Heavy Rail, Commuter Rail, & Intercity Transportation

[ssiguy]

You don't have to buy the entire track line and tell CP/CN to get lost. The entire Waterfront/NuWest/Fort Langley/Abby route has more than enough room to add at LEAST another track and probably 2. Such a line would serve downtown Abby, FL, the huge Glouchester industrial area, and have direct transfer stations onto SkyTrain at Scoot Road, Sapperton, Sperling-Burnaby Lake, Broadway, and Waterfront.

Contrary to popular belief, CN/CP do not usually have a problem using their corridors but it's the actual tracks they have an issue with. Translink/Victoria should be buying up land next to these tracks for their future use so as not to have to do it in 30 years when it will cost them 10X as much hoping the CN/CP hasn't already sold off the land. This does NOT require a lot of money nor having the money up front. They should have a LONG-term plan of buying up sections on a regular/yearly basis which is more financially viable and allows for a gradual introduction of service.

Commutes will continue to get longer and Vancouver's endless sprawl will only grow and Vancouver's notorious reputation of not building any highways or even expanding the ones they have, you MUST offer people alternative regional transit..........you can't have it both ways. This idea of just expanding SkyTrain into the Valley is ridiculous. There is a reason why no other city on the planet considers subways to the hinterlands as viable so why Translink thinks it's doable here is anyone's guess.

The commuters are coming and nothing is going to change that and so you either plan for them now or pay very dearly for it later both financially and as a quality of life metric.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

The entire Waterfront/NuWest/Fort Langley/Abby route has more than enough room to add at LEAST another track and probably 2.

No it doesn't.

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Such a line would serve downtown Abby, FL, the huge Glouchester industrial area, and have direct transfer stations onto SkyTrain at Scoot Road, Sapperton, Sperling-Burnaby Lake, Broadway, and Waterfront.

No it wouldn't.

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Commutes will continue to get longer and Vancouver's endless sprawl will only grow and Vancouver's notorious reputation of not building any highways or even expanding the ones they have, you MUST offer people alternative regional transit..........you can't have it both ways. This idea of just expanding SkyTrain into the Valley is ridiculous. There is a reason why no other city on the planet considers subways to the hinterlands as viable so why Translink thinks it's doable here is anyone's guess.

$5.3 billion for 4,000 boardings/day, or $4.1 billion for 80,000 boardings/day... which one do you think solves more traffic? I'll give you a hint: it's the one with more riders.

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

You don't have to buy the entire track line and tell CP/CN to get lost. The entire Waterfront/NuWest/Fort Langley/Abby route has more than enough room to add at LEAST another track and probably 2.

Oh really?

[Vin]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

It also takes a shedload of money to buy up land beside existing freight lines, where that land even exists to buy -- it doesn't along part of the rails through New Westminster, for example. And what do you do about spurs and overpasses and underpasses and existing buildings? Creating a whole new train line next to existing ones is nigh impossible for a huge number of reasons.

There is something called "gradual expansion".

We are already in a good position currently because there are some light lines which can be readily utilized by the WCE.

Nigh impossible only for those who have no interest in rail development. How do other cities with even less land do it then? Guess the people there are smarter?

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

No it doesn't.



No it wouldn't.

Yes it does.

Yes it would.

[logicbomb]

Originally Posted by Vin

We can see who has more foresight. No wonder Toronto remains the powerhouse of this country. It all boils down to the mentality of the people.

It's quite alarming seeing how much hate the "Restore Island Rail" campaign has gotten in the past several months. The same usual cast on social media continue to regurgitate the same rhetoric and see rail as a threat to their autonomy. It's a weird complex that stems from their political orientation or ideological beliefs.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

Oh really?

That line there is hardly used, and is only secondary when it comes to WCE expansion.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Vin

Yes it does.

Yes it would.

No. Waterfront and New West are maxed out.

No. SRY skips Fort Langley, and CN skips Gloucester; both ignore Whalley and "downtown" Abbotsford, making them doomed from the start.