I know that just by quoting from Charlie Smith’s latest piece in The Straight – Bombardier brings Canadian grit and French glamour to European passenger rail – there’s the danger of once again unleashing the pro-and-con, back-and-forth debates over the choice of SkyTrain versus light rail. But readers might otherwise miss some interesting background, as documented by Smith, that is buried late in his piece describing Bombardier’s Francilien – the most colourful suburban train in Paris’s history.
Here’s the excerpt:
Meanwhile in Vancouver, Bombardier has come under criticism in the past for its contracts with TransLink and the provincial government.
Critics contend that TransLink was saddled with outrageous costs because SkyTrain cars were too expensive for the relatively small number of passengers they carried.
This meant huge sums were being taken out of the operating budget to pay down debt when that money may have been better spent expanding service and lowering fares.
In 1999 after the last NDP government had approved the Millennium Line, consultant Alan Greer wrote a scathing report for the B.C. government.
In it, he declared that “the most relevant information advanced in support of the SkyTrain option was misleading, incomplete or unsubstantiated”.
Greer’s report also claimed that the Rapid Transit Project Office high-balled the cost of street-level light rail by tripling the estimated price of a maintenance yard to $110 million,
The company that prepared this estimate, Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin, had been Bombardier’s partner on SkyTrain systems.
Back in 1999, a graduate student named Tamim Raad cowrote a paper with one of his professors, Peter Boothroyd, highlighting costs differentials between street-level light rail and SkyTrain. Raad is now director of strategic policy and planning at TransLink.
Depending on the assumptions, Raad and Boothroyd concluded that the gap was between 34 percent and 133 percent.
This meant that in their eyes at the time, the SkyTrain network was $700 million to $1.6 billion more than a light-rail system would have cost.
Perhaps most damning was a Light Rail for Vancouver Committee analysis, which concluded that an order for SkyTrain cars cost $42,000 per passenger space. That was more than double the cost per passenger space for light rail in Denver.
In 2006, TransLink agreed to a $113.2-million contract for 34 SkyTrain cars from Bombardier. That worked out to $3.3 million per car.
“there’s the danger of once again unleashing the pro-and-con, back-and-forth debates over the choice of SkyTrain versus light rail.”
Which is why when I read the article, I decided to leave it well alone. That debate has dominated the comments area on my blog too often.
My partner also thought that the only reason Charlie Smith mentioned me in the tweet that promoted the article was to make me jealous that he got a free trip to France to ride on trains. Which was certainly my reaction.
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/single-view/view/francilien-launches-wide-body-family.html
The Francilien is a heavy rail train – an Electical Multiple Unit common in Europe which serves inter-city commuter routes. The North American equivalent would be a commuter train like West Coast Express or the Diesel Multple Units seen in some cities.
Why are they comparing it to SkyTrain?
In essnce they, are asking the wrong corporate division about certain products and then making the leaping asumptions.
(PS – the article cites Mississauga as having a UTDC system, it doesn’t – it’s Scarborough)
This is not entirely accurate research, and I plan to launch a commentary series on my blog to debunk numerous SkyTrain myths and answer some questions.
The Greer report had numerous massive inaccuracies that I pointed out in a Better Surrey Rapid Transit report, which I’m redoing for a blog release. The article quote is already nonsense: the maintenance yard used for the Millennium Line expansion was.. well… an inexpensive track & facilities add-on to the existing one. A new maintenance yard would not have been necessary at all, and a full facility will still not be necessary many trains and an Evergreen Line expansion later.
As well, the presentation of the high capital costs for SkyTrain/LIM vehicles as discouraging doesn’t take into account the offsets for the low cost of maintaining LIM infrastructure (no moving parts = $$$ saved. That’s why Guangzhou, China recently opened a third LIM line on their system, which is now carrying over 700k passengers daily).
Further:
“Critics contend that TransLink was saddled with outrageous costs because SkyTrain cars were too expensive for the relatively small number of passengers they carried.
This meant huge sums were being taken out of the operating budget to pay down debt when that money may have been better spent expanding service and lowering fares.”
When TransLink was created, the Expo Line’s remaining debt servicing costs – which have since been paid off – were retrained by the provincial government. With the Millennium Line’s full costs being also debt serviced by the government through RTP 2000 Ltd. (their annual reports, stating progress and full costs, are easily accessible on the internet), the idea that the costs of the SkyTrain rolling stock were eating into the operating budget is unfounded. This funding setup is common in our regional infrastructure; the South Surrey Park & Ride Expansion is the same in that the expansion was paid for by the province, and TransLink deals with just the O&M.
I contend that, thanks to the maintenance cost advantage of LIM technology, that the opposite was the case, and that the low maintenance costs (alongside high revenue and popularity) of SkyTrain tech have subsidized more bus service throughout the region.
It costs about $100 million annually to operate and maintain the Expo & Millennium Lines: nearly 50km of track with a peak service frequency of close to 90 seconds. The proposed conventional Surrey LRT system will launch with half the trackage and at less than half the peak period frequency (5 mins). You’d think that it’d cost 1/4 as much to run (or less yet, especially given the simpler at-grade infrastructure), but the projected operating cost at $48 million is almost half as much.
This article leaves a lot to be desired. Trainwreck is harsh but irrepressible under the circumstances.
“With its sleek interior and artistic touches, the Francilien was unlike anything seen before.”
I’m sure that Bombardier has developed a perfectly nice new train, but from the description, there is absolutely nothing revolutionary about it. All of those developments mentioned are in operation in other areas. Even colour has made an appearance before. Not that that ought to be a criticism of Bombardier. It, Alstom and Siemens have to compete to get orders, and lately they seem to be competing on price more than design or technology.
The Francilien aside, this writer really goes off the rails when he gets to Skytrain. First, he might as well have talked about the Q400 for all that Skytrain has to do with the Francilien. Automatic metros are not the same thing as heavy rail multiple unit trains. Even ones for short-haul use. And they tend not even to be made in the same factories. Metro cars are shorter, run off DC power and are often stainless steel. Actual train cars are obviously bigger, heavier, are made of steel and aluminum, and are supplied with pantographs and motors equipped to handle 25kv AC.
“Critics contend that TransLink was saddled with outrageous costs because SkyTrain cars were too expensive for the relatively small number of passengers they carried.”
I think people did use to say that. I heard it from my dad. But now the only person that says it is rail for the valley. When you compare the cost of transportation systems, Skytrain was not expensive. The whole Expo Line, including the bridge and extension in Surrey, plus a bunch of upgrades that occurred prior to the Millennium Line cost about $1b in 90’s era money. Even after two decades of inflation factored in, anyone current with the cost of urban infrastructure would call this a bargain. Part of the reason I think it got this expensive reputation, again coming from my father, is that Vancouver was a different place pre Expo86. It was much more provincial and still had something of a hippie culture. My father bought his first house on the West Side in the 80’s for $116k. Across the street developers bought shacks on 50’ lots and replaced them with duplexes. The first ones sold for $180k per unit – an 80’s pink stucco job. Dad was flabbergasted. The next ones sold for $230k per side. This time light green stucco. Dad thought that this was at the outer reaches of insanity. The buyers, yuppies, were a species with zero common sense. So when into this milieu came along a project that cost a couple of hundred million, people were staggered. This was a huge sum of money. But looking back, we can now see that Vancouver just hadn’t bought anything that big before. It wasn’t cheap, but it was just a natural stage of urban evolution where cities start having to put up real coin for transit infrastructure.
And yes the cars were small because the provincial government didn’t realize what they had started. But mercifully car size is scalable in a way that exclusive rights of way are not.
“In it [the Greer Report], he [Greer] declared that ‘the most relevant information advanced in support of the SkyTrain option was misleading, incomplete or unsubstantiated’.”
Although it is ancient history now, I actually agree with quite a few of the criticisms in the Greer report. The shorter segment was inadequately studied, and the true cost of the full T system, which is where the starter line eventually had to go, was buried. What the government discovered is that when you try to bring an LRT system up to metro levels of service, you end up spending the same amount of money without actually reaching that same level of service. And if you leave the LRT as just grade running in an exclusive lane, you end up with something that is no different from an express bus system but much costlier. It is why LRT systems so rarely make sense. So the government decided on a metro level of service by buying the metro, basically passed on the Dodge and went for the Mercedes. But buying a Mercedes isn’t always good politics, so you get various obfuscations in the report. Downplaying LRT capacity, just costing out the initial segment when it did not make sense as a standalone, using a contractor as one of the consultants, etc etc. But Greer does get it wrong when he just says that LRT is cheaper. We all know that, but it’s not the same as a metro and you can’t compare the two. And of course the platform length thing is just a blooper on his part, more frequent services can use shorter trains.
And the spin has not entirely left these transit option reports. The Evergreen Line report also downplayed LRT capacity to make Skytrain look better when that wasn’t accurate. And the Toronto pro-LRT reports resort to just faking the numbers, Enron style.
Capacity is one of those things that are a favourite for fiddling, but usually by LRT advocates to distinguish BRT. The usual refrain is to say that there is a 4,000 ppdph demand for transit and LRT is the cheapest option that meets that demand. But that is the wrong way to look at it. The demand for a transit service is dynamic based on the quality of the service. So there is never just one demand for a service that must be met. If you provide a better service, more people will benefit from it.
“Perhaps most damning was a Light Rail for Vancouver Committee analysis, which concluded that an order for SkyTrain cars cost $42,000 per passenger space. That was more than double the cost per passenger space for light rail in Denver.”
It’s not damning at all. The cost of the ROW is the major cost of a metro system, not the cost of the rolling stock.
“However, Bombardier did not supply cars for the Canada Line.
A South Korean company, Hyundai Rotem, provided the longer and wider rail vehicles as part of a public-private partnership with SNC-Lavalin. The transit cars on the Canada Line have fewer seats and are incompatible with the rest of the system, which means it’s not a seamless transition at Waterfront Station.”
No kidding, it is a separate system built and run separately from Translink by a PPP. I hope people reading this don’t think we were just foolish enough to buy incompatible rolling stock. Because that would be foolish. But the fact is that a rail connection at Waterfront would be really expensive. The first 90’s era plans for the RAV line had it just continuing from Waterfront in a loop that went south, under the Expo Line at around Stadium, and then on to Richmond. That option was cheaper and graphically pleasing, but it did not provide the useful downtown stations that the as-built alignment does.
“Few Lower Mainland transit users realize that the rapid-transit system’s future may hinge on Bombardier’s willingness to make SkyTrain cars available at an affordable price over the long term.
Because it was proprietary technology when it came out, it’s debatable whether anyone else could legally manufacture cars for the Expo and Millennium lines.”
As has been pointed out before, this is just nonsense. The only thing proprietary would be the actual computer control system software, but everything else can be sourced from anybody. Linear induction motors are not new technology and must be off patent for decades now.
“SkyTrain’s high capital costs coupled with relatively low capacity meant that few cities bought this technology.
It’s expensive to build a separate guideway and add tunnels for an intermediate-capacity system like SkyTrain because it’s hard to recover much of that investment through the farebox.”
More rubbish. Skytrain does not have high capital costs compared to other metro systems, it does not have lower capacity if larger cars are used and certainly not if longer trains are used, and it has proven to have a good farebox recovery ratio. Better than North American LRT systems. Neither cover their capital costs, but Skytrain pretty much covers its op costs.
“From a capital-cost perspective, it’s far cheaper for cities to go with street-level light rail, as is being proposed by Surrey council, even if operating costs may be slightly higher.”
Yes it is cheaper. But first, they are not the same thing, and second, the lower farebox recovery means that the overall cost over time is not as favourable to LRT. In the same vein, you could buy a glass engagement ring instead of a diamond, but not everyone thinks that they are the same thing.
“SkyTrain-like systems were built in Mississauga, Kuala Lumpur, and at the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York.”
By Skytrain-like, I think the author means “supplied by Bombardier”. And yes, Bombardier has only supplied a few automatic metro systems. But if the author means metro systems, they are the dominant form of urban rapid transit, used all over the world. And automatic metro systems are now becoming the norm for new installations. The fact that Subaru only supplies a very small portion of the world’s automobiles is not a reflection on the popularity of the automobile itself. The same with metros.
“The vehicles are powered by linear-induction motors, which draw electricity from rails and braking. But nobody in Europe ever purchased this technology, though there are other systems in the world with linear-induction motors.”
Skytrain cars draw power from an electrified third rail, like almost all metro systems, but not from the running rails, and I don’t think from braking. (Maybe someone knows whether these cars have regenerative braking. Would be quite different than other systems because of the LIMs.) And the specific technology of linear induction motors is not significant. There are advantages and disadvantages to it. When it was developed, it had a definite advantage over conventional electric traction in acceleration and braking, but now with computer controlled traction systems, the steel wheel on steel rail systems are good too. But LIMs are not a big cost driver, and the technology adoption or not around the world does not matter to us.
“While dining with Bombardier executives at the Crespen facility, the Straight inquired whether the company could build SkyTrain cars inside the plant.”
Why on earth would you want to do that? Bombardier has a metro car facility to Thunder Bay that would make more sense or even just here again.
“Delcourt responded that he didn’t know if Bombardier could continue providing cars. But he quickly added that the company is producing ‘permanent-magnetic motors’ in France.”
And what do permanent magnet motors have to do with linear induction motors?
“The Straight then asked if other transportation companies could provide rail vehicles on the Expo and Millennium lines should Bombardier choose not to make SkyTrain cars.
Froger, the director of communications, interjected by saying ‘it’s beyond what we know.’
She had noted more than once that day that she didn’t feel qualified to comment on what’s happening in Canada because she worked for Bombardier’s division in France.
He conceded that Bombardier’s French officials in the room didn’t know about the technology. Delcourt also noted that a study would be necessary to determine the feasibility.
‘But I mean, nothing is impossible,’ he said in an optimistic tone.”
I think the whole of this part of the conversation can be put down to being polite.
“It looked a lot prettier and roomier than those cramped 30-year-old SkyTrain cars still in use on the Expo line.”
Again, no kidding. Why don’t you compare laptops from 1984 and 2014. You’d need an elephant’s lap and it would have 8k of RAM.
“It was part of a French government-financed program giving Canadian journalists a chance to study urban-transportation systems in that country.”
Yo France. Next time you invite people over to look at your public transport systems, why not invite people that are actually interested in public transportation? I’m available.
What a exegesis!
We could add that virtually every rail transportation is build on spec. Toronto (no standard gauge, be for its streetcar or subway, thought the new LRT will be standard gauge, Montreal subway use a “rubber tyre” proprietary technology… in France Bordeaux LRT use powering by ground..).
One can’t honestly cherry pick an aspect of a transportation system to make a judgement on the whole…if you do so, you will stick with the bus since it is still the less expensive in term of capital investment!
A transportation system needs to be compared in a holistic manner (whole life cycle cost), and obviously its cost weighted again its benefit.
here is an example of cost comparison:
http://voony.wordpress.com/2011/11/15/sacramento-a-lrt-success/
In some case LRT can be the best choice, but in some other skytrain like metro are…and in some other like Surrey, The Translink study sas, the BRT is the best option mainly because there is not sufficient ridership to justify heavier investment.
SkyTrain has done extremely well in Metro Vancouver. There’s no arguing with that.
Acknowledging that success should, however, be balanced against the opportunities and decades of service that were lost when a Premier eager for friends in Ontario tossed the original plan out the window.
Maybe LRT to Richmond wasn’t justified in 1986, but you can bet this region would look very different had the line been built in time for Expo 86 instead of 2010. The same can be said for all of the communities that had to wait or continue to wait for rail transit today.
We’ll never know how things might have turned out, but I’m sure we’d still be debating problems plaguing our transportation system.