More Proof that SkyTrain is a Waste of Money

A report called “A Cost Comparison of Transportation Modes” has been making the rounds on listservs and blogs, so I thought I would talk about it as well. This is a report from Professor Patrick M. Condon and Kari Dow from the Sustainability by Design program at UBC.

Condon and Dow looks at the total costs of transportation modes. I encourage you to read the whole report, but I wanted to post this telling tabling. One of the thing that we are told is that while SkyTrain costs double or more to build than light rail, you get major saving in the operating costs. This savings is suppose to offset the capital costs. This apparently is not true according to Condon and Dow. SkyTrain costs $2.66 per passenger-mile; light rail is $1.68 per passenger-mile.

Click Table to Enlarge

Also telling is that Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) cost more to build and operate than light rail! So, why are we building BRT and SkyTrain? It doesn’t make sense… I hope someone from the Ministry of Transportation sees this report.

Where we Shine in BC

This is the last post of my mini-series on the Statistics Canada report, "From Roads to Rinks: Government Spending on Infrastructure in Canada, 1961 to 2005". BC is the leader when it comes to government-owned capital as it relates to the environment. BC is also numbers two in recycling, just behind Nova Scotia. Local Government own 80% of environmental assets.

Some facts about Metro Vancouver.

-Metro Vancouver is spending close to $1 billion dollars to improve water quality with the Seymour-Capilano filtration project.

-Metro Vancouver is removing combined sewers in the region to eliminate raw sewage from overflowing into our rivers.

-Metro Vancouver has completed work on improving the efficiency of our wastewater treatment plants

-Metro Vancouver has a waste diversion rate of 55 percent that is far higher than most Canadian municipalities.

Anyway, I think we can be a little proud in BC on what we have done and continue to do on this front. Have a good weekend!

What is Wrong with this Picture

As I was waiting for the bus today, I noticed the owner of this truck try to park this thing in the "small car" spot. It took him three times to get his truck over the curb in order to "park" it... Really fella, is this truck even remotely near a small car in size?



I snapped the following picture by my work in downtown Vancouver. This is what is left of the Pantages Theatre on Hasting Street. This theatre was built in 1907 and is the oldest remaining vaudeville theatre in Canada. You can read more about the theatre on the History of Vancouver website. There was a plan to restore this theatre in 2008, but the City of Vancouver turned the proposal down. It appears now that the theatre will be torn down due to recent water damage. It is the Heritage Vancouver Society's number one endanger site.

Road and Other Infrastructure in Canada

This is part two of a multi-part series on a report from Statistics Canada Report titled, "From Roads to Rinks: Government Spending on Infrastructure in Canada, 1961 to 2005". Today I want to focus on transportation infrastructure spending. One of the thing that you constantly hear is that BC has underinvested in road for so long that we have to play “catch up”. Looking at the information from this report, it would appear that this is not as dire as people say. In fact since 1961, BC has seen an average annual grow of 2.3% for road infrastructure; the highest rate in Canada. Looking at the following graph, we can see that BC largest per capita infrastructure boom was between about 1985 and 1992.

That was during the time of the Alex Fraser Bridge, Highway 91, Coquihalla, Okanagan Connector era. Between 1992 and 2005, road infrastructure spending was reduced throughout all of Canada, but we had more road infrastructure than Ontario and Quebec until 2002. If we look at absolute dollars in the following table, we can see that BC has kept pace with the rest of Canada and is number 3 in road infrastructure after Ontario and Quebec.


What is more interesting to look at is something called “Other transportation” in this report; this includes railway tracks and passenger terminals. Between 1961 and 2005, we saw a -1.0% loss of value in this kind of infrastructure in Canada and -1.6% in BC. This is the only area nation-wide that has seen negative growth at the provincial level (p.24), with local government trying to make up the difference. Again, TransLink in Vancouver and the TTC in Toronto are the perfect example. The TTC lost its provincial funding in the 1990’s, and has been in financial trouble ever since.

So looking at areas to improve, we can see that road spending has seen growth in absolute terms, but it would appear that other transportation has been sliding. Looking at these numbers and the environment, it would appear that we really need to play “catch up” more so with public transit and other transportation infrastructure.