For the last year, every time I’ve gone to a public hearing or meeting about development, I’ve heard people fret about how there’s not enough capacity to absorb the new people who will be coming with the developments. Not enough schools, hospital space, parks, libraries, you name it.
And it used to be that, along with all that, people complained about the inevitable increase in traffic and decrease in parking space. But there’s a new twist on that in Vancouver. Now people say there’s not enough room on the transit lines, especially if anything is planned along the Canada Line or (less frequently) the SkyTrain line.
In the spirit of public inquiry, I called TransLink to get the numbers on the current state of use and what the future holds. (My Globe story here.) Jeff Busby, who does the agency’s infrastructure planning, kindly answered me in two separate interviews. What it made clear to me is that the Canada Line and SkyTrain do have the physical capacity to absorb a lot more people.
What was clear from speaking with mayors, councillors and engineers who are involved with this issue is that there’s no guarantee that, as lines reach their capacity, TransLink will have the money to do the upgrades needed to increase it.
“I suppose that’s a risk,” Busby said cautiously when I asked him whether there isn’t a danger that, even when the people come, no one will want to fund an increase in capacity.
There is no automatic trigger or defined point at which anyone will say, “Okay, we now have 300,000 people along this line and you’re legally required to provide a higher level of transit.” (To be fair, doesn’t work that way with cars, roads and suburban development either.)
One could take it as a positive sign that TransLink is currently starting $1 billion worth of renovations to upgrade the capacity of the Expo Line. (And, have to say, I’m totally loving the new look of the Main Street/Terminal station.)
But, given how rapidly and ferociously both commuters and developers have taken to clustering around rapid transit, you have to wonder if the Canada Line expansion isn’t going to be needed a lot sooner and be a tougher fight than the Expo Line’s expansions.
Richmond is expanding its city centre from 40,000 to 80,000. A whole pile of new developments are planned to go in around Capstan Way, where developers are paying for a new station. There’s a cluster of towers under construction or in the works now for the foot of Cambie and, I would guess, more to come. There are developments all along Cambie, with two giant projects — Oakridge and the Pearson-Dogwood site — in the works.
Anyway, because I know there are wonks are there who love numbers, here are a few:
– The current line has a capacity for 6,100 people per hour per direction.
– At the latest count (yes, they go in and do physical counts), the line is carrying a maximum of 5,500 pphpd
– The line could carry 10,000 pphpd if it shortened the headroom between cars from 3 minutes 20 seconds to two minutes. Why don’t they do that now during rush hour? I asked Busby. Well, it’s not that easy. There are 16 two-car trains running. (The system has 20 in all, but two sets are always kept in reserve for breakdowns, repairs, etc) You could run them every two minutes for a brief period but then you’d be stuck with no trains for the rest of the hour because it takes a certain amount of time to do the whole run and back. There’s no way to shorten that up unless you can convince people to load themselves on faster.
So the two-minute runs won’t happen until TransLink orders a whole extra fleet of cars. And that won’t happen until crowding goes up substantially.
– The line can carry 15,000 pphpd if it moves to three-car trains arriving every two minutes. That will mean punching through the walls at the end of the current platforms to extend them. (The stations were designed for that eventuality.)
– One other interesting fact. Development along a line doesn’t necessarily drive the transit numbers. According to Busby, two-thirds of the people in the morning rush hour who use rapid transit arrive from beyond walking distance. So the numbers will go up as growth goes up overall, not just in proximity to stations.
108 responses so far ↓
1 Don D // Apr 26, 2014 at 2:35 am
Let’s pretend: this blog has something to say about ending homelessness by 2015 – in light of last week’s numbers.
Good job Gregor!
Oh yeah, sorry, Canada Line, blah, blah blah.
2 Kirk // Apr 26, 2014 at 10:24 am
Ohhhh Silly, this is too hard to resist.
“We vacuum your money in our highly inefficient, bureaucratic nightmare of government spending. We even have our own police force that we hope to expand, along with our public art programs. We’d also like to build more empty parking lots and rent more empty buildings. Our CEO currently makes only $500,000 per year, but we hope to increase this, as well as our entire executive board compensation and pensions. This is necessary because we are obviously the best and brightest. For every dollar that you will be mandated to give us, we hope to use a small percentage of it toward a few more busses. We will start at $29, but will increase that annually at a rate much higer than inflation. Vote yes, because if you don’t, the sky will fall.”
3 Silly Season // Apr 26, 2014 at 1:56 pm
@Kirk #100
Ok, we’ll use that as the preamble…;-)
Good points all, and that is the point. A real discussion about options needs to be held before a ref question is asked.
*Is there actually capacity on the system during off-peak times that could be shifted around in some way to fulfill some of the need? PS Show us why you think there is/isn’t and explain all the variables that lead you to that conclusion
*In the case of bus drivers, would the union allow split shifts, and shorter runs in return for more buses/drivers in order to fill ant current capacity holes by upsizing/downsizing buses during shifts?
*What routes are we talking about financing? What are the options there, both in alignment and type of buildout (subway vs. LRT vs fast bus).
* How do we determine which projects go to the ‘front of the line’ so that it is not only seen to be fair, but works for the greatest number of people.
*What are the REAL projected costs of the projects chosen?
*How will the system be managed—by TL or a P3?
* Will there be truly competent transportaion leadership (not gov ‘friendlies’) in charge, as well as non-governmental interference to ensure that neighbourhooods do not suffer uneccessarily while a project is being built?
*Does TL have anyone competent enough to ensure that a P3 contract doesn’t mess with budgets (fixed costs) and isn’t clogged with benefits that soley satisfy the operator
*How long does this ‘lift’ last until we are asked for another one?
* Show us all the mechanisms you have considered with regards to funding
*Civic leaders need to prove to citizens how this “one leg’ o f the proverbial three legged stool works in sync with job (people starting them and people working at them) as well as how development of transit will assist housing affordability.
That’s some of the stuff I’d want to know. Go at it.
4 Roger Kemble // Apr 27, 2014 at 3:47 pm
“Debt itself is neither good or bad . . . ”
Except Bill @ #93 as it evolved into its current state . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i_EgOjeXuM#t=309
. . . and then it becomes lethal.
And why Silly Season @ #101 is sort of, well, wasting her breath!
5 brian. // Apr 28, 2014 at 4:37 pm
Dr. F:
I stand corrected, I see now that you meant 1.2% of overall population. However, I don’t see how that number is very useful. You used 40,000 people for growth in Richmond, which is the overall growth for the entire city, plus 15,000, which looks like a portion of Vancouver’s growth, presumably within a certain distance of the CL. So you are saying that no more than 1.2% of these people will be on the CL at any given time. What does that mean? I’m sure that it feels like all of Richmond and half of Vancouver is on the train during your commute, but realistically only a small fraction of an entire city’s worth of people will ever be on one transit line at a time. Not everyone needs to be traveling in the same direction by the same mode at the same time.
So what is reasonable? I don’t know the catchment region that you used for the Vancouver populations contribution to peak demand, but we can find a range of reasonable by estimating a high and a low. First the high: if we assume that all of current peak demand comes from Richmond, then peak demand is 2.8% of the population served (5500/200,000. This is certainly a high estimate, as at least some of the population comes from Vancouver. Now the low estimate: if we assume that all of current peak demand comes from Richmond and Vancouver, then peak demand is 0.7% of overall population (5500/(200,000+600,000)), though this is certainly too low, as the CL doesn’t really serve much of Vancouver. So that tells me that right now, somewhere between .7% and 2.8% of the CL’s catchment area is riding the CL at the peak time. Our 1.2% falls neatly within this range. I will grant you that the range is quite large, because I am doing a pretty rough analysis, but it shows that expecting peak demand to increase by 650 when 55,000 people move in is not totally unreasonable. Is it the best estimate? Probably not. Is it worth dismissing out of hand, as you did? No, at least not with the information I have.
You made a comment connecting the success or failure of TOD with peak usage. That is why I wrote about off-peak times. I agree with you that capacity issues should take focus on peak demand, but the success of TOD must be measured by its ability to encourage transit usage at all times. Your argument seemed to be that having 8% of people from TODs near the Canada Line at peak hour in peak direction means not enough people using transit, which means the TOD is a failure. I am saying the argument is faulty because it doesn’t take overall transit usage into account. I think that is still a fair criticism. I recognize that this TOD argument is tangential to the core issue of the thread, but its one that you brought up, so I feel like its fair that I get to address it.
6 Adam O'Neill // Apr 29, 2014 at 11:06 am
So, the Canada Line is currently operating at 90% capacity and it will take a large investment of capital (32-40 train cars can’t be cheap) to increase capacity by 40%?
Ouch!
Sure would be nice if public transit had some stable funding it could count on.
On the flip side, this sort of capacity problem probably inspires jealousy in other regions of North America.
7 Dr. Frankentower // Apr 30, 2014 at 1:41 pm
Hi Brian, As I noted, I just find it a odd that Translink doesn’t believe this massive amount of TOD currently under development on both sides of the river will have much bearing on ridership on the Canada Line. It leads me to two possible conclusions:
Either
1. TOD doesn’t really work, and therefore our Planning Departments are making a mess of our neighbourhoods for no good reason at all (notice how boohoo hasn’t answered what the “other benefits” of TOD are) other than to encourage land lift CAC’s and donor profits
or
2. TOD does work, and Translink has seriously underestimated the need for new capacity on the CL before 2045.
Either way, given the massive amount of construction underway along the line right now, we won’t have long to see what affect all this TOD has on the CL.
8 MB // May 1, 2014 at 4:06 pm
@ Adam 106:
So, the Canada Line is currently operating at 90% capacity and it will take a large investment of capital (32-40 train cars can’t be cheap) to increase capacity by 40%? Ouch!
If the canada Line is currently operating at “90% capacity” then how was it possible to move 200,000 people a day during the Olympics using only 20 trains? That’s a little less than twice the ridership of today.
Answer: frequency.
Stand on the eastbound Burrard Station platform at 4:00 p.m. on a workday and you’ll see four 6-car trains arrive and depart every 5 minutes. You’e lucky to see two CL trains during the same period.
The CL can operate at 75-second frequencies too during rush hour if TransLink and Protrans (the private operator) could agree on price. With no drivers, the operating cost is narrowed down to electricity, staffing levels, and per-day maintenance costs. All of these costs are predictable well in advance of budget cycles.
Personally, I’d like to see TransLink have the funds to buy out the P3 operator and remove the tendency to minimize service for really quite marginal gains in savings.