Kent Acott, a reporter from the West Australian, a newspaper based in Perth, was in Vancouver earlier this month to take an in-depth look at our transportation system – an issue also of keen interest in WA (West Australia).
Here are excerpts from his coverage:
..
Cars come last in transport planning
About 50 years ago, two cities on opposite sides of the world faced the similar threat of a growing, car-dependent population.
Their responses could not have been more different.
Perth built roads.
Vancouver did not. …
“Saying no to the freeways in the late 1960s and early 1970s was very likely the most important decision earlier generations of Vancouver leaders ever made,” former Vancouver chief planner and urban design consultant Brent Toderian said.
“It set our city on the path of counterintuitive city-building.
“Since then we’ve built a huge amount of housing downtown, mixed-use and more compact communities and a much more walkable, public transport-friendly and increasingly bikeable city.
“It made our city more liveable, green, healthy and economically successful. Luckily, earlier generations rejected freeway thinking and our city owes them a huge debt of gratitude.” .
.
Car gridlock forced city to blaze transport trail
Sun Fang is considered “the godfather” of the SkyTrain, having worked on the system since its early trials in 1982.
Mr Fang, who is retiring this year, said the system was a world-first and groundbreaking.
“This system was so unique we had nothing to compare it with,” Mr Fang said. “We were at the cutting edge then and we are at the cutting edge now.
“SkyTrain has proved to be one of the cheapest and most reliable transport systems in the world.
“We still get visitors from transport authorities around the globe wanting to see SkyTrain as a fully automated, driverless and unattended transport system.”
Fred Cummings, president and general manager of SkyTrain’s governing body BCRTC, said 258 railcars operated across the 68km of the system’s three lines – including one between the city and the airport.
“There is no doubt that we are one of the best performing and efficient public transport networks in the world,” Mr Cummings said.
“There are not many other networks that can claim to recoup the full cost of maintenance and operations through fares.”
.
Former city councillor and bike-riding advocate Gordon Price said both initiatives (Burrard Bridge and separated bike lanes) had prompted opposition from motorists and local businesses who were concerned at the loss of parking spaces outside their shops.
But, in both cases, the concerns have proved unfounded.
“A follow-up study has shown that traffic times are virtually the same, cycle trips are way up, collisions have dropped 18 per cent and businesses have suffered very little,” Mr Price said.
Similar concerns have also been expressed by motorists and businesses in Perth.
As recently as last month, scuffles broke out at a City of Vincent council meeting amid concerns that a new bike plan would lead to fewer carparking bays in Oxford Street.
“What these businesses don’t realise is that pedestrians and bike riders are more likely to stop and spend money,” Mr Price said. “And if you can create an environment that encourages pedestrians and bike riders to spend some time in a particular area, the economic benefits are even greater.”
.
Pricing and choice are keys to traffic success
WA’s Economic Regulation Authority, in its landmark report into microeconomic reform, recommended that motorists be charged to enter Perth’s CBD during peak hours.
It said the State Government should investigate better use of existing infrastructure, including “demand management tools” such as congestion pricing before considering costly new infrastructure spending.
The ERA said congestion in Perth had been caused in part by “underpricing of road use”, costing the community $1.6 billion a year of increased travel times, pollution costs and extra fuel costs. TransLink strategic planning and policy director Tamim Raad said a new funding stream would allow the city to work towards an important objective of the Vancouver vision – to create compact urban areas where walking, cycling and public transport were convenient transport options.
And Mr Raad, who lived and worked in Perth during the 1990s, said fewer cars, less driving and more walking, cycling and public transport would generate many other benefits.
These would include saving about $500 a year on transport costs, reducing congestion by 10 per cent and cutting daily commute times by between 20 and 30 minutes.
“At the moment about 50 per cent of the population live within 400m of a public transport service that has a frequency of less than 15 minutes, operates for 15 hours a day and for seven days a week,” he said.
“We want to increase that figure significantly.
“But our emphasis is to get more people walking and riding their bikes.
“This is the area where we can make the greatest progress at the lowest net cost.”
Sorry but I am getting a bit sick of this we didn’t build freeways and you did commentary. The reality is all that Freeway traffic simply transforms at the City of Vancouver boundaries into Stroad traffic, 6 lane arterials designed to more traffic around the city. Hastings, Granville, Cambie, Main, Knight, Broadway, 2nd, 1st, 4th, Fraser, the list goes on and on. Unfortunately Vancouver’s best walkable, historic fine grain retail neighbourhoods with the exception of Gastown, are linear and are located along some of these high volume noisy arterals in the case of Main, South Granville, 4th. Until we can gets the guts to Road Diet these Stroads by taking away the excess lanes for better public realm we really shouldn’t be saying to the world how great we are at discouraging traffic into the city.
Vancouver needs more subways. Buses won’t cut it as they are as slow or worse than cars, ugly, noisy, no A/C in the summer, air polluting, uncomfortable, wobbly and take up valuable surface land.
Getting around Vancouver is getting worse by the year as cars are slow and buses even slower. The only way out in a city growing at 2-3% population growth annually is more expensive car use (i.e. higher annual fees, far higher parking fees and road tolling) and more subways. Roads need to be so expensive that a certain throughput of cars is guaranteed, such as shown in Singapore. Plus far better and faster transit options.
When will we see this ? In my lifetime .. before 2050 ?
Don’t agree that subways are the answer, incredibly expensive to build. How do you say buses are polluting when we run electric trolley buses? We could start with removing the minimum parking requirements for businesses, and condo towers. All the density is coming with an underground carpark and thus a car. Taking away lanes making it harder to commute into the city and restoring the street vibrancy and lingering potential for our old walkable high streets. Had dinner outside on Main Street the other day and the traffic speeds do not allow for conversation, 30-40 km/h max for audible conversations. Since you are so opposed to traffic and pollution, why don’t you live car free? Also I suggest you read this blog below, I think it would help to inform you on transit choices and their associated costs.
http://transportblog.co.nz/
Certainly a great recipe for handing economic growth to Surrey, and Resort City irrelevance to Vancouver.
The fact is the shopworn We Rejected Freeways cliche applies to merely a small section of Metro Vancouver.
I appreciate & understand the cost side, but there is the benefit side too: more pedestrian zones, higher real estate value, more curb appeal. Look at Granville downtown: full of buses. UGLY. USELESS corridor. BUMS. And few shops. If we had a subway there that would be vibrant.
Don’t look only at cost, but also livability benefits.
Thomas, there is a subway along the Granville Corridor its called the Canada Line. Granville is a vibrant street, one of my favourites in the city, a mix of old and new, fine grain retail, street trees. There are “Bums” as you put it, everywhere in Vancouver, Davie Street has a lo of street people. I think you tend to over simplify things mate.
Perth, despite its freeways, has 6 surface electric rail transit lines to the suburbs with rail cars staffed for security with more than acceptable service, a downtown core to be admired for its malls and pedestrian freedom, four free downtown circular bus routes and a compass card system that works on both buses, ferries and trains. It beats Skytrain for service to a whole metro area as opposed to the limited and very expensive and long building elevated service which we have which does not reach nor offer reasonable transit service to other areas outside of a few metro service areas. Even Granville and downtown are really not serviced by a sufficient number of stations either on the Canada line (not Skytrain system) or the Expo line.The Arbutus line debate only makes me sad as the creme de la creme did not want transit on that line so we got an insufficient, inadequate Canada line.I loved Perth in visiting it last year and we did not use our rented car as it was cheaper and more efficient to take a bus and then connect with the suburban service to downtown Perth. Too bad Translink did not go to Perth as opposed to London…
I lived in Perth for a couple of months, including a one month working stint. The train lines are excellent, but the connecting buses suffer from shorter operating hours and lower frequencies than many Translink routes. With three freeways connecting directly to downtown and numerous other highways throughout the region, it is simply too easy to drive around.
While there are many areas where Vancouver could improve transit, our ridership numbers (14% mode share, 238 million riders/year) are better than Perth (10% mode share, 131 million riders/year ).
I’m with Myron. Perth doesn’t seem worse than Vancouver to me. I had no car during my two visits and was able to use transit to get around with no problems. And I was staying in the suburbs.
Perth is cool. Vancouver needs to stop pretending its the greatest place in the world sometimes.