Employment Density

One of the misconceptions about building transit-friendly cities is that you need big towers everywhere. In the City of Langley, 4-story apartments are being approved almost monthly. The latest proposal (p. 26) will see 80 units per acre. This is more than enough density to support transit service from bus to rail. One thing that we do well at as a region is residential density. Of course for effective public transit, you need employment density as well. I could argue that employment density is even more important. If you can't take transit to work, it doesn't matter is you live in the tallest tower in the region.

Employment density is an area that the South of Fraser struggles with; just look at the Langley Bypass. In Metro Vancouver, 38% of our employment lands can't be served effectively with transit. While uping density in residential areas can create political issues, designing transit-friendly and mixed-used employment areas should be a no-brainer. Areas like Willowbrook and Carvolth Business Park (200th St by Highway 1) are the real areas we need to look at improving in Langley. Willowbrook has already seen a few mixed-used development with more on the way, but according to the plan for Carvolth, mixed-use is not even on the table! This must change if we want to see employment density that supports sustainable communities.

Small Lot Size coming to Langley City?

Langley is a very interesting city in that it is split in half by the Nicomekl River Floodplain. North of the river is mixed use, medium density residential, industrial, and commercial property. The south side of the river is single-family houseville.

The City of Langley has been looking at increasing the density in the south side of the river for some time. This started with legalized secondary suites in December 2006. Now the City is looking at introducing infill, smaller-lot houses to increase diversity and density in the area. Not surprising, the community is almost split 50/50 on the issue. What I don't get is that people with large lots have the opportunity to make a bit of money with the proposed changes, so you'd think there would be more support.

Anyway, the City start public consultations tomorrow and have a web page setup where you can read more about the proposed changes.

SkyTrain Extension to Langley City and Rapid Bus to Chilliwack

Well, the bombshell of sorts was dropped today at the Union of BC Municipalities meeting in Whistler. Premier Gordon Campbell addressing the group promised SkyTrain to Langley City. He said:

"It's time to get started doing the SkyTrain to Langley City which has planned itself to actually provide the opportunities for the future that are required to make sure that transit works. It's time to get ready to build a rapid bus from Langley to Chilliwack. It's time to build rapid transit to UBC. It's time we got started. We decided finally on the technology. We made the decisions within the next year so we can get on with building the kind of communities and cities that we need that will serve the needs of our citizens."

You can read the whole speech here. There is talk of more highway work and new park initiatives. It is a bit disheartening to us LRT advocates I must say. While we agree with rapid transit in Langley City and the Township, we want something that is sustainable, efficient and makes good business sense. A SkyTrain station is $30M-50M and an LRT station is only about $5K. Besides the capital costs to build this, what will the operating costs be? I have mixed feelings about this plan and mostly I'm thinking we could get more bang for our buck and more areas of Langley serviced by other modes. I have to politely disagree with the Premier on this one.

Hat tip to Mike MacDonald for directing me to this CBC article.

News Update

There is a great article in the Victoria Time-Colonist called "Driving transit into the future". It talks about how to improve the fare box recovery ratio for BC Transit by making transit more accessible and by pricing car travel.

It doesn't matter whether you ever use transit, you're paying for it. And you might be paying far more than you realize -- about 77 per cent of the cost of keeping those buses on the road.

And that, as B.C. Transit CEO Manuel Achadinha says, needs to change.

Make buses faster than cars. Buses already have priority lanes and the right of way when they are pulling away from stops -- but how about a bus-only flyover at McKenzie and the Trans-Canada Highway? Or dedicated lanes so buses could breeze past cars?

We could also consider parking taxes, which could raise money for transit while encouraging people to leave their vehicles behind. It would only work, however, if it reduces the number of cars downtown; if it simply becomes another way to subsidize transit, it would miss its mark.

Meanwhile in Toronto, the Tornto Transit Commission is having a showdown with the province over what type of fare system to have: an open fare system that would accept debt and credit cards as fare media that could be used a pay-as-go or as passes, or the province's $250 million Presto smart card system. According to the Toronto Star:

Open fare payment versus smart card has been a point of contention between the TTC and province. Under open payment a rider pays with a credit or debit card or cell phone and the cost of managing fare collections would go to an outside provider that would make money on the transaction fees.

A smart card system requires riders to “load” the card with money and the fare is deducted when the card is scanned.

So fare the province has committed $250 million to developing the Presto smart card for all nine regional transit providers, including the TTC. The TTC is considered essential to Presto’s success because Toronto provides 85 per cent of the transit trips in the region. But as the largest system the TTC is concerned about paying for the Presto system.

On a side note, the Chicago Transit Authority is moving to an open fare system.

Finally in Seattle, Metro Transit will be adding a slew of express bus services according to Crosscut:

On Saturday, Metro fires up its long-awaited entry into a form of service that has proliferated, really, across the globe: bus rapid transit. On Rapid Ride Line A, 16 new buses will run almost a hundred times a day in each direction on Pacific Avenue South between Federal Way and Tukwila, connecting a string of big transit destinations, including, for example, Highline Community College and Sea-Tac Airport.

There are five more Rapid Ride lines to follow.