul-de-sacs and strip malls, or 2) Vibrant Communities and a strong downtown connected by rapid transit.
My point is that while the Bdwy option might get more ridership (and thus be more bang for your buck), Bdwy will always, for the rest of time, be transit friendly. It’s most major development and structure has already taken place. There WILL be rapid transit on Bdwy. the question is when, and what type.
Surrey on the other hand, is rapidly changing, and with Guilford mall clearly becoming car-dependent, urban planners must work fast to ensure that there is rapid transit BEFORE the whole city becomes a Phoenix. ie. Rapid Transit, rather than cars, must shape development that’s happening NOW.
Same goes with Coquitlam.
I strongly agree.
I understand the need to prevent car-dependence in Surrey, but I don’t know how much expanding rapid transit will help in that regard either, especially in the case of Guildford. In general, cities that spend billions on increasing car capacity tend to turn into sprawling, car-depending cities, even with rapid transit. Even in cities Portland, rapid transit mode share is significantly lower than Vancouver as driving is just too easy, with lots of highways taking you downtown to park.
That’s not to say it’s a lost cause, or that light rail in Surrey wouldn’t do some good in specific areas, in particular King George, but it is to say that it’s more than just getting bang for your buck. Just because Broadway isn’t going to magically turn into sprawl without rapid transit doesn’t mean that rapid transit wouldn’t bring about increases in density there either.
It also adds more to the network effect. The lack of rapid transit in Broadway has a depressing impact on ridership across the entire region, especially Burnaby and Richmond residents who can’t reasonably get from the Canada Line to the Expo and Millennium Lines. It encourages workers who work in Broadway to drive regardless of where they live, some of whom certainly live in Surrey.
Now, I’m in favour of building both at the same time, and if we build light rail in Surrey instead of skytrain that will make it significantly more affordable to do so. That’s also what Surrey’s leaders are themselves asking for. But any rapid transit in Surrey should also come with changes to the corresponding streets that discourage auto use, i.e. fewer traffic lanes, wider sidewalks, separated bike lanes. Because if people have easy driving options they will use them.
And let’s also have an understanding that transit on its own will not prevent Surrey from turning into Phoenix now that billions have been spent on car-dependent infrastructure, and certainly will not prevent areas like Grandview from being built in what was a semi-rural area. Stricter ALR controls and other things are also needed are more important in that regard.
Also, see Voony’s comment on “A Lifetime on Broadway…” Explains my feelings as well if not better than I can.
Writing from the perspective of someone who mainly drives but does take transit from N. Delta occasionally I should point out that for a lot of people South of the Fraser a Broadway rapid trasit corridor will improve mobility more than a Surrey expansion. This is true both because a Broadway system would connect Expo to Canada line and because Broadway/UBC has more destinations than any or actually all of the proposed Surrey lines. That said I would love to see all of them. If I can’t get all of them I would prefer Broadway…although Kyle does have a point about shaping growth….
UBC is a unique land use in that it is not going to evolve to another (housing/commercial, etc.). So it would not be wasteful to simply locate housing exclusively for students on and near Campus, and reducing the vast majority of commuters currently on Broadway. This is the same simple planning and TDM principle we’re applying elsewhere in the world; closely link places of residence with places of employment. Moreover, UBC staff near the B-line might find enough new capacity to leave their cars at home.
I think this is one of those problems of mapping.
You represent a world one way and it becomes that way. You represent it another way and it becomes something else.
The problem with that map is this. The density depicted are not confined within circular nodes, but are part of an intersecting webwork of streets – streets that include 12th, Broadway, 2nd/4th running east- west, and Main, Cambie, Oak, and Granville running north-south.
In addition, these main arterials are relieved by a myriad of secondary streets, many with very important movement and commercial functions.
Finally, the activity zones don’t actually peter out in the way shown. There are no clear radii to these locations. Its more accurate to depict the continuation of the activity along the lines of the arterials and extending, in may cases, perpendicular to the arterials – deep into the fabric of surrounding neighborhoods.
This is not a minor point. The inaccurate map makes us think a solution is obvious and appropriate when it is anything but.
I don’t think I follow your point. What is the significance to this discussion of the webwork of streets surrounding Broadway?
I think that Mr. Condon is saying, correct me if I’m wrong, that the circles on the deceiving map have a radii of 800m, which covers 4th, 12th etc, and while metrotown concentrates its density w/in 200 m of the station, thus, as I said above, the large circles make the average density the same.
Also, Condon notes that what matters not is the “crow’s flight” distance (that walkonomics used to use), but rather the actual walking distance (along streets in this case), including shortcuts through a mall or long walks around the station to the library.
The map also does not take into account the difference between short blocks of tree lined vancouver neighbourhoods and the large mall with mid rises to the south at metrotown.
OK, but how does all that change the conclusion?
I wish Gordon would not link his life with the completion of rapid transit to UBC. I’m sure he’s a swell guy, but those buses are packed.
But I don’t think that he ought to be so pessimistic. Every year another crop of students goes to UBC, and every year the 99 creates another batch of transit advocates. This has clearly built a constituency.
Translink seems to be costing an extension of the Millenium line at 2.4 billion or 200 million per km for the 12 km route. I wonder why this is so. The Canada Line cost about 115 million per km which would be 1.4 billion to UBC. Obviously the Canada Line was not fully buried and suffers from problematic corner cutting, so a UBC Line done well would cost more, but I don’t see why it would cost 70% more. I also would not immediately strike off the possibility of cut and cover construction along Broadway. What needs to be examined is whether cut and cover coupled with a compensation program for disrupted businesses would still be cheaper than a bored tunnel. Even with a good compensation program, it might still be cheaper, and stations on a cut and cover tunnel Broadway would be easier and faster to access than stations on a bored tunnel either on Broadway or 10th Avenue.
I think Patrick Condon’s point was this map divided the activity on Broadway artificially into zones around more widely spaced stations. Stations with subway spacing. Because I hope that the Millenium Line is completed as a subway to UBC, this is the way that I look at Broadway, but it isn’t the only way to look at it.
And this is why the South Fraser residents should simply pull out of translink even if that means forming a separate regional district. I don’t doubt that improved transit along the Broadway corridor would have by far the best business case nor would many other sorts of improvements one could dream up compared to say the King George B-line. That’s why it keeps on getting delayed and down-scaled (it originally called for bus only lanes) and delay and down-scaled (never mind south surrey how about just Newton, you know, like one of these days) while a never ending series of improvements all get targeted north of Fraser.
South of Fraser always looses the build business case and always “wins” the tax business case. All the carrots go to the north and all the sticks stay in the south.
This will always be the way and no amount of taxation will result in effective (not even express buses connecting the regional town centres) transit options south of the Fraser. Ergo split the region in two and then you won’t have to worry about the south of Fraser complaining about it’s lack of transit – it will be it’s own problem.
Until that happens the south residents will be nothing more than a funding source for north Fraser transit projects.
P.S. You could up capacity on the B-line dramatically by simply eliminating the parking along the corridor and making it into bus only lanes. Heck, just do it during rush hour as a compromise and you will get much higher efficiently out of the system at very low capital cost with very high return on investment.
Just so you know, Vancouver has transit only lanes on Broadway during rush hour and it is rush hour where you see the longest lineups at Commercial-Broadway Station, the most pass ups along the route and a bus coming every 2 minutes or so.
Well eliminate or increase the costs of the UPass until the bus is right at capacity and you eliminate overcrowding AND generate more money – hopefully enough to finally implement the long promised and but as of yet never seen south of fraser rapid transit. Express buses will do….
But B-line buses still stop at red lights. They need priority signaling until a Broadway subway is built. It makes no sense that a bus with 100 passengers has to stop to let 3 cars with 3 people cross, on almost evey block.
South of the Fraser might want to do the math before deciding on such an option. I’m not sure the numbers leave them as hard done by as they think. It’s an oft-repeated rumour that most bus routes south of the Fraser do not stand on their own merit but are in place as “habit builders” and political necessities, for example (I say rumour because I can’t personally confirm, but I suspect other readers may have more firm data). Similarly, with higher property assessments north of the Fraser, it might just as easily be argued that the per capita funding appropriated from residents on the north side for transit, water, sewer, etc. is a higher burden than for their counterparts south of the Fraser.
Also… South of the Fraser never gets anything? Have you not been witnessing the $4 billion being spent on a new 10-lane bridge and expanded highway out to 232nd? What about the new South Fraser Perimeter Road? New interchanges and overpasses all along the Hwy 1 corridor through Surrey and Langley? Am I hallucinating these massive construction projects or are you very forgetful?
In conclusion: I think it is important to provide increased transit south of the Fraser, and that the alignments and options studied to date by Translink are very appealing. However, pretending that south of the Fraser is somehow hard-done-by is not productive. The NE sector has arguably, from a density and trip generation perspective, more deserving of mass transit from 1986 onward and yet it was Surrey that rec’d the Skytrain extension. That was supposed to spur growth, change habits, etc. And it did. A bit. But not hugely, and the outward march of homes continued. It’s not the rest of the region’s fault that Surrey and Langley’s development choices are //impossible// to serve by transit.
The south of fraser region is getting a lot more highway spending from the Province for sure though we will also be paying the majority of the tolls on that shiny new bridge – a toll that happens to improve the highway it’s entire stretch on the Burrard peninsula as well.
It’s translink that will never build transit south of the river that I want to free from.
ronthecivil, I agree that the South of Fraser needs more transit to shape their development. Let’s not forget that TransLink was making significant strides towards improving transit south of the Fraser until the province blocked the Mayor’s push for new funding sources. I’d blame the BC Liberals (the same ones that are building the Port Mann Bridge) instead of TransLink for the lack of movement on South of Fraser transit expansion.
Also, can you point me towards an authoritative source that shows the South of Fraser subsidizing the North side of the river? Until I see it, I’m going to reserve judgement as to who are the winners and losers in the region.
Andrew – since Dave Barrett’s time, every NDP provincial government has had a priority for extending rail transit to New West and Coquitlam (actually, I’m not sure what happened with rapid transit during Mike Harcourt’s regime), but they don’t tend to stay in office long enough to make it happen. Then a SoCred or Liberal government gets in and their priorities are to cross the Fraser. And they do stay in power long enough to implement most of their plans. The evidence is that neither seems intent on building the other party’s plans.
Someday, I hope we get the rail systems to both NE Sector and Surrey/Langley, in that order, regardless of the party in power. The region deserves it.
It was the NDP under Glen Clark that launched planning and construction of the Millennium Line as a Skytrain in June 1998. Of interest, from 1983 http://s1096.photobucket.com/albums/g337/snfils/?action=view¤t=scan0008-1.jpg
It is also worth noting that Glen Clark was one of a stream of Provincial officials (along with Minister Falcon more recently) who overruled local authorities, switching plans for a Broadway/Lougheed Highway surface rail system to the eventual Millennium Skytrain line.
BC Transit, now Translink, had proceeded all the way to engineering drawings and public consultation for a Strasbourg style……
(http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&sa=X&tbo=d&biw=1920&bih=993&tbs=isz:l&tbm=isch&tbnid=636nPI7ObIWvCM:&imgrefurl=http://erausa.org/meetings/2011/10-21.html&docid=Y1pXCtJNniV5OM&imgurl=http://erausa.org/img/slideshows/2006/03-30/01.jpg&w=1217&h=900&ei=4y5VUJnKDu2UigL5i4CAAQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=434&vpy=156&dur=581&hovh=193&hovw=261&tx=148&ty=112&sig=116891980302374552702&page=1&tbnh=120&tbnw=160&start=0&ndsp=59&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0,i:102 )
………surface rail system. It was cheap enough that the money allocated would have built a line from UBC to Coquitlam Town Centre.
Clark precipitously and unilaterally switched to the much more expensive Skytrain technology, in the hope that many jobs in manufacturing Skytrain cars would be located here.
The result was a rather less than sensible project, one that brought passengers from the Expo line to the Expo line and dead ended half way into False Creek Flats.
We got less than half the distance originally planned for the same price.
UBC and Coquitlam Town Centre are still waiting for something to happen 20 years later.
And oh, the “factory” sits empty. Stephen Reese knows all the details.
Last minute changes in technology.. a Vancouver tradition since 1890… Electricity instead of horses? Mayor Oppenheimer was inundated with Tweetograms http://www.translink.ca/~/media/Documents/rider_info/Buzzer%20Vault/1950s/1955/Buzzer_1955_04_20.ashx
A subway to UBC, like Keystone XL or N Gateway pipeline, is a no brainer and would make good common sense.
Yet:
Common sense is not so common.