Choices and food for thought regarding Public Transportation

Our family moved into Langley from Burnaby in 1978. In 1978, the roads were not as congested as they are today and there was reasonable public transportation. Now in 2010 there are a lot more people and our roads are congested.

Earlier this summer, my wife and I took a river cruse from Amsterdam to Budapest and I observed the public transportation in the different areas. Amsterdam had a great public transportation and a lot of their ideas would work well in the South Fraser.


Public Transportation in Amsterdam starts with modern and fast passenger trains that bring people in from the outlying areas. Some passenger rail stations are also next to the Rhine Canal which is also used for public transportation. Outside of the passenger rail stations were three choices of transportation. First were bicycles that people could park outside of the passenger rail stations free of charge. At one station there were three huge parking ramps that we in North America would use for motor vehicles, but were filled with bicycles. These three ramps were still not enough to accommodate all the bicycles and there were bicycles all around the rail station as well. At the station, there was also a place to rent bicycles and the bicycles did not have to be ridden back to the rail station. The company that rented the bicycles had offices all over Amsterdam and a rider could leave the bicycle at any one of them. Riding a bicycle around Amsterdam was relatively easy since the bicycle lanes which were actually a separated from motor traffic. The bicycle lanes even had their own traffic signals.


The second form of transportation just outside the passenger rail station in Amsterdam was what we would call streetcars and what they are called trams in Holland.


There were a large number of these trams that went all over Amsterdam for a reasonable price. These trams ran with electric overhead wires with metal rails around them that looked like they could not fall off. When we used the tram, it was relatively fast, very comfortable and went down the middle of the road. Another good point was that there was only about a minute or so between trams and even though these trams where going to different places no one had to wait long.

The third form of transportation just outside the passenger rail station in Amsterdam was buses which were just on the other side of the trams. There did not seem to be as many buses and I did not see many public buses in Amsterdam. I saw more tourist buses than public transportation buses on the whole entire trip.

There did not seem to be many motor vehicles around the passenger rail stations in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam seemed to have the best transportation system of any other European city or town we visited which had fairly good systems themselves.

We did see a taxi driver in Budapest get a little annoyed and that was a very small incident. Motor vehicle drivers in the places we visited seemed to be patient, courteous and cautious. There was no real road rage and surprisingly we never heard even a horn honk. In the European places we visited, there were very few if any right turns and I was informed that in most cases right turns are illegal.

The Rhine, Main and Danube rivers and canals from Amsterdam to Budapest are used for used for public transportation as well as commercial transportation and recreation purposes.

Every place we visited had an extensive use of bicycles and there was a lot of rail based transportation.

Transportation Stats

I stumbled upon a report called Commuting in America III which was put out by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies. The report looks at the long term trends in commuting patterns in the US since the 1960’s. I encourage you to read the whole report, but there are a few highlights worth mentioning. Travel patterns have changed from suburban to central city commuting to more suburban to suburban commuting. Also, immigrants are more likely to take other forms of transportation besides a single-occupancy vehicle. Looking at the US on the whole, the mode share of the single-occupancy vehicles continue to rise while transit has a mode share of about 4.6%. Though it is not all doom and gloom. The report points out that large Metro areas have transit usage far higher than the national average at about 12%

Just as vehicle users do not drive unless there are roads, transit users cannot ride unless service is provided.

This got me thinking about Canada and lead to the very useful Place of Work Highlight Tables from the 2006 Census. Canada is a very urbanized country with 51% of commuters living in Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver, Calgary, Ottawa – Gatineau, Edmonton, Québec City, and Winnipeg metro areas. Transit mode share in these regions represent 16% of all trips on average. I looked at the smaller communities and noticed many had high walking mode share. While a policy of improving and expanding public transit is essential for our large Canadian centres, a national policy should also be developed to encourage walking and other forms of active transportation like cycling in smaller areas. Of course all non-driver forms of transportation are dependent on land-use, so a strong local commitment to smart growth communities is also required. That could be aided by senior government funding programs that support infrastructure for smart growth communities.

Golden Ears Bridge

I missed this opinion piece last week in the Langley Advance, but I thought it was worth a mention. Called "Coming into its own", Monique Tamminga speak about the impact the Golden Ears Bridge has had on travel patterns in its short one year life.

While it always seems to be smooth sailing across the bridge, even at the height of rush hour, it’s being used more than many of us realized. When it shut down, traffic to get onto the bridge on both sides of the river backed up for blocks and blocks.

Choosing to take the Port Mann bridge as an alternative lead to absolute gridlock on the freeway, even before rush hour.

I've talked about this before, but this is another example of the gaseous nature of transportation. If you build more travel facilities like new or expanded roads, separated bike lanes, or rapid transit you actually end up creating new trips. The Albion Ferry carried 4,500 vehicles per day while the Golden Ears Bridge now carries 22,300 vehicles per day with a toll. People will change their travel patterns based on the travel options provided. The Golden Ears Bridge has created many new economic opportunities since its opening and it's likely that the South Fraser Perimeter Road Freeway and expanded Highway 1 will have a similar effect in our region. The question remains: what are we doing to incentivize public transit in the South of Fraser? With the current funding issues at TransLink, I fear that we are encouraging more auto use not less.

Portland Light Rail Funding

It would appear that transit funding has been shook up a bit in light rail capital of the US Portland. TriMet, Portland's transit agency, has opened up three new light rail lines over the last decade and has relied on a funding formula of 60% from the federal government. The region had counted on the same funding formula for their proposed 12km Portland-Milwaukie light rail line, but only received 50% funding. According to an article in DJC Oregon:

The 7.3-mile light rail project, as planned, would cost $1.47 billion. The FTA will pay $735.8 million of that amount. The light rail line would run through Portland State University, the South Waterfront, Southeast Portland, Milwaukie and North Clackamas County and would include a bridge over the Willamette River.

The FTA also cited increased demands from its New Start program, which would fund the project, as well as a fixed budget.

“While the good news is they’ve committed on the other side, we have less money for the project,” said TriMet spokeswoman Mary Fetsch. “We’ll have to recalibrate the project to some degree.”

The Portland-Milwaukie project is the first Portland-area project to exceed a cost of $1 billion, Fetsch said. The project is more expensive than previous projects, Fetsch said, in part because it includes construction of a $135 million bridge and because the route goes through established neighborhoods, which makes acquisitions costs higher.

It is interesting to note that this is the first light rail project to cost over $1 billion in Metro Portland which would speak to the cost effectiveness of light rail. Portland has 84.3km of light rail compared to Metro Vancouver's 68.7km of SkyTrain. One of the interesting parts of the proposed project is a transit bridge that would accommodate bikes, pedestrians, streetcar, light rail, and buses only over the Willamette River.

From TriMet

It will be interesting to see how TriMet comes up with the missing $147m of funding for this project.