Although not a classic tram or light rail system, the Budapest HÉV system deserves a mentioning, because the rail line combines on-street operation (on a reserved rights-of-ways) in downtown Csepel, as well as classic railway operation.
See the HÉV System
The following is a summery of the Vogtlandbahn TramTrain operation in Germany. Contrary to TransLink’s (and Metro Vancouver and Liberal government) spin that one needs oodles & oodles of density for ‘rail‘ transit, the continues success of new TramTrain operations dispels the many negative myths.
The SkyTrain lobby is also desperately hard at work spreading myth and tall tales about LRT, that it can’t do this or it can’t do that and TransLink continues to support these negative myths by claiming that LRT can carry only about 10,000 pphpd and streetcars much less. The truth be know, LRT can carry over 20,000 pphpd! The fear is widespread among transit and planning bureaucrats that LRT, built and operated in any form, will give an apples to apples comparison of light rail and their beloved SkyTrain. The push to build the Evergreen line in the Tri-cities, planning for SkyTrain expansion in surrey and the $4 billion UBC/Broadway subway point to their anti LRT agenda.
TramTrain is about economy and giving the transit customer want he wants, a one stop (no-transfer) travel experience. To provide this, one must plan for cheap transit options, not gold-plated metro and TramTrain is the cheapest light rail option available.
Valley politicians have a choice, either continue supporting SkyTrain light-metro which never will be built or BRT, which has proven not to attract the motorist from the car – or – support TramTrain, a proven transit mode for reducing auto congestion and gridlock for the Fraser Valley.
The Vogtlandbahn Tram-Trains & Interurbans
The Vogtlandbahn is a private railway company in Germany, which runs diesel trains on regional lines in the states of Saxony, Thuringia, Bavaria, Brandenburg, and Berlin and as well as routes into the Czech Republic. Vogtlandbahn is wholly owned by the Arriva subsidiary Regentalbahn.
After German Reunification in 1990, there was a sharp drop in passenger numbers on the local rail network. The railways had old locomotives rolling stock and couldn’t compete with the rapidly improving roads. The Saxony government invested in an attempt to improve the attractiveness of the Zwickau–Falkenstein–Klingenthal line and the Herlasgrün–Falkenstein–Adorf Line, the track was relaid to a 80 km/h standard, disabled access was facilitated at all stations and new stations opened. Train and track maintenace was rationalised and to reduce costs some stations such as Schöneck were restyled as simple halts.
The investments in upgraded track and rolling stock proved successul and reversed the fortunes of the reailway.
A further success, is the extension of the network into Zwickau town centre (TramTrain). Following the example set by very successful Karlsruhe Zweisystem (TramTrain), the lines extend from Zwickau Hauptbahnhof (Main Railway Station) to the central market. As most of the Vogtland network has not been electrified, the train-trams do not use current from the overhead tramwires (as in Karlsruhe) but use diesel engines. From there to Zentrum the train and the tram use the same tracks. To do this, dual-gauge track has been laid; there are three rails, the tram uses metre gauge(1000 mm), and the Vogtlandbahn uses standard gauge (1435 mm). An extra rail was laid next to the tram line so that they share one rail and each use one of the others as appropriate.
Success followed success and several abandoned or disused railway lines were relaid or upgraded for servcie. Today the Vogtlandbahn is the second largest railway company in Geramny.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtlandbahn
http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/de/private/passenger/Vogtlandbahn/RegioSprinter/pix.html
Chilliwack Progress#
http://www.bclocalnews.com/fraser_valley/theprogress/opinion/letters/105729548.html
William Chambers has very succinctly scored with a well landed punch on Sharon Gaetz, with this one.
Also in the Chilliwack Times
http://www.chilliwacktimes.com/news/High+cost+rail+just+myth/3727555/story.html
Langley Times#
Metro urged to recant rapid transit priority for Surrey
http://www.bclocalnews.com/surrey_area/langleytimes/news/105694708.html
Two more overpasses planned for Langleys
http://www.bclocalnews.com/surrey_area/langleytimes/news/105490118.html
Surrey Leader#
Make Bond use transit
http://www.bclocalnews.com/surrey_area/surreyleader/opinion/letters/105542243.html
The Province#
Valley commuters need bridge
http://www.theprovince.com/opinion/letters/Valley+commuters+need+bridge/3718612/story.html
A Siemens Combino tram in Budapest colours.
Gold Coast, Australia
http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2010/10/26/265831_gold-coast-news.ht
ml
Phoenix
Los Angeles
http://redondobeach.patch.com/articles/locals-prefer-light-rail
Denver
http://www.railway-technology.com/projects/eaglepcommuterrailpr/
Dulwich Hill, Sydney
http://lightrailextension.metrotransport.com.au/proposed-routes/light-rail-to-dulwich-hill/
Utrecht
On CKNW radio this morning, Fraser Valley transportation was discussed. Sadly, the mayor of Abbotsford, seems to be quite out of his depth on the issue.
For a listen, please follow the link and set at October 26, 10:00 am
The following was sent to Zwei by a very concerned urban transportation advocate.
All the SkyTrain lobby has is fear to debate light rail and spread fear they do. All technical debates between LRT and SkyTrain/light-metro have been won or lost decades ago and SkyTrain has been relegated to the history books. Like uber Regulus fanatics, the SkyTrain Lobby and its ilk, well entrenched in TransLink, desperately try to keep building with the aging SkyTrain system with any argument they can muster.
Zweisystem predicted over a decade ago, if TransLink persisted in building with SkyTrain/light metro, it would bankrupt itself and that prediction has come true, with TransLink, balancing on the knifes edge of financial peril. It can not fund the $1.4 billion SkyTrain Evergreen Line, it can’t fund the proposed $2 billion plus Surrey/Langley extension and TransLink certainly can’t fund the proposed $4 billion UBC/Broadway subway; yet TransLink still wastes the taxpayers money, playing the same games planning for light-metro that no one can afford.
Like a slow motion train wreck, TransLink skirts with financial oblivion, ignoring all danger signals, until it finally crashes into a brick financial wall.
In the end, as noted American transit expert, Gerald Fox: “But, eventually, Vancouver will need to adopt lower-cost LRT in its lesser corridors, or else limit the extent of its rail system. And that seems to make some TransLink people very nervous.”
The title could be for a doctorate or thesis on public attitudes & political psychology, towards public transport.
The anathema is not always or usual directed towards cost of a project. Over the last ten years or so of Light Rail advocacy, I has noted a number of key arguments which I have listed below.
To put this into a Fraser Valley/Vancouver/BC context.
An interesting little spat is taking place in Port Moody, where the city council want TransLink to chip in with the Murray-Clarke Connector project and if they don’t, they will pull their support for the Evergreen (Nevergreen) Line. This confirms two of Zwei’s opinions about the $1.4 billion light-metro project:
The artist’s rendering says it all, SkyTrain and the West Coast Express are almost hidden away by a massive new highway interchange, designed to handle large volumes of traffic.
Zweis thinks it is time for a moratorium on all transit (highway and rail) contraction and planning and the provincial government hold a Royal Commission on regional transit to get a proper foundation for the implantation of an affordable regional transit system.
Build Murray-Clarke — or Evergreen support goes: PM council
By Sarah Payne – The Tri-City News
Port Moody council may pull its support for the Evergreen Line if the Murray-Clarke Connector isn’t built.
At a special meeting Tuesday, council again discussed the 32 requirements it says are critical to its support for Evergreen. Among them is building the connector before construction of the rapid transit line.
But with TransLink struggling to cover the funding gap just to get Evergreen built — and pay for other needed transportation projects throughout the region — Murray-Clarke has fallen off the radar once again.
“It’s one of the prerequisites of us going along with the Evergreen Line,” said PoMo Mayor Joe Trasolini of the connector. “We’re very concerned that now it seems the Murray-Clarke Connector is being orphaned again. It’s nowhere on the priority list of TransLink” even though the previous board not only approved the project in 2008 but also allocated $50 million for its construction.
Costs for the connector, which will have to be extended to reach over the SkyTrain line, are now estimated at more than $70 million. PoMo has set aside $4 million for the project.
“Today, when we’re expecting it to be completed, all of a sudden TransLink doesn’t have it on its priority list,” Trasolini added. “It’s a great concern to us and should be to everyone east of us. It throws doubts on our support for construction of the Evergreen Line.”
TransLink must come up with $400 million for its share of the $1.4-billion Evergreen Line and Metro mayors have recently balked at suggestions to hike property taxes to pay for Evergreen and part of the North Fraser Perimeter Road (Option A: $465 million) or a handful of regional projects including expanded bus service and station upgrades (Option B: $338 million).
Trasolini says Murray-Clarke must be built regardless of those funding issues.
“With the narrow corridor in Port Moody, if the Murray-Clarke Connector remains undelivered when construction for the Evergreen Line starts, you can see the disruption we’ll have. This is not just a Port Moody problem, it’s a northeast sector problem.”
Trasolini maintains the connector is not a new TransLink expansion project but the completion of an existing project — the Barnet Highway — that was promised by the province more than 20 years ago.
But TransLink CEO Ian Jarvis sees it differently, noting earlier this month that the original justification for the connector was to protect Moody Centre businesses when the Evergreen Line was planned as an at-grade LRT system down St. Johns Street. With the switch to an elevated SkyTrain system, the Murray-Clarke Connector is no longer an urgent priority, Jarvis said.
Trasolini said it’s “absurd” that a one-lane overpass that causes rush-hour back-ups stretching for several kilometres is part of the inter-municipal corridor, echoing an earlier council discussion that suggested PoMo may withdraw the Murray-Clarke from TransLink’s major road network — and block access to it for commuters coming from outside Port Moody.
He also wants to know whether the new, provincially appointed TransLink board, whose meetings are closed to the public, rescinded approval and funding for Murray-Clarke.
Trasolini and city manager Gaetan Royer were to meet with TransLink executives today (Friday) to discuss the issue. Royer said it’s unclear what effect Port Moody’s withdrawal of support for Evergreen would have on the project or who will cover the increased cost of the Murray-Clarke Connector.
“We have a tougher job getting support for the Murray-Clarke Connector because now it’s going to cost more, it’s going to have to be a longer bridge,” Royer said. “We want the province, which is the lead of the Evergreen Line, to pay for the longer bridge… because it would be a smaller project were it not for the Evergreen Line.”
spayne@tricitynews.com
— with files from Jeff Nagel
http://www.bclocalnews.com/tri_city_maple_ridge/tricitynews/news/105477778.html
A new valley magazine and web site, Abbotsford Today doesn’t like the RftV/Leewood report and one wonders why? What do they want, more new highways or a SkyTrain that will never come?
http://www.abbotsfordtoday.ca/?p=46791
As stated before, the report was a feasibility study for the implantation of a TramTrain service using the old BC Electric (now Southern Railway of BC), route. Using existing railway rights-of-ways, greatly reduces the cost of providing rail transit for a region. Unlike the West Coast Express, which must purchase pathways from the CPR at onerous costs, the valley TramTrain has a statutory right to providing passenger rail service on the existing route.
It is hard to take the article seriously, when the author compares the report with the “………feasibility of an underground subway to Whistler……..”.
The issues of fares is important, but I don’t think the $25, quoted is correct; one way fares on a full build (Vancouver/Richmond to Rosedale) should be in the $5.00 to $10.00 range depending on distance traveled.
A comparison with the $2.5 billion Canada line is in order.
The standard fare on the Canada line is $2.50 for one zone and $3.75 for two zones; there is a $5.00 supplement for customers leaving from YVR, but the numbers using the $8.75 fare leaving YVR is very small. About 80% of the fares are also apportioned between RAV/Canada line, the SkyTrain line, Seabus and the buses and many customers are using the heavily subsidized U-Pass, thus the real revenue for the Canada line is much less than the actual fares paid.
TransLink was/is singing hosannas about how the Canada Line’s ridership was near 100,000 boarding a day and soon the metro was to be able to pay its operating costs; so lets compare fares and ridership on the Canada Line with the prosed RftV TramTrain.
The full build, 138 km. RftV/Leewood TramTrain is said cost about $1 billion or about $1.5 billion less than the 19.2 km., $2.5 billion Canada line, meaning that the RftV TramTrain would only less than 40,000 boardings (remember those apportioned TransLink fares & deep discounted U-Pass), charging the same fares as the Canada Line a day to obtain the same ratio of income that TransLink is presently cheering about on the Canada Line. If the TramTrain aims for only 20,000 boardings a day, then fares should be in the $5.00 to $10 dollar range, depending on the distance traveled, a far cry from the $25.00 quoted in the article.
It also should be noted that a new Vancouver to Chilliwack rail service will open the door to a host of new tourist and travel opportunities, where people who would not otherwise travel via car would take the train.
Yes there is a lot of questions remaining about the RftV/Leewood report, yet on the basis of the report, the taxpayer will get more than 10 times more rail transit per km. compared with SkyTrain, providing ample new travel opportunities for potential transit customers at affordable costs and maybe even be the catalyst for improvement of local bus services in Chilliwack and Abbotsford.
A former 4 lane arterial road with lawned
Chilliwack Times
http://www.chilliwacktimes.com/Uninformed+about+transit/3693739/story.html
Nick Wimpney open letter to Sharon Gaetz in the Times needs following up
North Shore News
http://www.burnabynow.com/story.html?id=3699636
Hamilton
Most Candidates Support LRT, Mayoral Candidates Split
http://www.raisethehammer.org/article/1207/most_candidates_support_lrt_mayoral_candidates_split
Winnipeg
Bus rapid transit has edge in poll
Winnipeg Free Press
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/bus-rapid-transit-has-edge-in-poll-105418328.html
Cambridge, Ontario
Light rail transit dominates regional debate
Cambridge Times
http://www.cambridgetimes.ca/news/local/article/891078–light-rail-transit-dominates-regional-debate
Los Angeles – Crenshaw/LAX Transit Corridor light-rail project
L.A. Metro lands TIFIA loan for Crenshaw/LAX light-rail project
Progressive Railroading
http://www.progressiverailroading.com/news/article.asp?id=24827
Engineering to begin on Crenshaw/LAX light rail
South California Public Radio
http://www.scpr.org/news/2010/10/20/engineering-begin-crenshawlax-light-rail/
The following link from the Professional Engineering Magazine …..
http://www.profeng.com/archive/2010/2311/23110053.htm
….. is well worth the read as it neatly sums up the German city of Karlsruhe’s success in integrating transit.
Karlsruhe, it must be remembered, pioneered the TramTrain concept and with stunning results. When the first TramTrain line (which replaced a commuter train & one transfer) opened in 1993, ridership exploded from 533,600 per week to over 2,555,000, (almost 480% increase) in just a few month! Karlsruhe now operates over 410 km. of TramTrain, including lines in the environmentally sensitive Black Forest, with the longest route being over 210 km.
TransLink and METRO transit planners have singularly ignored Karlsruhe’s continuing success and busily chase their holy grail of densification and SkyTrain planning. The mandarins in charge of the regions transit planning haven’t even a clue what light rail is, or for that matter, what a metro is and try, like fitting a round peg in a square hole, cobble SkyTrain planning, making the metro fit a job far more suitable for modern light rail. The result is predictable, a disjointed and very extremely expensive ‘rail‘ transit system that is too expensive to extend, while at the same time has failed to provide a viable alternative to the car.
Today there are 14 cities with TramTrain operation (only 7 cities have SkyTrain), with a further 20 TramTrain operations being planned for and no one is planning to build with SkyTrain at this date. This is the message that is being ignored by TransLink, METRO Vancouver and provincial politicians. Remaining blind, deaf and dumb about light rail and TramTrain translates in to ever increasing taxes to pay for questionable transit expansion.
Who is not afraid to bell the SkyTrain cat?
It seems Russian tram operators know how to conduct a tram emergency test.
The ultimate annual tram emergency exercise:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4OwPSI5eJQ&feature=related
From the Langley Times
http://www.bclocalnews.com/surrey_area/langleytimes/opinion/104350994.html
The Vancouver Province
http://www.theprovince.com/opinion/Premier+transit+pitch+hard+swallow/3635873/story.html
The North Shore News
http://www.nsnews.com/news/Railroading/3643583/story.html
Queensland
First contracts awarded for Gold Coast Light Rail
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/07/3032028.htm
Green light for GC rail tenderers
Avignon
The French city of Avignon (Rhone valley) gets a classic tramway; two
lines totalling 29Km, opening by 2016
Phoenix
Chateau On Central Livin’ Large On The Line
http://raillife.com/blog/2010/10/08/chateau-on-central/
Seattle
Portland
Jeddah
Vancouver [Fraser Valley]
Chilliwack Times
Time to seriously look at rail
Langley Times
Editorial – Speed up transit decisions
Rail For The Valley 