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I was rummaging through some statistics this morning about Surrey. Stumbling upon the Transportation graphs, I found something rather bewildering - the stats showed that SOVs, or single occupancy vehicles, were, beating the trend, so to speak, and decreasing in usage in Surrey! 

This is quite amazing, especially considering our options out here in terms of transportation alternatives. 

It’s a spectacular feat and a wonderful trend. Especially since Vancouver won’t get all the attention now!

Private vehicles were the primary mode of transportation in 2006 of those who commute to work.  The share of commuters traveling by vehicle as driver declined from 2001 to 2006.  This was accompanied by a complimentary growth in travel by vehicle as a passenger and by public transit.  Carpooling activity may be captured by either category of vehicle use since this statistic tracks an individual’s most common mode of transportation. 

The primary mode of transportation throughout Metro Vancouver in 2006 is vehicle as driver. This mode is used by a smaller share of the commuting labour force in the inner municipalities of Vancouver, Burnaby and New Westminster.  The Metro Vancouver average excluding these municipalities is 75.8%.  Surrey is in line with this at 76.1%. 

What the paragraph above tells us is that Surrey residents are doing the best they can to go out of their cars with the resources they have. It is the cities of Vancouver, Burnaby, and New West that have some of the best transit in the region - for this exact reason, they were taken out of the equation. So, in terms of comparing our driving usage with other places that have crap transit - we’re about equal. Just imagine our transit usage if we had viable alternatives - like rail or BRT!

Been doing some studying on restoring rail service to the Interurban. I see its long term value as a commuter rail route that will facilitate far better movement between towns and city cores in the Valley, but still enabling long distance travel east to Chilliwack or west to Vancouver. The advantage of standard at-grade rail has always been its flexibility and cheap price, so I don’t like the idea of immediately making it into an LRT system. Besides, LRT is more suited for an urban setting with high densities - something that, truthfully, isn’t the strengths of most communities along the Interurban’s route (as compared to other areas of the Valley).

In any case, there are many arguments against restoring service, from cost to population density to competition with planned BRT routes - however, these are obviously excuses. If there’s the political will to get something done, it will get done.

As of this moment, at my current understanding of the problem, there’s a few things going on.

1. The FVHRS is restoring an original Interurban vehicle to run as a historic/tourist train between Cloverdale and Sullivan. They are years behind schedule, and won’t likely be done the restoration until late 2009.
2. TransLink does not support restoring rail service on the route because it cannibalizes its current transit expansion plans for the Valley. All public transport must be either run, or have the approval, of TransLink.
3. As much as it would like to bring rail back, the City of Surrey does not have the capital funds to upgrade the route for, even community, rail service - let alone a real, strong, regional transit connection. Thus it is pursuing partnerships, and providing limited funding, to help FVHRS get it’s historic/tourism train off the ground.
4. The federal government is doing a review of allowing passenger service along national rail corridors that could impact any rail revival attempts.

So, what is the estimated cost to bring back the Interurban?

Well, according to the UMA Study done for the City of Surrey:

…operating an accessible, modern Community Rail service every 20 minutes during peak weekday periods between the Cloverdale and Scott Road Stations, with a connection to the Scott Road SkyTrain Station on a single track with sidings, with some limited double track sections in the station areas in order to provide accessible service, and a signal and communications system for the corridor. The high order of magnitude cost estimate for this service is projected to have a total capital cost range of approximately $80.0 million (i.e. using British Parry People Mover vehicles) to $110.0 million (i.e. using Talent LRT vehicles) and an annual operating cost of approximately $6.0 million. This is on top of the $9.0 million capital cost sunk for Phase One, noted above bringing the total capital cost for Phase Two range to $90.0 to $120.0 million range.

The capital costs include the following components: right-of-way and grade crossing improvements; passenger stations; adding vehicle storage and maintenance facilities and track access to the maintenance/storage facility at Sullivan Station; modifying some industrial sidings; double tracking the station areas to ensure physical separation of right and passenger services; providing adjacent station parking and pedestrian access improvements;providing new LRT- like vehicles; installing fare revenue collection equipment; and implementing a train communication and signal system to ensure safety of the system.

Course, running peak service is rather retarded. I mean, yes, it will aid a few of us who travel downtown, but it certainly doesn’t help the majority of residents who travel, throughout the day, *in* the South of Fraser area. That’s why I liked the old Interurban timetable I found. Service wasn’t at super high frequencies like that of the SkyTrain, but it was more than peak periods - it was a couple runs throughout the day. And it had specials for the weekends!

According to the UMA Study, Southern Railway currently only runs…

… up to four freight trains daily (two in each direction). One train usually leaves from their New Westminster yard about 4:00 pm or 5:00 pm going eastward and returns westward to New Westminster between 10:00 pm and 12:00 am. Another train leaves the New Westminster yard between midnight and 1:00 am and returns to their New Westminster yard between 6:00 am and 7:00 am depending upon the level of coal/freight traffic moving on the main freight rail service line out of the region.

So, theoretically, there’s no reason we couldn’t run service beyond peak periods. Seems like the busiest times for the route are around 12am. And I can actually testify for this, considering I can hear the train when it runs through Cloverdale, a couple of blocks from where I live.

I truly believe that it’ll take a real pilot project, where people can get on a train and ride it along the route, to really bring the community support out in droves. I suppose that’s kind of what the City of Surrey is trying to do by supporting the FVHRS’ initiatives. However, I have a different idea.

So, based on what we know, here’s the times the tracks are busy:

• 4 pm - 5 pm
• 10 pm - 1 am
• 6 am - 7 am

Now, TransLink already has a commuter rail system - the West Coast Express. It’s my understanding that that service has five actual trains, with god knows how many cars that are attached to each “set”. They are used in peak periods on weekdays only.

So, here’s my proposal:

TransLink should take a West Coast Express train after rush hour Friday night, and plop it down in the railyards in Surrey near the Patullo Bridge. Then, starting from 7 am to 4 pm, run the service, up and down the route.

Theoretically, if it takes about 40 mins from New West to Cloverdale, you could create a timetable that would have the train coming back to each stop, every hour, in an alternate direction. Take a look:

Let the freight go by from 4 to 5, and then put it back on for evening service. Do this all weekend. See how it goes. Watch for the reception it gets.

And you wouldn’t have to spend a penny. Maybe get some wooden step stools to get on and off the train. And make it free. Let families hop on and take the route roundtrip depending on their departure point. Let people take surveys of the service. Have sketches showing what a possible rail system would look like.

We have the train. We have the time. We have the initial agreements from Southern Railway.

Let’s make it happen. Once people see how revolutionary this would be for Surrey, and the possibilities it opens up to the whole Fraser Valley, the campaign to bring back rail will be unstoppable!

As we all know, transit in Vancouver is woefully underfunded. Unlike with BC Transit systems across the province, the provincial government isn’t required to give a penny to TransLink. As such, TransLink has to cover all operating costs with three options: fares, property taxes, and the gas tax.

Historically, the provincial government paid all capital expenses of building the two SkyTrain lines. However, with the Liberals in office, they’ve lessened the province’s bill by requiring TransLink to pay a portion of the construction of new rapid transit lines. For both the Canada Line and the Evergreen Line, it amounts to $400 million each. Huge expenses when you consider TransLink also has to pay other, less PR worthy capital expenses - such as the expansion and upgrade of our region’s bus network.

At the cost of about half a million each (standard low-floor diesel buses here), TransLink could have bought 1600 buses for $800 million. That’s more that the whole, existing fleet!

Anyways, I’m on this topic because I was thinking about the cost of our road infrastructure. We tend to think of roads as far cheaper, because it basically amounts to laying tarmac on the dirt. When we think transit, we think about either the vehicles or the new infrastructure (aka: railways) to be built or obtained. The problem with thinking this way is we remove the vehicles from the road’s equation. That is to say, we must also incorporate the cost of buying a car to drive on the road. Just as a railway is useless without trains, so too is a road without cars (not completely true, but let’s just go with it for the argument’s sake).

Now, let’s take the recent widening of Fraser Highway through Surrey from a variable two laned road, to a consistent four laned highway. The expansion has taken place over a number of years, with funding coming from all sorts of partners, but the total cost is $45 million. Now, for most that follow the news, seems like a fairly cheap price for what is a road expansion that spans across Surrey (total of 13km). Certainly, when the number is under a $100 million for roadway expansion; well that number is a whole lot smaller than the billion dollar + Canada Line.

But let’s factor in the car now. Let’s say about 60% of Surrey’s population owns and drives a car - this is factoring in both kids and transit users. That goes from 400,000 people to 240,000.

Now, let’s assume about 2/3rds of these drivers own used vehicles - about an average cost of $4000. The other 1/3rd own/lease new vehicles for an average of $20,000. So, 160,000 people at $4000 each comes to $640 million. The other 1/3 at 80,000 people times $20,000 each comes to $1.6 billion!

Total cost for the drivers: $2.16 billion.

And that’s the cost just every few years. Cars get replaced over time with new ones and the investment cycle restarts.

Now, obviously, this calculation is rather skewed. I mean, it’s not like I took the total cost of road infrastructure over the years. Especially in a place like Surrey, where you would probably go to multiple destinations that are already poorly served by other transportation options, a car seems like a good investment.

My runaround point here is that our perception of the costs of road infrastructure aren’t realistic. Now, imagine if the public put their money completely into public transit. That would mean that the system would have over $2 billion to play with for expansion - every couple years. That means we could have four new SkyTrain lines in a decade - four times the rate we’ve been building the system. That’s over 1,000 new buses every year. That’s 16 LRT lines!

Just imagine what the system would be like with that kind of annual funding. People wouldn’t need cars - you’d be able to get here, there, and everywhere - all on well funded public transit.

The difficult part is transitioning the funding mechanism from roads and personal vehicles to a public transportation system…

Mark Jaccard, leading climate change advisor to the Premier, wrote an oped in the Sun today, where he defended the government’s carbon tax policy - a policy that he has personally pushed for years. 

It gets fun though when he responds to Carole James’ position against the tax:

Third, opposition politicians may mislead the public for their own political ends. Carole James, leader of the B.C. New Democratic Party, wrote in The Sun last week that the carbon tax is unfair and that she would exempt from the tax any person or industry complaining loudly enough, replacing the tax with ineffective subsidies. This saddens me. An honest politician would be telling British Columbians that a carbon tax is essential. Some people will have higher costs no matter where they live and to pretend that one can design a tax so that everyone is treated identically is disingenuous. Our carbon-funded tax cuts will benefit low-income British Columbians, even those living in colder regions.

Climate policy experts told B.C.’s NDP government throughout the 1990s that a carbon tax was essential to reduce emissions. During this time, social democratic governments in Scandinavia and the United Kingdom took the honest and courageous move of implementing carbon taxes. Our NDP government instead used taxpayers’ money to provide subsidies and information programs that had no effect on emissions — just what they were told would happen.

Given these obstacles to politicians doing the right thing, my colleagues at the Global Energy Assessment were surprised by B.C.’s carbon tax — the first in North America. They wanted to know more about our “honest and courageous” political leaders. So I told them about Gordon Campbell, Carole Taylor and Barry Penner. I stayed quiet about Carole James.

So, basically, he says:

We told you what to do in the 90’s, you didn’t listen to us, now you are in opposition, so… STFU! 

Rock on Jaccard!

(Please note, that I am in no way a BC Liberal. It’s just, how can you not want to poke the ineffective NDP when they are down and seemingly never going to get back on their feet?!)

Oddly enough, there’s been two articles from the major media recently that are clamouring for improved rail in Canada. This topic is something I actually experienced recently during a trip to Regina.

As everyone knows, rail in Europe is essentially “the” way to get around. Unfortunately, while Europe and parts of Asia were investing in rail, North America put all it’s money into highways. It’s this “road first” mentality that has destroyed John A. MacDonald’s dream of a coast to coast railway for Canada.

Throughout the past 5 decades, the government has refused to properly fund passenger rail, and has handed over complete control of the rail system to private corporations.

To put it into today’s perspective, during my recent trip to Regina, I examined the three ways to get there without a car: Greyhound, Via Rail, and WestJet. Now, as most know, flying in Canada is almost as expensive as our cellular data plans! Course, many will pay the premium to skip the long travel time that a train or bus presents.

Now, due to funding cuts, Via no longer even runs trains through Regina - closest I could get was Saskatoon. This routing has also eliminated any national rail connections through Calgary. All rail from Vancouver is looped north through Jasper and Edmonton, to Saskatoon and Winnipeg, and finally to Toronto.

Beyond that “small” annoyance, the cost comparison of rail to a coach service like Greyhound is unbelievable. For example, it was almost $600 one way for me to get to Saskatoon from Vancouver, whereas a return trip via Greyhound could be obtained for only $400. Not to mention the rail trip took longer!

Same scenario for rail south to Seattle or Portland - two wonderful day trips that could easily be a wonderful experience via rail transport. Unfortunately, the provincial government refuses to cooperate with Amtrak and the federal government of the States, which are trying rather futilely to upgrade the “Cascadian” route to handle high speed rail. BC has chosen to implement the cheapest of the proposed upgrades - a couple of rail passes. Like that will speed things up much!

It’s all a very disappointing state of affairs. With three major corridors ripe for high speed rail, governments across Canada are neglecting our rail system at a time when considerable investment is needed. With the advent of both climate change and peak oil, not only are citizens going to look for rail as a “green” form of transport, corporations are going to shift from trucking to rail for continental shipping.

And we’re still stuck with a 100+ year old rail bridge in New Westminster causing numerous backups and limiting expansion and growth of our rail system - with no plan or funding in place to replace it!

What in the hell is going on here?

During the Surrey Mayor’s State of the City address, while discussing transportation in BC’s second largest city, Dianne Watts said:

“I for one am a firm believer that instead of SkyTrain expansion in Surrey we should be looking at At Grade Rail. At Grade Rail is significantly cheaper, easier to build and much more aesthetically pleasing than Sky Train. Surrey cannot wait until 2020 for improved rail transit. At Grade Rail can be completed much faster. I have great confidence in the potential of At Grade Rail, and I am currently having City staff analyze this option so that we can move it forward.”

This is a terrific move on the part of the Mayor. It great to know that she understands the added qualities that LRT presents to Surrey over SkyTrain - not just cost efficiency per km, but also aspects like the streetscape asthetics.

While I understand the reasoning for SkyTrain to UBC and to Coquitlam, I am a vehement supporter of the development of a new rail transit network based on LRT. Surrey is in the perfect position to be the beginning spot for this new network and will set the city apart from the North of Fraser’s transportation planning of the past few decades. It’s saying “We will chart our own path, learn from your mistakes, and build the best rail transit we can”. And that rail transit will be based on LRT!

Hopefully Surrey City Council will take a nod from Vancouver, and continue to push forward on the Heritage Rail Project. It would be a fantastic business case for LRT South of the Fraser if we can have a demonstration up and running in the next few years!

Good job Dianne! You just got my vote for November!

Is there a worse possible headline a party could get? It’s a blatant showing that politicians are “better” than the general public, and have to “go to the streets” to get the public’s “real thoughts”.

WTF?

Shouldn’t they already know what the real problems are? That’s what their job is! And if they are in fact going to start knocking on doors, or riding SkyTrains, then why do they need a friggin press release? Have the NDP sunk so low that not only do they not realize what transit riders go through everyday, but they have to get some type of attention for trying to understand what the issues are?

And why the hell is the transportation critic from Esquimalt anyways? Doesn’t Carole James have any sense of organization or leadership to know that she should put someone from the Lower Mainland on such a high profile ministry? Why isn’t Adrian Dix covering transportation - I’m sure it would raise his profile much more so than beating the dead horse that is the health ministry.

F**k politicians who don’t even have the capacity to understand what the public goes through. And f**k policitical parties that are such cowards that they can’t even find one problem to hound the Campbell government one - of which, they are *tons*.

I hate BC politics.

Just as the media has been speculating for months, Carole Taylor has introduced a revenue neutral carbon tax for BC. We are the second province in Canada, following Quebec, to introduce the tax as an method of curbing climate change.

Here’s the deets:

Carbon Tax

A carbon tax will be introduced on all fossil fuels starting July 1st. It will increase over time. The rate begins at $10 per tonne of carbon emissions. It will generate $1.85 billion over three years.

For example, the cost works out to be 2.41 cents per litre of gas, and 2.2 cents per litre of diesel.

Legislation will be developed requiring the government to show how the carbon tax funds are being used to fight climate change.

Revenue Neutrality

Every BC resident will receive a $100 dividend in June aimed at helping them to adopt greener lifestyles before the carbon tax is introduced.

Low income households will receive a new Climate Action Credit quarterly, amounting to $100 per adult and $30 per child.

Furthermore, the bottom two personal income tax rates, the general corporate income tax rate, and the small business tax rate will all be reduced to offset the carbon tax revenues.

General Spending

• Health care spending is up $2.9 billion over three years
• K-12 education spending is up $144 million over three years
• $104 million over four years will go towards reducing homelessness
• $78 million over four years will go towards keeping emergency shelters open 24 hours

Surplus?

The forecasted surplus for this year is $50 million, a far cry from last year’s $2 billion.

For a while I felt as though my blog was steering too far into posts on Surrey. I mean, obviously it’s something I feel is important to write about as it is my home city. However, I know not everyone is interested in such posts.

On that front, I’ve launched a Surrey specific blog: civicSurrey. It will cover important future developments and major news stories in the city. I may crosspost a few interesting articles, but generally from now on, most Surrey posts will be on civicSurrey. So, go check it out and I hope you stick around!

Two maps I worked on recently to show you. First off, here’s the ALR in Surrey. Sure, it’s nature I suppose, despite the fact that none of it is public land (meaning the nature is inaccessible to most people), and that very few of these places actually make any edible food for our region. Still, it’s good for containing sprawl.

Secondly, here’s the other green spaces in the City - basically areas that were densely green on the aerial map (mostly forests and whatnot). Some of this greenery is parks (i.e. you can see Tynehead, Green Timbers, and Bear Creek), other areas are sections like the grass along the power line corridors.

Nature truly is the arteries of our cities. It’s too bad politicians and developers don’t understand this.

Not much of a “city in a sea of green”, is it?