The illustration, above, is from a Courier article by Mike Howell yesterday on the Arbutus Corridor. I posted earlier in the week about potential conflicting visions of the corridor’s use. Howell’s story reflected the same concern:
It’s fairly narrow and I can’t picture a streetcar running through the same swath of land proposed for pedestrians, joggers and cyclists. I guess that’s why I’m a reporter and Jerry Dobrovolny is the city’s general manager of engineering. I spoke to Dobrovolny Monday near the section of existing rail track at Sixth and Burrard.
“You’re actually pointing to the two sections that are the biggest challenge,” he said of the stretch. “From Sixth Avenue here and then going north from here are the narrowest sections. They’re might be some places there where we do things off-street.”
Off-street?
“We’ll look at all of our city holdings, not just the rail right-of-way that we purchased,” he continued. “So it may be that the streetcar runs in the street on Sixth Avenue in that section. That’s the thing about streetcars – in downtown Toronto or San Francisco – is you can run in and out of traffic. If you’re able to keep it separate from traffic, obviously you can move more quickly with less interruptions. But there’s no reason you can’t operate in traffic when you need to.”
Speed has been a major argument for running Skytrain technology eventually to UBC rather than surface rail. In this case, speed appears to be negotiable vis-à-vis other wishes, like a linear park.
Streetcars are from a yesteryear world. They make no sense whatsoever in today’s world. Only a few European cities still have them as a nostalgic reminder of their urban transport system from 100+ years ago or because they had dedicated corridors.
Almost no one installs new streetcars anywhere. They are as slow as buses, far more disruptive and far more expensive.
Either go underground (or above ground) or use a bus, perhaps in a dedicated HOV lane.
“Only a few European cities still have them…”
Toronto. San Francisco. Portland. Boston. Cleveland. Philadelphia. Tucson. Newark. Salt Lake City. Mexico City.
And that’s just North America. I’ll bet there are many in Asia too. But if we start counting Europe you’re going to run out of fingers and toes.
I used one all the time in Rotterdam, and while for the most part it used a private route away from traffic, narrow streets occasionally meant it had to play with others … exactly once there was a car double parked which delayed things for a couple mins … the rest of the time, no biggie. Yes, there will be occasional things that slow the tram when it has to play with streets, but most of the time, it really shouldn’t be much of an issue.
“Only a few European cities still have them…”
In addition to the quick list of trams in North America there are currently operating: Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, The Gold Coast, Dalian, Cangchun, Hong Kong,
Calcutta, Sapporo, Hakodate City, Tokyo, Kamakura, Toyohashi, Toyama, Takaoka,
Kyoto, Osaka, Okayama, Hiroshima, Matsuyama, Kochi, Nagasaki, Kumamoto,
Kagoshima, Pyonyang, Chongjin, Dubai, Tashkent, Algiers, Constantine, Oran,
Heliopolis, Rabat, Casablanca, Tunis, Gmunden, Graz, Innsbruck, Linz, Vienna,
Minsk, Mazyr, Novopolotsk, Vitebsk, Antwerp, Ghent, Brussels, Sarajevo, Sofia,
Zagreb, Osijek, Prague, Brno, Ostrava, Plzen, Olomouc, Most/Litvínov,
Liberec/Jablonec. Tallinn, Helsinki, Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, Grenoble,
Montpellier, St Etienne, Strasbourg, Zurich, Lucern, Bern, Geneva, Lauzanne,
Basel, Athens, Istanbul, Budapest, Miskolc, Debrecen, Szeged, Dublin, Bergamo,
Cagliari, Florence, Messina, Venice, Milan, Naples, Padova, Palermo, Rome,
Sassari, Trieste, Turin, Riga, Daugavpils, Liepaja, Amstrdam, Rottterdam, The
Hague, Oslo, Trondheim, Bydgoszcz, Czestochowa, Elblag, Gdansk, Gorzów
Wielkopolski, Upper Silesian Industrial Region, Grudziadz, Kraków, Lódz,
Olsztyn, Poznan, Szczecin, Torun, Warsaw, Wroclaw, Lisbon, Porto, Arad,
Botosani, Braila, Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Craiova, Galati, Iasi, Oradea,
Ploiesti, Resita, Sibiu, Timisoara Belgrade, Bratislava, Kosice, Alicante,
Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Murcia, Parla, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Seville,
Valencia, Vélez-Málaga, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Zaragoza, Gothenberg, Stockholm,
Liverpool, Ashton under Lyne, Manchester, Sheffield, West Midlands, South
London, Nottingham, Edinberg, St. Petersburg. There are too many to bother
listing all the ones in Germany.
“Almost no one installs new streetcars anywhere.”
In compiling the above list I noted that a dozen or so were new and dozens more are under construction or in planning.
Zurich decided on an optimized streetcar system rather than a subway. They run in their own exclusive lanes and maintain a highly integrated and predictable timetable. They do have commuter rail as well to serve satellite cities but the city itself is served almost exclusively by streetcars. They are not a relic of the past. Cities all over Europe maintain and improve them because they work so well.
How important is speed? Advocates for grade separated systems like SkyTrain always ignore the extra time it takes to get to stations which are almost always much farther apart than at-grade systems. They ignore the time spent on multiple flights of stairs and escalators. And they always use end to end time differences even though most people do not ride end to end. In many cases the door to door time differences between trams and subways is similar. But the experience for the rider is much more humane above ground than in a dark smelly hole.
I suggest you read up a bit more on transit planning and urbanism. I’ve concluded that we need a really good selection of tools in the transit toolkit, not just one or two, to address our current and the oncoming challenges.
Jarrett Walker addresses this very well in his posts on streetcars vs. grade separated systems, and nails it when he emphasizes the importance of geometry and frequency. With linear routes and high frequencies, the 45 seconds it takes on average to get from the ticket hall to the platform at several SkyTrain and Canada Line stations (I timed it) is an irrelevant issue when six-car trains arrive every 75 seconds (8 trains every 5 minutes in both directions) and travels at 80 kph between stations. Another issue is confusing local (slower) travel with regional (faster) travel, which is also related to the type of urbanism.
http://humantransit.org/2010/04/is-speed-obsolete.html
There is a role for all transit technologies, and they need to be adapted appropriately to the myriad of circumstances presented to us in our cities.
No argument there. I’m not opposed to faster systems. Trams can play an important role but are often dismissed as too slow. That misses the point of their niche.
Certainly we need a mix of regional and local transportation options. In most places local can be handled most efficiently using buses.
I do want to take issue with your numerical argument, however. The 45 seconds it takes an able bodied person to get from ticket hall to platform is indeed irrelevant because it’s measuring the wrong thing. Street to platform would be better, but still misses the big picture.
The real difference between local and regional systems is how long it takes to reach the station in the first place.
For commuter rail like Toronto’s GO trains and the WCE or a regional subway like BART there is usually just one stop per town. There is significant travel time and inconvenience just getting to the regional system. Both local transit and park-and-ride are needed to make those systems viable.
Metros like our SkyTrain have closer stop spacing, but still rely on local transit to transport most customers from their real origins to the metro and sometimes from the metro to their final destination. Local transit is required in parallel because many passengers have an origin or destination somewhere between the stations and cannot or will not walk that far.
A streetcar is designed so that every destination along the route is within easy walking distance of a stop. Perpendicular routes are still needed, but no parallel local transit is necessary.
I don’t know if Vancouver has many places where a streetcar would make sense.
Vancouver was built around the streetcar and most of the commercial arterials would still make sense. The suburbs are another story. But there are places like Lonsdale, Kingsway and East Hastings through Burnaby.
My point being that most of the streetcar suitable streets already have perfectly good bus service. Switching from electric buses to electric trains doesn’t make sense unless and until the buses cannot get the job done.
If we’re going to look seriously for a candidate based on an existing supply/demand imbalance then I’m pretty sure the #20 on Victoria Drive is first in line. That being said the buses are able to service the hill between Harrison and 54th whereas a tram might not be able to cope with the grade. Also the section between SkyTrain and Kingsway is quite narrow and would definitely require some land acquisition and/or a serious rethinking about car traffic.
The trams in Zurich are great, they are great because Zurich made the sacrifices to make them work. They (and buses) are priorized over car traffic. They are also integrated into the greater transportation system. The ridership on the trams is also dwarfed by the ridership on the Sbahn lines. If Zurich’s trams shut down it would be an inconvenience, if the Sbahn shut down Zurich would shut down.
Because you could conceivably walk and certainly ride a bike if the trams were down. Not so easy with the longer distance commuter trains. But that is part of the argument against higher speeds. They often lead to more sprawl – albeit a better form of sprawl than auto-dependent it is still time and energy that serves no one well.
Switzerland’s excellent rail system has led to an absurd amount of long distance commuting.
The thing to remember in nearly any North American context is that the sprawl already happened. Transit is not a matter of enabling it, but of improving it when it reaches outward
And no one ever counts the cost of the extra bus service required to cover the distance between stations..Not that anyone asks passengers about, or studies the response of, the comfort level of an above ground neighbourhood friendly form of transit vs underground. The only place that I recall was San Francisco re Market Street and the preference for streetcars vs the bus or underground..Boston did a similar study on streetcar vs bus with the same preference for streetcar. Anyone who ever rode a PCC in Toronto and compared it to a bus would have come to the same conclusion…Or do you prefer to be slammed from one side of the bus to the other while standing, more fun, I guess. You do not have to go to Europe to find streetcars as was said. Denver, Washington, DC, San Diego etc., the list is growing, but not for SkyTrain technology.
“Or do you prefer to be slammed from one side of the bus to the other while standing,”
The answer to this is to provide enough capacity that standing in a moving vehicle isn’t necessary. Fully within our capabilities if the will is there.
The Arbutus corridor is suited for light rail both because of the contiguous surface property and because the route is unlikely to ever require higher passenger loads than LRT can deliver. I think there is a good argument (especially from people opposed to major upzoning) that even LRT is overkill and that buses can do the job. To me, the biggest question is whether the hypothetical rail line would go where people need to go. The #16 is packed, but it’s not a great comparison because it goes downtown. Unless some ambitious plan to connect over False Creek, or major commercial rezoning envisioned around the terminus, I don’t really see the ridership.
So… streetcar then.
Dig’her out and build a subway. Cheap to dig now. Then put a ped/bike path on top.
But that is unlikely given our timid “vision” and car oreinted provincial politicians whose major transit contribution the last 20 years for Metrovan is more bike lanes amid the sea of high-rises. The Canadaline was a fluke of luck due to the Olympics as the (conservative!) feds opened their purse very quickly. This is “vision” ? This is good stewardship ? This is leadership ? Build, and approve a few more buses ? A second N-S connection under Granville or Burrard is certainly required, for rapid transit, not just buses or slow streetcars. So if they can get a train over Granville and then along / below this cheap to dig out Arbutus corridor with more highrises construction, say at 16th, 41st, , 76th and False Creek Terminus then that is what should be done.
But if history is any guidance we’ll see a nice ped/bike path only and then wonder why there is traffic gridlock. This is “vision” ? This is good stewardship ? This is leadership ?
Right. Because of the nature of this corridor, a cut-and-cover method wouldn’t disrupt anyone. That’s of course only if there is a need for a subway there.
I’ve seen smallish subways that were very shallow underground. Pretty easy to dig.
Why on Earth would you spend all the money to build a cut and cover subway along Arbutus? Its a perfect streetcar route as it has limited at grade crossings thanks to its history. Not that I ever think it will get built. This purchase was just a $50 million+ exercise in giving the West Side yet another park.
Subways are the result of car oriented thinking: Don’t let those pesky transit riders take away my precious road space.
CP was given an option to acquire the lands north of 6th Ave.
That suggests a link from the Arbutus Corridor to the “greenway” on the deck of Granville Bridge across 6th Ave.
A downtown connection is certainly possible – it’s just a question of when.
In 10 years there will be so many people walking and cycling on the greenway that any thought of LRT or streetcar will be abandoned.
Unlikely. Pt. Grey Road is well used because it connects to the beaches along English Bay, a ready-made leisure route. Unless people have a burning desire to cycle to the rather dull retail in Kerrisdale, there’s no real draw.
This post and the previous ones on the arbutus corridor are based on misconceptions eventually leading to red-herring if not shenanigans.
First, it is important people clarify their mind about the difference between streetcar, tram, LRT, heavy rail and freight train.
So far the The vision put for on the Arbutus corridor is the one of a tram (the Lyon’s tram is used to illustrated it). From there let’s dispel some myths
Tram is a technology of the past
should we really dispel that ?
1/ Tram = 20,000 tons freight train.
….so meddle a tramway, bike and people is the recipe for disaster, and people have to picture White Rock:
http://www.mulhouse-alsace.fr/sites/default/files/styles/mini-home/public/upload/visuels/mini_home/minihomedeplacement.jpg
This is typical pattern seen in countless European cities.
Tramway in fact are coaches like buses are. And doesn’t require any different level of separation than bus to operate safely in mixed environement.
Even more, Thought Europeans tram tend to operates in totally mixed environment (including pedestrianized street), when North American LRT tend to be physically separated (by fence, gate protecting crossing…), European tram have better safety record than the american LRTs. (an explanation can be found here)
Great photo, Voony! I am guilty of sloppy language in my above post. I think most people speculating about rail transit on the Arbutus corridor (including the city) imagine the kind of tram system you describe here, not fenced-in North American-style LRT.
The Arbutus corridor is far narrower than shown here in your picture. It must be a cheap to dig dual track subway, or a cutzy one track slow tram which is noisy in the somewhat curvy Arbutus corridor. I can already hear the noise complaints of current residents nearby.
This is pretty typical of the width of most of the Arbutus Corridor.
The curve is pretty gentle. No reason it should be noisy.
Virtually the entire corridor supported dual tracks when it was being used for the old Interurban line. Lots of it is overgrown with weeds and bushes making it seem narrower than it really is. Remember, this WAS a rail corridor, nobody is talking about doing anything radically different than what the original engineering behind the route intended.
Dispeling myth: follow-up:
There is no room here to do what is shown there
It is not to under estimate the technical challenges, but with this kind of thinking Amsterdam could have not built a tram:
http://www.gutib.be/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/3463344155_77275c1721_z.jpg
For practical purpose, in the context of Vancouver,, the planner would like to avoid to have the tram reversing direction due to a cul de sac line design. From 6th#Fir, they would like cut accross the Granville Loop to reach the line along 6th avenue East of Granville. Discussion on the whether it is better to do this connection or direct the line to downtown also illustrates the futility at this stage of the discussion raised in this very post on the narrowness of the ROW north of 6th: that is a typical red-herring.
However, there is some good point raised here and there:
1/ the Arbutus railway alignment make it a good candidate fro a recreational bikeway, since it offer a very gentle grade.
2/ Is the alignment suitable for Public Transit
Like a road can be a freeway, or a neighbourhood street: it is important to understand what kind of public transit can fit here: Is it a fast link between point A or B, or is it a link aimed to irrigate the neighbourhood with a relatively slow but very accessible transit offer
(or in another word, what could be the average trip length, if it is 4km or even less, in the advent of a Subway subway, speed is less critical than if it is 10km).
Then, when this is well understood, one will notice what make an advantage for the bikes could play at the disadvantage of Transit in this very case: the commercial and high density area of Arbutus between 33rd and 25th are ignored by the rail alignment!
It is greatly possible an alignment on the Arbutus street itself work much better (in that sense it could be reminiscent of the Paris Petite Ceinture rail track rail of way which has been considered as finally much less attractive than the street itself).
One has also to question is the ridership justifying a rail link: I have heard that the #16 is the least patronized trolley route…
As previously mentioned, realistically, once a greenway is in place, one can say pretty much “good-bye” to the conversion of the corridor back into a tram corridor unless it proves much cheaper than other option to resolve an existing problem…
“1/ the Arbutus railway alignment make it a good candidate for a recreational bikeway, since it offer a very gentle grade.”
Why not an excellent candidate for a commuter bikeway to downtown via both Burrard Bridge and Granville Bridge? This could also serve commuters from Richmond, especially those using e-bikes. It would be an excellent bike route to YVR as well. This could also serve cycle tourists arriving from the border and the Tsawwassen Ferry. And finally, it would make the backbone of safe routes to the 18 schools along the corridor. Access to community centres, libraries, shopping. Underpasses at major arterials. Safe direct, convenient. This has the potential of being a really busy cycling route for many uses. A major addition to the transportation network. Also, much cheaper than streetcar and probably faster as well, especially if you measure door to door trip time which is the only measure which is meaningful.
2% of the population applaud while 98% stay stuck in traffic or on the crowded buses / trains !
Will we allow covered e-bikes or e-carts, too ? Why not a road for electric vehicles only ?
Women with strollers and slow kids: beware ! Walk elsewhere as the 45km/h e-bike driven by Arno & Co might slam you hard …
Keep in mind a society consists of young and old folks too .. and while e-Bose appeal to some and actually make common sense in hilly cities like Vancouver you are really pushing a transportation option for very very few today
‘Women on bikes and slow cyclists: beware ! Cycle elsewhere as the 70km/h g-car driven by Thomas & Co might slam you hard …’
Did that make any more sense than saying similar about bikes?
Given the health benefits of cycling, it would behoove many to get out and find out for themselves that hills aren’t really that bad.
Also, given how expensive a car is, no matter how much an e-bike might be, it’s an irrelevant number … its only because there aren’t easy leasing options that bring a bikes cost down to $20-50 a month (compared with $200-500/month for an entirely average car) that they aren’t more used.
The laws in Germany, for instance, for e-bikes have strict limits on how powerful they can be, and how much boost they can give (unlike cars, how many Ferraris have you heard doing 100 downtown just because they can?) … if you’re worried about a 40lb e-bike ‘hurtling’ at you at 40kph, I shudder to think how much a 4000lb car doing 60kph+ must keep you up at night. I would suggest also that the mobility of a bike enables it to travel at any given speed much more safely than a car at that same speed (both in maneuverability and braking ability).
Society does consist of young and old folks … and somehow, elsewhere, these young and old folks have no problems biking anywhere they need to go, I’ve had little old ladies keep up with me going up stairs in Dubrovnik (and Cinqe Terre, Montmartre, and we could go on with this list for quite some time) that have nearly forced me to take breathers, somehow they don’t stay at home and rely on people making excuses for them for being put upon because their hilly city pushes a transportation option that they don’t want.
People don’t bike because there aren’t safe places to bike. When there are safe places to bike, people bike. Bike paths which force bikes to interact with ‘women with strollers’ are not safe places to bike, which means they aren’t designed correctly. This should be a false comparison of options which should be entirely non oppositional. One can easily have both Safe Strollers and Swift Cycling.
You wrote a post last week about squatting whilst parking … why not a similar one for the squatting whilst moving that streets require? In comparison to bikes, there is an entirely analogous ‘waste’ of space which is an externality not paid for through the act of parking. If anything like the same $ per person was spent on bike infrastructure, it would not be an option for the few, and so your 2% would quickly become 20%.
… before I get questions about the unreasonableness of 20%…
“Indeed, if you ride around Denmark’s second-largest city, Aarhus, you’ll feel some burn in your thighs as you head home with groceries in your bike basket. And yet the city has 18% modal share for bicycles. Aarhus compares to Sydney, Seattle, Gothenburg or Oslo.”
http://www.copenhagenize.com/2007/11/debunking-flat-countrybike-country-myth.html
Thomas, I hope you are kidding me, but just in case you are serious:
– Already Vancouver residents make over 5% of trips by bike bike compared to only 17% by transit. And cycling is by far the fastest growing mode of transportation.
– Covered? Just wear decent rain gear. Like the 30% in Copenhagen who ride all winter.
– Women with strollers will be on the walking path. E-bikes are limited to 32km/hr. Do women with strollers walk on the roads?
– This greenway will accommodate all ages and abilities. Like I mentioned, a backbone for safe routes to 18 schools.
– Over 5% today, and up to 15% in some areas of the city. Cycling is already a serious mode of transportation. With more decent infrastructure – like the Arbutus Greenway – there is no reason that the cycling mode could not grow to levels seen in some European countries. A good comparison would be Malmo, Sweden. There, automobile and transit mode share is 50% and 18% while cycling mode share is 25%. There is no reason that Vancouver could not have similar numbers. I am sure they are saving scads of money in Malmo by building first class cycling infrastructure and are doing citizens a big favour by building a great transportation system.
– Very few today? Already 25% of adults in BC ride a bike at least once a week – probably way more in Vancouver. 65% of adults report that they would ride more if cycling facilities were improved. Looks like we have lots of people riding already and an enormous potential to grow this number with ongoing investments in cycling like the Arbutus Greenway.
It would be interesting to compare the costs of a streetcar (or subway) to the costs of a bikeway with the same capacity to move people. Also, do a calculation for a roadway if one could even fit it into the corridor. I am sure that cycling will easily win. If one compares benefits to society, cycling will be even further ahead.
‘Women with strollers and slow kids’
Not only seems Thomas unaware of ebike speed regulation in BC and the number of people biking in Vancouver, but thinks it is of course women who are behind strollers.
This is classic “Your children will be threatened” stuff. When things are clearly delineated then these hypothetical women with strollers will know where to go and where to look both ways when crossing. Much as they do now on every street. There’s no need to beware.
It also would mean that when these same women have their children on their bike, or beside them with their own bikes, they’ll have a better time.
One cool thing about this tram solution in Amsterdam… there are no switches. There are actually two overlapping tracks set inches apart.
Yeah, leave the option for tram there somehow but don’t get bogged down too much with it.
Grab your shoes and your bike (that can do gravel) and go there now. It’s already a nice corridor as it is now.
Here’s a thought: what if SkyTrain were to run along the Broadway corridor to Arbutus station and then fork into two branches: one continuing to UBC and one heading south up to the Arbutus corridor to Kerrisdale, etc.? Suppose two-thirds of trains took the former route and one-third the latter. Thusly, very frequent service could be provided between Arbutus and VCC-Clark and less frequent service to UBC and up the Arbutus corridor. I have read in many places that there is concern about ridership between Arbutus station and UBC once the Broadway line is built. And I think it’s fair to be skeptical about how much ridership there would be on an Arbutus corridor SkyTrain, at least initially. This alignment would mitigate those concerns somewhat. Of course the capital costs would still be there, but the operating costs of each of the UBC extension and the Arbutus corridor line could be greatly mitigated in this fashion. It’s possible that it would be preferable to building two separate lines, each with full-time, round-trip service.
Putting aside the above, in terms of building a new, dedicated tram line running along the Arbutus corridor, I’m all for it but I think that practically it will be far at the back of the line for provincial / regional funding. Surrey Centre, East Hastings and perhaps Victoria and Commercial Drives would all seem to make more sense, given relative densities. It’s also not clear to me where you would put the stations along Arbutus: there’s really not much within a five-minute walk of King Ed & West Boulevard or W.33rd & Pine Crescent and the latter does not seem to be a likely candidate for substantial upzoning in the near future. And either one of those stations would remain a fairly substantial (walking) distance from Prince of Wales Secondary compared to the existing bus line. And south of West 49th, it’s not clear to me where this line is going and whether reasonably foreseeable future densities would support it going any further. This is why it might make sense to just have a 2-3 stop spur line of SkyTrain to the Kerrisdale area, where substantial upzoning of both residential and commercial is a realistic possibility.