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A report commissioned by BC Transit (Delcan's Richmond -
Vancouver corridor final report) uses traffic impact as one of
the criteria for determining where a rail transit line can be
built. It then, not surprisingly, concludes that there is too
much car traffic, thus rail transit cannot be built at grade. The
study recommends an alignment which involves approximately 5 km
of tunnelling under the city of Vancouver, plus another 5 km of
elevated guideway.
The other alignment considered also involves substantial
tunnelling and elevated guideway, although it would run at grade
for most of the Arbutus rail right of way. Both lines would start
at a transfer station below the Burrard SkyTrain station.
Thus, a light rail system which is capable of carrying 8
times as many people as the lane it would replace is forced to be
put in tunnel where it is marginally faster (most major
intersections require a station anyway) but much less convenient,
much less visible, and much less pleasant to ride. That is,
assuming it gets built at all, which is unlikely since the
alignment in tunnel costs about $1 billion, approximately 4 times
as much as an at grade alignment (based on costs of recently
built light rail systems.)
Why is the public being asked to spend $750 million extra so
that one lane in each direction given freely to cars may be
preserved? Is this anything less than yet another massive subsidy
to car users, in addition to the $2.7 billion annually estimated
by the GVRD?
James Strickland
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