Quote:
Originally Posted by fredinno
OK, I moved this discussion to Transit Fantasies.
Yeah, but I’d also like to point out that the existing bus lane ends about Jervis, where the streetcar would be about 3 blocks away. The current lane isn’t bidirectional, and can’t be built bidirectional.
Here’s the report showing Davie and Denman as potential future streetcar corridors. It is however, lower priority- a ‘Potential Future Extension’ along with Main Street, Prior, and the Flats. They didn’t study it too much.
You're making an argument to not have the Artubus LRT/BRT built to begin with- though, TBF, Skytrain or Tram-Train there could be admittedly a good option, IF you can get the NIMBYs to agree to it somehow.
I mean, the need for the West End Subway is already a 'Last Mile' problem.
Note much of the West End is already covered in a 15 min walk watershed but not the 10 min watershed. Note also the Southern West End is far away from either watershed. Georgia/Robson is the logical place to put a Subway, if only to connect tourists and businessmen to Robson, Georgia, and Stanley Park better. That's your backbone. It excludes Beach Ave and Davie, however, which are at the edge of the walking watersheds, and are also destinations on their own right.
My downtown plan had a spur down Thurlow and a crossing at the reserve lands for that reason (and as overcapacity for the Millennium and Canada for UBC, eventually), but it still can't cover the entire West End in a 10 minute walk watershed...
And in any case, it costs way more than either LRT/BRT options.
BRT is about 1/3rd of LRT in cost as well. BRT’s Cost-benefit ratio is seriously constrained by the fact there wouldn’t be enough capacity on Broadway and by the diesel BRT GHG emissions. Bad for Broadway, not so much a problem for DT, so it’d make way more sense to do both Skytrain and the secondary West End routes here. It’d thus kill the idea of using Artubus as a relief line though.
The Broadway study also has operating costs for LRT and BRT similar:
Also of importance: The 1999 report indicates a cost-recovery of operating of 92% overall, while a 2007 presentation indicates a cost-recovery of 133-144% of operating- both despite Skytrain existing in the DT Core and a lot of the routes having low bus ridership (the ’99 study had the Pac Spur has 88% cost recovery). As the DT densifies, the cost-benefit increased. It’d not be unreasonable to assume the system in the West End wouldn’t do the same.
Admittedly the proposed Granville Spur on the streetcar is a better idea than a Pac Spur for that purpose- but that option has been shuttered unless you can cantilever or build someplace else for the Granville Pathway to go on (under Granville Bridge?). The DT streetcar plans seemingly never were properly integrated with the Arbutus Plans.
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Never said it would, I'm saying that "right next door" tram service probably won't justify a reroute - e.g. Hastings, Cordova and Powell all have their own bus lines despite being literally
one block away from each other. Most of Georgia's buses are coming to and from the North Shore, so getting some to offload at a Stanley Park or Coal Harbour Station and SkyTrain in, that might be more productive for relieving that bus lane.
In this case, the last mile in question is half of downtown and all its respective destinations. Stanley Park alone gets ~22k visitors a day, to say nothing of all the other places you noted.
It may or may not be faster to walk/transit to a Robson station from Davie, but it would from Denman or English Bay or Robson itself (definitely Stanley Park), and that means less pressure on the buses and the existing stations. Once the buses are finally at 100% capacity, a Robson Extension also greatly justifies downtown road closures for streetcars or pedestrian boulevards.
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Remember, Broadway's estimates are for an on-street alignment, and about three-quarters of Arbutus is an
off-street alignment: theoretically, as cheap to build as BRT and visibly faster, and on a secondary corridor instead of a primary one (Cambie, Broadway, KGB-104). The problem with most of Vancouver's LRT plans is the pitch for a slightly larger, slightly faster BRT with SkyTrain-competitive pricing. If the pitch changes to a slightly larger,
actually faster BRT with
BRT-competitive pricing, it starts making sense.
Now if the study comes in sometime between 2025-45 and it says 5,000 pphpd and 22 km/h and $800+ million, you would be absolutely right and can disregard the above paragraph.
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