Next stop, UBC Line? Not for a while

Friday, 05. 14. 2010  –  Featured, News & Opinion

Matt Cavers

Late last month TransLink announced a series of public consultations for a Broadway transit line, and for a few days, the blogosphere buzzed. Human Transit offered informed commentary; Rail For The Valley grumbled; this online magazine tossed out a few flippant lines. On the other hand, the papers ran only a story or two. On both fronts, the Broadway line receded back into the world of rumour within a week.

And I wondered – why so little attention to such a city-changing project? Then again, I’m a transit fan. I know that sounds a little, well, lame, but it’s true. I get a little thrill when I visit a city with an efficient transit system, like Christchurch, New Zealand, with its futuristic central bus terminal, smart signs at every stop and free downtown loop. I’m really fond of Vancouver, but I’m not oblivious to its rapid transit deficiencies, either. I’m also a regular traveller of the Broadway corridor; the idea of a rapid transit line along Broadway makes me positively giddy.

But how could it be that TransLink was already talking rapid transit after barely avoiding making drastic cuts last year? Suspecting that I wasn’t the only one asking this question, I set out to discover what was happening with the Broadway line. That curiosity brought me to a May 4 open house and community consultation hosted by TransLink.

Turns out I wasn’t the only one interested in the Broadway project. Around 75 people were also present. Three displays outlining the technological alternatives – light rail transit (LRT), rail rapid transit (RRT, and known to Vancouverites as SkyTrain), and bus rapid transit (BRT) - garnered the most attention. Beside the boards, attendees engaged in spirited conversation on the comparative merits of each.

Judy Rudin, TransLink’s media spokesperson, sensed my appetite for details and walked over to introduce herself. She enthused about the consultation process, explaining that the meeting was one of six aimed at refining and adjusting the hypothetical options for a Broadway line. When I asked her why it was that TransLink was planning a project for which no funding existed, she emphasized that the current proceedings were “a very high-level discussion.” Nothing, she reiterated, was being nailed down yet – and, she added, TransLink’s first priority is to build the Evergreen Line, a new rail line that will connect Port Moody and Coquitlam to the downtown core.

I pedalled away from the meeting that night with more questions than answers - the poster boards, presentations and media relations leaving me wanting. So I did what my university education had taught me to do, and made a bee-line for the library. (To use the free Internet terminals, that is.)

It turns out that the idea of a rapid transit line along Broadway, connecting the existing SkyTrain lines to UBC, is anything but new. The City of Vancouver discussed the need for it in their 1997 Transportation Plan, naming it as one of three potential new light rail lines for the region (the others were the Canada line, now completed, and the Evergreen line, not yet started). The plan set targets for increasing transit use by 2021, and specifically aimed to make transit account for 38% of peak-hour trips to Central Broadway and 36% of peak-hour trips to UBC. Thanks to the U-Pass program and the 99 B-Line rapid bus, the UBC target had been handily exceeded by 2006. Central Broadway, however, saw only 20% of trips handled by transit.

Interest in a Broadway transit line, it turns out, is as much about the Central Broadway office district as it is about UBC. Central Broadway is the city’s busiest office district besides downtown, and it sees a large number of its daily visitors coming from outside the city. The current situation with public transit, however, offers little help to commuters bound for this district. True, the Canada Line runs right into the heart of it, but commuters from points east can only get as close as the VCC-Clark SkyTrain station at Clark Drive, at which point they must transfer to the often-overloaded 99 B-Line bus. The result of this inconvenience is that 54% of peak hour trips to Central Broadway were made by drivers in 2006 – well above the city’s 2021 target of 45%.

Falling in line with the City’s plans, Translink outlined a Broadway rapid transit line in 2008 in Transport 2040, the organization’s plan for regional transportation development. But here’s the thing: TransLink has no money for new rapid transit projects. That’s not a hyperbolic way of saying that TransLink doesn’t have much money. TransLink actually has no money available for a Broadway rapid transit line, or any other new line, for that matter. Increases in fares, fuel taxes, and parking fees barely averted catastrophic service cuts in TransLink’s 2009 10 Year Plan. Though the alternative was even grimmer, the plan’s authors warned that the solution “falls well below TransLink’s objective to help build a sustainable region and be on track to the goals of Transport 2040.”

It’s not that there isn’t money out there at all. In 2008, the provincial government released a Provincial Transit Plan that called for an investment of $2.8 billion into a UBC-bound rapid transit line along the Broadway corridor. Some of that money would come from the Province; nevertheless, without a contribution from TransLink, the line remains hypothetical.

Perhaps not everyone who attended the May 4 meeting were certain of that. TransLink officials gave a brief presentation at the conclusion of the open house, and were just about to begin the community consultation workshop, when a man leapt up from the church pew in front of mine and loudly accused the regional transportation authority of lying to the public about ridership on Broadway to justify construction of an unnecessary rapid transit line. A small melee ensued, encouraging a few others to voice similar opinions. As the open house closed and the subsequent workshop began, the mood inside the hall was palpably tense.

The legacy of the Canada Line project is that any mention of rapid transit is bound to make Vancouverites jumpy. If the angry man at the meeting is any indication, there’ll be obstacles in the way of the UBC Line beyond the obvious financial ones. And, until those financial obstacles are cleared, the project will live only in the imaginations of Broadway commuters. Will the obstacles be too big to overcome? I hope not. The UBC line might be several stops away, but I’ll be paying attention along the ride.

And I’ll be commuting to UBC by bike.

Tags: Broadway Line, Translink

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