Rail for the Valley News in the EUROPEAN Press!

Ha, ha, ha………

If TransLink, the provincial government and the Vancouver Sun don’t think the Rail for the Valley/Leewood TramTrain report isn’t worth responding too, Railway Strategies do. Here we have a situation of the RftV/Leewood report being deemed more important overseas than in the Vancouver metro area! This just furthers the evidence that our regional transportation planning has completely off the track or put another way, TransLink is taking the regional taxpayer for a very long ride on the wrong train!

The following link is to the Railway Strategies article.

http://www.railwaystrategies.co.uk/article-page.php?contentid=11367&issueid=346

Let’s NOT make a Deal – Property tax hike for transit only choice before mayors

Is TransLink like the Titanic, sailing full steam ahead into a "financial" iceberg?

TransLink is at it again, playing brinkmanship with regional mayors and I hope the valley politicos see through this tawdry charade, which has become a cliché for TransLink’s haphazard planning efforts.

• Behind door number 1, you have option A
•  behind door number 2, you have option B;
• behind door number 3, you have option A & B.

But here’s the trick, you got to play TransLink’s game because provincial transportation minister, Shirley Bond insists that regional mayors do play. Some regional mayors, including Fassbender from the City of Langley are acting the part of the country rube, easily outwitted by TransLink’s hucksters selling financial snake oil.

TransLink is in deep financial trouble, yet it plans more expensive metro lines; BRT, a transit mode with a poor record in attracting ridership; community buses, which mostly run empty; and continuing with the $1.00 a day U-Pass, a heavily subsidized student fare which clogs up buses and fills metro cars, leaving transit customers who pay full fare standing or just taking the car instead! To pay for this nonsense, the regional taxpayer is once again going to be forced to pay for really amateur transit planning, done by a bureaucracy which cares more about their perks and pensions, than planning for an affordable and accessible public transit system.

So here is the Zweisystem solution for transit funding. Let the municipalities with SkyTrain, pay for SkyTrain and the municipalities who have only bus operation, pay only for bus operation. As SkyTrain and light-metro financing so dominate TransLink’s balance sheet, the cities with one or more light-metro lines should pay more for SkyTrain and associated improved bus operations.

Example:

• Municipalities which only operate buses are charged a flat fee of $150 on their property assessments.
• Municipalities with one light-metro line pay a flat fee of $275 on their property assessments.
• Municipalities with two light metro lines pay a flat fee $400 on their property assessments.
• Municipalities with three light metro lines pay a flat fee of $525 on their property assessments.
• Municipalities that operate trolley buses pay an additional flat fee of $50.00 on their property assessments.

This simple formula, taxes those municipalities and cities who benefit from light-metro and trolley buses and provide an incentive for taxpayers to insist getting the biggest bang for their buck!

It is time to stop playing; “Let’s make a Deal” with TransLink and the provincial government and insist that those who benefit in having light-metro actually pay their fair share for light-metro.

Property tax hike for transit only choice before mayors

By Jeff Nagel

Local mayors will not be asked to vote on imposing a vehicle levy to fund transit expansion – at least not this year.

Instead, the only option to finance the Evergreen Line and possibly other transit improvements will be an increase to property taxes.

If approved, a typical $600,000 home will pay $31 in increased tax to raise $465 million for TransLink’s share of the $1.4-billion Evergreen SkyTrain line to Coquitlam and the first phase of the North Fraser Perimeter Road.

Mayors council chair Peter Fassbender said it was too late to contemplate the Transportation Improvement Fee, a levy which would have raised the same amount of money by charging $15 to $55 per registered vehicle each year, depending on their carbon footprint.

“It would require legislative change, administrative changes and a number of elements for that to even be considered,” the Langley City mayor said of the vehicle levy.

“And it’s going to get significant pushback from south of the Fraser.”

Metro mayors meet Tuesday (Nov. 9) to be briefed on the proposed financial supplement for TransLink, which still has to be assessed by the independent TransLink commissioner before it goes to a vote on Dec. 9.

But Fassbender is still hopeful a scenario is possible where the mayors are able to negotiate different TransLink funding sources with the province, in line with an accord struck in September.

In essence, he thinks the property tax hike could be voted in now to satisfy the provincial government’s insistence of funding certainty for the Evergreen Line, which breaks ground next year.

But Fassbender notes the extra revenue from TransLink won’t be needed until 2012.

That means a property tax lift pencilled in now could be erased next year if Victoria agrees to provide alternative sources – such as road pricing, a share of carbon tax or even the vehicle levy – which could flow by 2012.

“Can this get us far enough down the road that it gives us time to find other solutions?” Fassbender asked, referring to temporary approval of a property tax hike.

“If we can take pressure off one way or another so we have some breathing space, let’s do it.”

That scenario would require trust – several other mayors fear no such deal with the province may be forthcoming once they sign off.

Transportation minister Shirley Bond has also hinted the government may take unilateral action to ensure TransLink raises the money if mayors vote down the supplement.

Then there’s the resignation of the premier and the ensuing Liberal leadership race that clouds the political landscape and will distract some of the players.

Fassbender said even that could work in favour of a deal.

“We’re in a very interesting time because of the changes,” he said, suggesting the government and leadership contenders will likely want to preside over good news, not discord.

More time to negotiate would provide a better chance to consider the how to implement something like the vehicle levy, he said, noting there’s been talk of options like adjusting the rate depending on the level of local transit service.

Fassbender said TransLink’s plan to introduce smart card payment will also open up intriguing options like rebating vehicle levy or road pricing fees collected back to motorists in the form of transit credits, encouraging them to switch modes some of the time.

“When you pay that fee you get an equivalent amount of transit fares built into that card,” he suggested. “That way we not only raise revenue but also help to shift behaviour.”

Mayors will also have the option to vote on a larger set of transit upgrades, including bus service increases and various SkyTrain station upgrades. That would cost an additional $338 million, lifting the property tax hit to $54 for a typical home.

PROPOSED TRANSLINK INVESTMENTS

OPTION A:

Evergreen Line – $412 million

(TransLink capital contribution, bus and facilities integration, wayfinding and Broadway-Commercial station)

North Fraser Perimeter Road phase 1 – $53.2 million

(United Boulevard extension)

OPTION A TOTAL: $465.3 million, requiring $39 million per year

PROPERTY TAX IMPACT: $31 per $600,000 home or $5.20 per $100,000 value.

OPTION B:

Bus service boost to accommodate U-Pass expansion: $85.1 million

Bus service boost to meet minimum service standards: $51.3 million

Highway 1 Bus Rapid Transit: $40.9 million

(Linking Lougheed Station- Surrey Central-Walnut Grove with buses every 10 mins)

Minor Road Network minor capital: $37.9 million

Bus service boost to keep pace with population growth: $36.7 million

Cycling projects: $17 million

Main Street Station upgrade: $16.3 million

Metrotown Station upgrade: $12.9 million

King George Boulevard B-Line Bus service: $12.6 million

New Westminster Station upgrade: $9.2 million

White Rock to Langley bus service: $7.5 million

(community shuttles every 30 mins)

Surrey Central Station upgrade: $5.9 million

Lonsdale Quay upgrade: $4.2 million

TOTAL FOR OPTION B: $337.6 million

TOTAL OF OPTIONS A + B: $802 million, requiring $68 million per year

PROPERTY TAX IMPACT OPTIONS A + B: $54 per $600,000 home or $9 per $100,000 assessed value

 

http://www.bclocalnews.com/surrey_area/surreyleader/news/106801193.html

Don’t dismiss South-of-Fraser transit – VALTAC Supports Rail for the Valley!

The following letter, printed in the Surrey Leader, from Mr. Holt from the Valley Transportation Advisory Committee is most welcome and shows the growing support for the RftV/Leewood Report for a TramTrain service in the Fraser Valley, using existing railway infrastructure.

Don’t dismiss South-of-Fraser transit

The recent announcement by TransLink, concerning the Surrey Rapid Transit Study, dismissed the Interurban corridor as having no role to play in solving the region’s transit problems.

During the workshops held in Surrey, participants found it difficult to understand why such a wonderful public asset and low-cost option was so easily cast aside.

TransLink staff seemed to be struggling to find a reason too. So much so, that in the closing summary, the very person who spoke to the media, dismissing the Interurban corridor, was suggesting that a sober second look be in order. A sober second look is exactly what is needed.

Premier Campbell’s preferred option of a SkyTrain extension to Langley City will cost over $2 billion or about $125 million per kilometre in today’s dollars.

He appears to be a lone voice advocating this Cadillac option. Surrey’s Mayor Watts, Langley Township Mayor Green and many others were certainly not taken in by this shameless ploy to insert a 20-year delay clause into creating “beyond the bus” transit options for South of Fraser taxpayers.

With an additional 650,000 residents already starting to flow into the South of Fraser region, the need to influence future land use, by modifying community plans and implementing critically needed transit improvements, is now.

TransLink’s previous attempts to hoist a transit master plan on the South of Fraser have fallen far short of what is needed for a region scheduled to grow from today’s 850,000 to over 1.5 million by 2040.

With no master plan we are being forced to make risky decisions, or are we?

If there are options available that involve minimal cost, little disruption to current traffic flow, and speedy delivery, are these not worth exploring first?

This is what many local rail advocacy groups are pleading for.

The recent, very credible, report commissioned by Rail for the Valley from UK transport consultants clearly comes to the conclusion that the publicly owned interurban rail corridor is exactly this low risk option. Langley Township’s Mayor Green and his South Fraser Community Rail Task Force of elected representatives have a similar view promoting a passenger rail demonstration project for the line.

Rail based solutions can be a vital part of future South-of-Fraser transit options and they don’t need to cost billions or spend any time on the shelf. The time for action is now.

 Peter Holt

Valley Transportation Advisory Committee

http://www.bclocalnews.com/surrey_area/surreyleader/opinion/letters/106710283.html

Ottawa’s troubled tram.

The light rail saga in Ottawa continues with the realization that monies spent on a politcally prestigious subway tunnel comes from extending the transit line to servcie transit customers.

Zweisystem is in complete agreement with the following and I have posed about Ottawa’s LRT escapades earlier.

Ottawa transit authorities had need not look any further than Vancouver, where TransLink hat the behest of the City of Vancouver and the former provincial premier (a former Vancouver mayor) forced a light-metro subway for the RAV/Canada Line. As the costs for the politically prestigious subway climbed, the scale of the project was reduced to a point where Vancouver is the only city in the world that has a $2.5 billion truncated subway designed to have less capacity than if a $1.5 billion cheaper and much longer LRT line were to have been built instead!

This foolhardy notion that subways somehow are better at attracting new customers to transit than a surface system is a hangover from the 1950’s transit bumf that is taught in Canadian and American universities.

Ottawa taxpayers will learn soon enough a subway’s ability to gobble up precious taxpayer’s dollars earmarked for public transit!

Nix the tunnel! (There, I’ve said it)

By Ken Gray, Ottawa Citizen

Ottawa’s new rail plan is too long, too short and ineffective.

It’s too long because the project has taken far too much time to build. Calgary’s C-Train started operation in 1981, almost 30 years ago, on the surface and through downtown. And many critics say the C-Train is the most successful light-rail system in North America. By the time the light rail-tunnel project is completed, Ottawa will have light rail almost four decades after Calgary. Anybody want to bet it will be a half-century?

Yet the line is too short because it just does not travel far enough. It stretches from Tunney’s Pasture to Blair Road. Know anyone who is travelling from Tunney’s Pasture to Blair Road? Anyone? Just one.

I don’t have any scientific evidence but I bet most of the commuters coming by Transitway to the huge federal employment complex at Tunney’s are coming from the west, rendering the light-rail line useless.

I could be wrong, but years of taking the Transitway to the Citizen’s downtown bureau led me to believe that. The standing-room only bus at morning rush hour became much easier to ride once it passed Tunney’s.

Because of the new plan’s short nature, Tunney’s and Blair will be enormous transfer points from buses to trains. That adds a transfer to everyone’s trip downtown … unless OC Transpo continues to run buses along the Albert and Slater corridor. That causes one of two problems. If buses run down Slater and Albert, will the rails be without riders? And if buses don’t run downtown, imagine the transfer delays and mess at Tunney’s and Blair stations. They weren’t built to handle that kind of traffic.

So there you have it. The new rail plan is too long, too short and a hindrance to fast travel. Other than that, it’s fine. All this for $2.1 billion (or $2.6 billion giving the city’s public servants the wiggle room they said they needed) while the north-southwest route cancelled wrongly by council stretched from Barrhaven to the University of Ottawa was a bargain $884 million with a fixed top-end cost guaranteed by the Siemens consortium. Now that was a real transit line. Anyone want to put money down on a possible overrun on the rail-tunnel project for which the city is on the hook?

The really smart move would be to can the tunnel because it takes too long to build, and convince Siemens to construct the original project. The original plan would be running now if council had not been so shortsighted and killed it. My guess is that building the north-south route is politically unpalatable but would be faster than constructing the current plan. North-south is right transit-wise, but wrong politically. Politics will win.

Because the new project is too long, too short and ineffective, we need real transit in this city — certainly before the end of this decade. And that’s because of intensification. The municipality has built an urban boundary beyond which development cannot cross. Accordingly, downtown areas are filling up with condos and cars. Highways 417 and 174 are parking lots at rush hour, while regular intersections are failing. Buses aren’t the answer because they are trapped in the same traffic jams as cars.

So what to do? Our auto traffic is increasingly unmanageable with no relief in sight. The current rail plan has lines to Orleans and Barrhaven in 2031. Will much of the boomer generation be alive then? Certainly almost all of them won’t be commuting.

I’d recommend what I’d call the Scramble System because we need to scramble to serve current transit needs. Until Ottawans can construct a great light-rail system, we need to take advantage of the infrastructure already in place. It’s an adaptation of the plan Alex Munter offered in the 2006 campaign. Temporarily use rail lines in place now for transit until the municipality can build a real light-rail system. Take advantage of wide streets where demand might exist for bus-only lanes. We’ve already begun a Scramble System with the “demonstration project” O Train that looks increasingly permanent. There is a huge opportunity with the old Prince of Wales Bridge at Bayview for cross-river transit. Might some of our old rail lines be converted to commuter rail? Should shuttle buses be instituted between the Transitway and major work nodes?

None of this is perfect. A uniform light-rail system should still be the ultimate goal (it reduces maintenance costs because there’s one set of very durable rail cars) but the Scramble System might help us move in the short term in our newly intensified city.

But this is what happens when your major transit project is too short, too long and ineffective.

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/tunnel+There+said/3769507/story.html#ixzz14Gl6hdLB

The Vogtlandbahn TramTrains & Interurbans – A Template For The Valley Interurban

 

A diesel TramTrain

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

Transit News From Here and There

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/

11th Street, Michigan City, Indiana. Chicago, South Shore and South Bend interurban

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joc111-IDgA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEydAJK8d7I&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hd4qqWZM4s&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xurCOpWlh2c&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJ8KxID7eY8&feature=related

Transit News Around The World October 19, 2010

Phoenix

METRO Playing With A Full House

http://raillife.com/blog/

Los Angeles

LAX rail line is early stop in plan to expedite transit work

http://www.dailybreeze.com/opinions/ci_16357591

Tampa Bay

Hillsborough rail plan is still taking shape

http://tinyurl.com/35egf4g

Wellington, NZ

Councillors signal light rail battle lines

http://tinyurl.com/2udcyql

Norfolk, VA

Light rail may be up & running by Dec.

http://tinyurl.com/2es7phc

Ottawa

Transit tops voter issues, poll finds

Taxes, turfing current mayor, also rated important by respondents

http://tinyurl.com/329zt57

Trains get streetwise

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?

More Transit News – October 15, 2010

From the Victoria Times Colonist

http://www.timescolonist.com/technology/Think+rail+only+rail+future+transportation/3649005/story.html

 http://www.timescolonist.com/sports/Maclean+Cars+here+stay/3651236/story.html

 http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Public+input+sought+last+route/3613881/story.html

 http://www.timescolonist.com/travel/rail+line+along+Johnson+Street/3613919/story.html

 http://www.timescolonist.com/ahead+interchange/3532824/story.html

 Vancouver Courier October 13, 2010

http://www.vancourier.com/technology/case+free+transit+downtown+core/3663446/story.html

 Public transit debate can get messy, murky 

Vancouver Courier Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Vancouver bus routes dwarf Surrey grid

http://www.vancourier.com/life/Public+transit+debate+messy+murky/2900233/story.html

The Tyee

 Get Rolling on Streetcars, Say Gathered Experts

They reduce carbon, promote healthy development, and tourists love them, Translink is told.

http://thetyee.ca/News/2010/10/01/Streetcars/

Coquitlam NOW

SkyTrain is too expensive

http://www.thenownews.com/SkyTrain+expensive/3631453/story.html

Internationally

Philadelphia – work begins on streetcar casino branch

Historic trolley off track

Philly.com

http://www.philly.com/community/Historic_trolley_off_track.html?viewAll=y

http://www.septa.org/maps/trolley/pdf/015.pdf

Phoenix

Valley Metro

http://www.valleymetro.org/metro_light_rail/future_extensions/tempe/

Tempe-South update

http://tinyurl.com/35zampm

http://raillife.com/blog/

Wellington, New Zealand

Councillors signal Light Rail battle lines

http://tinyurl.com/2udcyql