Broadway Transit Project Speeds Up

Friday, 04. 23. 2010  –  BLAHG

Chris Richards

Council took another baby step towards the introduction of rapid transit down the Broadway corridor to UBC this past week, unanimously approving new guidelines for approaching the mega project.

Along with the new guidelines, council unveiled six transportation options for the public to choose from. These included combinations of above-ground SkyTrain, at-grade light rail and rapid bus transfer.

Before boiling it down to six final contestants, council went through several alternatives. Some of the options that didn’t quite make the cut include chair lift, underground mining-cart tunnels, express-blimp service and a new rapid transit system developed in Germany where individuals are catapulted through the air from a launch station at Commercial and Main and land gently on giant pillows to be constructed in the endowment lands. It’s cutting edge stuff and very eco-friendly.

All joking aside, the project is sure to draw heavy criticism no matter the method. People are already coming out in staunch opposition and there are many more businesses down the Broadway corridor than on Cambie Street, which still has some angry store owners pursuing law suits for loss of business.

Me- I vote it just stays the way it is and the university kids deal. Oh, sweet apathy! The crutch of the scared and indecisive, what would I do without you?

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4 Responses to “Broadway Transit Project Speeds Up”

  1. Matt Cavers Says:
    April 24th, 2010 at 11:11 am

    Nuts to apathy! I vote for rapid rail from Arbutus to Commercial on the Broadway corridor, joining light rail from False Creek to UBC. It’ll be bad for business for a while, and then amazing for business afterwards. Anyone care to differ?

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  2. Matt Chambers Says:
    April 25th, 2010 at 10:12 am

    Here are the options as posted on Translink’s site:

    http://www.translink.ca/en/Get-Involved/Be-Part-of-the-Plan/Alternatives.aspx

    Apparently not even encouraging words embedded in the URL are enough to defeat Chris Richards’ powerful apathy.

    Council has been talking about building rapid transit on the Broadway corridor since 2000. It’s the second largest employment generator in the Province, after downtown Vancouver. Keeping that in mind, I think the expense and short-term inconvenience of new a new Rapid Rail line is justified (Canada Line, Skytrain).

    As for the light rail options, I don’t really see much benefit over buses. Street-level rail transit is different from buses with dedicated lanes how? More capacity? Less maintenance? Lower power requirements?

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  3. Chris Richards Says:
    April 25th, 2010 at 10:53 am

    Bad for business now, good for later? That’s if your business survives while they dig up the street in front of your storefront and divert all foot traffic.

    I like the Arbutus idea myself, a bike lane is being lobbied for pretty heavily, but it’s owned by CP Rail and I think they are keen on being douchey about the whole thing.

    Shouldn’t priority be the Evergreen Line from Coq to Van? We don’t have money for that but if Point Grey and UBC want rapid transit suggestive URLs and public forums are launched in record time.

    BTW, here is the info for those public forums.

    All the sessions run from 6 p.m. PT to 9 p.m at the following locations:

    * Thursday Apr. 22 at the UBC Student Union Building.
    * Tuesday, May 4 at St. James Community Square, 3214 W. 10th Avenue.
    * Thursday, May 6 at West Point Grey United Church, 4595 W. 8th Avenue.
    * Tuesday, May 11 at the Centre for Digital Media, 122 - 577 Great Northern Way.
    * Thursday, May 13 at the Vancouver Masonic Centre, 1495 W. 8th Avenue.

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  4. Jay Currie Says:
    April 25th, 2010 at 1:59 pm

    I have often thought the Province should just bite the bullet and buy a tunnel boring machine. Drop it in a hundred foot deep hole at Commercial and Broadway and let it run, slowly, out to UBC. Then send it over to the North Shore. Then do a ring bore from Coquitlam to Tswassan and then let’er rip across the Strait. Maybe add three stations a year but do it for thirty years and you’ve got yourself a serious, region wide, transit system.

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