Enhanced Alternatives For Crossing The Malahat

Submission by Transport Action Canada on the Malahat Corridor Study
By Brendan B. Read, March 2007

Editor's Note:
This article is in response to the: Malahat Corridor Study by the BC Ministry of Transportation.

Transport Action Canada www.transport2000.ca is a nonprofit educational and advocacy organization that promotes environmentally-sound transportation solutions. We commend The Province of British Columbia and the consultants it selected, Stantec Consulting, for taking an open and thorough look at the options for addressing how best to cope with handling the transportation needs on the Malahat Corridor.

Summary

We support a new "Enhanced Option C1" Combined Alternative Modes, as follows:

1. Ongoing localized highway safety and reliability improvements within the highway envelope e.g. additional median barrier cutouts to enable emergency vehicles to access accident sites quicker and to reroute traffic more effectively. More crackdowns and perhaps stiffer penalties on reckless drivers, coupled with better public education.
2. Minimally modernizing the car ferry e.g. one newer, faster, larger vessel operating longer hours to enable detours, coupled with signage directing motorists to the ferry southbound at Mill Bay, and to provide vehicle access to/from the Saanich Peninsula. Pricing issues i.e. free or tolled and at what rates need to be examined further.
3. Strongly promoted satellite and teleworking TDM options.
4. New passenger ferry service fed by connecting transit buses.
5. Diesel light rail (DLR) commuter rail/rapid transit, with the option of extending it over the proposed downtown Victoria streetcar to James Bay and to the Ogden Point cruise ship terminals, preceded and supplemented by transit buses between the Cowichan Valley and the Western Shore.

This "Enhanced Option C1" should be evaluated further. Details of aspects 3 (satellite/teleworking) and 5 (DLR) are discussed later in this paper.

General comments on study

A. Need

There is a reasonable need to devise attractive environmentally-sound and taxpayer/user-affordable methods of managing transportation demand on the Malahat Corridor. The CVRD's population is projected to reach 97,000 by 2026 from 72,000 in 2001. The CRD's population is expected to reach 428,000 by 2026 from 326,000 in 2001, with the bulk of the growth in the Western Shore.

Rising house costs south of the Malahat have prompted many people to move into the Cowichan Valley and commute into the CRD. The average house price in Duncan was $296,000 as of January 2006, compared with $479,000 in Greater Victoria. Such differences may be enough to overcome higher commuting costs from the CVRD into the CRD as compared with elsewhere in the CRD.

The Malahat Corridor Study correctly concluded that reliability is the primary transportation issue given that the Malahat Highway is the only feasible north-south road option. While safety is a concern-the oft-stated reason for fixing the problem-the crash rate is actually lower than average. Capacity may (emphasis ours) become an issue as traffic volumes increase.

At the same time, we must balance these issues and the need to handle them against personal responsibility for where we live and how we drive, especially as costs and consequences, such as on the environment, from transportation decisions increase. People have, and will continue to choose live on both sides of the Malahat, despite the single road link, because the benefits: employment, housing costs and lifestyle outweigh the hassles. Many other British Columbians make similar choices in deciding to live in other parts of the province where there is single road access, like north and west of Campbell River, west of Nanaimo, on the Sunshine Coast and west of Prince George.

The Malahat Highway is very safe and reliable if you drive defensively, especially at night and in poor weather, remembering that it is a mountainous road and if you look after your vehicle. If more people took that responsibility there would be fewer accidents and delays, thus increasing highway reliability and reducing the costs from these events.

B. Complete evaluation of all direct and indirect costs

Has the study evaluated, or does it plan to evaluate all of the options to obtain the complete range of direct and indirect costs? These are discussed as follows:

1. Complete assessment of environmental impacts and costs

(a) Have the environmental costs, such as the loss of greenhouse gas (GHG)-storing trees and oxygen-creating-through-conversion of CO (2) biomass, including farmland and wetlands) been fully assessed against each option?

According to the US Department of Agriculture's Forest Service, a tree generates $31,250 worth of oxygen, provides $62,000 worth of air pollution control, recycles $37,500 worth of water, and controls $31,250 worth of soil erosion over a 50 year lifespan.

A single tree can remove from 26 lbs. to as high as 50 lbs. of CO (2) a year: estimates vary. State forest services report that an acre of trees uses 5,880 lbs. of carbon dioxide and gives us 4,280 lbs. of oxygen each year.

Also, have the transportation modes been effectively evaluated for their pollution impacts, e.g. GHGs?

For example, AT&T developed a "greenhouse gas calculator. An employee driving a car that gets 20 mpg and drives 15 miles round trip from their workplace each workday creates 3,680 lbs. of CO(2) per year.

Here are some figures on greenhouse gas emissions per mode [(CO2 Equivalents)] Source: Victoria Transport Policy Institute www.vtpi.org

Note that this study predates the popularity of SUVs, which are big fuel guzzlers and which pour out more emissions that must be scrubbed by greenspace. Also, new-technology trains are substantially more efficient than buses. The O-Train DLR, in Ottawa, Ontario, consumes 1.32 litres per kilometer: 40 percent less fuel or better than when compared to the average amount of fuel per kilometre used by a transit bus.

(b) Have the healthcare impacts as a result of environmental impacts from transportation been analyzed?

The British Columbia Provincial Health Officer's Annual Report 2003 Air Quality in British Columbia, a Public Health Perspective reports that the annual cost of the burden of disease from air pollution (of which motor vehicles is the largest source of, percentagewise) is approximately $167 million.

Using a variety of published studies as starting points, it estimates that for BC approximately 271 deaths (range 138-403) can be attributed to air pollution in its three main forms: 51 per cent of deaths due to outdoor air pollution, 9 per cent related to indoor, and 40 per cent to second-hand smoke.

Air pollution in BC is conservatively estimated to be responsible each year for 712 to 2,079 hospital admissions and between 943 to 2,757 emergency room visits, mostly from respiratory and cardiovascular conditions. Larger estimates would apply to activity restriction, absenteeism from work or school, and respiratory symptoms.

2. Development impacts

Has there been/will there be a full evaluation of land use impacts of these options including on sprawl and if so, how were they measured? Highway construction has often led to sprawl that has eaten up land and have led to more and costly pollution compared to rail, provided that such rail systems are accompanied by measures to promote compact transit-oriented development.

3. Induced travel and consequences

Do, and which alternatives induce travel, creating more environmental impacts? Have the highway and bridge options been or will be analyzed, and how, with respect to induced travel i.e. providing more road capacity that generates more traffic--including by enabling sprawl? If so, if so how did/how will the study get the figures and what were the formulas and methodologies?

There is mounting evidence to show such strategies have led to a vicious and costly cycle that is in part responsible for the high creation of GHGs leading to global warming. Most new highway capacity fills up within 4-7 years.

(a) The Surface Transportation Policy Project (STPP), USA, 1999 reported that between 1982 and 1997, metro areas that were aggressive in expanding the amount of road space per person fared no better in terms of rush-hour congestion than those that did the least to add new road space; in fact, they did slightly worse. This, it said, is due in part to induced travel.

(b) The Seattle Times reported in 2003 that in 1989, a wider I-90 interstate bridge opened over Lake Washington, near Seattle. State transportation engineers built to handle projected traffic capacity. They were taken by surprise when, almost overnight, cross-lake traffic increased by almost 20 percent, well over their predictions.

(c) According to TransLink and the B.C. Ministry of Transportation that within months after the Alex Fraser Bridge was opened in 1986 it was widened from 4 lanes to 6 lanes to accommodate the immediate growth in new corridor traffic. In subsequent years, increasing traffic volumes and related growth in Delta and neighbouring areas have made the Alex Fraser Bridge the third-most congested bridge in the Greater Vancouver area.

4. Accident impacts

Have the healthcare and emergency services costs been completely evaluated or will they be? Has there been/will there be a comparative analysis of reduced accidents and their attendant costs by making the existing highway safer, or by providing new highways versus any greater risk, and frequency of accidents caused or exacerbated by higher speeds and more traffic?

5. Goldstream Park impacts and costs

Noting that several of the highway options appear to eat into Goldstream Park, what are the costs to replace the amenities, including greenspace? Also, given that highway improvements will result in more and faster traffic, have the costs of providing additional pedestrian safety measures, such as high-esthetic walkways, been calculated into the Goldstream highway options? Also, has there been/will there be an environmental analysis of increased rail or bus operations on the park?

6. Municipal downloading of highway option impacts

The study notes concerns about operating subsidies to buses and operating costs to rail, but did it/will it address the impacts of additional traffic, including induced traffic from highway options on municipal streets, and on local pocketbooks? More vehicles mean more wear-and-tear on streets. How were these/how will these impacts calculated?

7. Economic and tax gains/losses

Did the study/will the study evaluate economic and tax benefits and losses and if so how did/how will the study get the figures and what were their formulas and methodologies?

Transportation projects often demonstrate positive economic impacts, such as job and income creation, increased productivity from improved mobility, and encouraging development, which result in greater cash flows into government coffers. Yet they too often ignore the losses caused by them, not just the environmental, healthcare, amenities and wear and tear on local streets mentioned earlier but on economic activity and tax revenues lost by constructing infrastructure.

The impacted areas include farmland and forests (agricultural and fiber production) and the loss of provincial tax revenues, employment and income, and the removal of land from local property tax bases. These are annualized costs that need to be applied against the total, including maintenance and upkeep expenses of the transportation choices.

These indirect costs can be substantial. In Burlington, Ontario, a growing city west of Toronto, local officials estimate a 2 km stretch of 4 lane highway with an interchange would consume 38 hectares. That is the same amount of space for 608 modest single-family homes, each of which, in that city, pays $3,500/year in taxes. That amounts to over $2.1 million/year. A non-interchanged section of equivalent length would accommodate 350 homes, resulting in a tax loss of over $1.2 million/year.

While property tax losses would be smaller in BC, there is reason to believe that they will be considerable. The bridge options will gouge through highly desirable and expensive real estate in both the Highlands and North Saanich, and in Shawnigan Lake.

C. TDM options need more thorough evaluation

The study needs to more thoroughly examine and recommend TDM methods, especially satellite offices and teleworking, including remote learning. These two techniques can cut down on the total amount of commuting traffic to CRD workplaces, and to Camosun College and the University of Victoria.

Remote working and studying has the lowest direct cost and environmental impacts of all of the modes. It removes commuting distance as employment and educational barrier. It permits employees and students to "travel" to locations where there is unsatisfactory transit access, thereby making it often the only viable option to driving. It also lowers the need for students to find housing in Victoria, which is extremely costly. It also limits disease spread and provides disaster response.

I can testify to the latter two points. My sick days have plummeted and I have been able to work out now that I do not have to commute. I evacuated the last office I had worked in, in New York City, on 9-11-01, carrying my laptop.

Remote working has become exponentially more possible thanks to the information and Internet revolutions. As computers replace machinery as tools, as databases replace paper, and as email, instant messaging, text messaging and audio/data/video/web conferencing substitute for in-person communications, more tasks can be done at home.

As far back as 2002, International Communications Research reported that 94 percent of managers often send email rather than meet face-to-face; 67 percent very often. The Calgary Herald, which carried the story, said that managers found that they could do more with email.

Vancouver Island's economy and infrastructure is satellite/home-working friendly. Many of the new careers and jobs: in call centers and IT, are remote workable. The island has high-speed ADSL and cable broadband, permitting bidirectional data and video links at acceptable bandwidth approaching that in offices and campuses. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) eliminates long distance charges. I teleworked from homes in Victoria and Courtenay to US-based employers, as a journalist and later as a PR manager working with teams of colleagues using broadband, VoIP and conferencing.

To enable satellite offices/campuses and teleworking, the Province needs to consider measures like employer and institution tax credits and grants, along with providing education and information resources to help make such practices successful. The Province can set an example by examining its building space needs on an "is this office necessary" basis: make managers to prove that their staff can't work remotely.

The payoffs are in reduced transportation and environmental expenses. For example, some 18,400 Bell Canada employees are equipped to telework, potentially avoiding approximately 25 million km/year of work commute and, by extension, the emission of about 8,152 metric tons of CO (2) annually.

D. Thinking out of the box on commuter rail

The study is to be praised for its look at commuter rail, which is usually looked at only for large metros. Yet there are new commuter rail technologies that were not explored but which need to be so because they offer superior benefits to the options reported on.

There are limiting factors to using a traditional commuter rail approach that the study followed. These are:

1. Market size--by population and costs

There is a roughly proportional rise in incomes as commuting distance increases, which means the further the travel, the fewer the number of people likely to make those journeys. For that reason, one will find more people commuting from Duncan than from Ladysmith or Nanaimo into Victoria.

2. Access to destinations

Commuter rail functions best where there are major employment and/or educational clusters in the central business district (CBD) close to the terminal station and/or at or near regional enroute business/educational cores. If the rail stations are some distance away from these traffic generators, this can only be mitigated if there are fast and reliable transit links. Or if the highway congestion is so bad that it drives commuters to rail, regardless of the added inconvenience and costs.

Those conditions marginally exist in the CRD. Where the E&N terminates, in downtown Victoria, is not within feasible walking distance of the legislative precinct, the Douglas/Fort office and retail hub and the new Railyards and Selkirk Water office developments. While there is bus service, it is not set up as feeders or circulators to downtown and near-downtown destinations.

Victoria, Esquimalt, View Royal, and Langford, have minimal downtown or regional core employment compared with other cities and regions, such as Vancouver. Four of the CRD's largest employers/destinations, the University of Victoria, Camosun College, Victoria General Hospital and Royal Jubilee Hospital are located offline. On the other hand, the E&N directly services CFB Esquimalt which also has civilian employment, and the Esquimalt drydock.

Burlington, Vermont offers a case in point. The scenic, lakeside city, whose immediate metropolitan area has over 200,000 residents, tried a commuter train, the Champlain Flyer. The train failed after just over 2 years for several reasons including a short distance (18 km-or slightly longer from Langford to Victoria) and that the major employment, educational and shopping destinations were over 1 km uphill from the destination station.

3. There are other important markets that commuter rail can tap, provided it also provides service outside traditional rush hours

Cowichan Valley residents travel into Greater Victoria for appointments, shopping and entertainment and to show the area to visiting family and friends. Many of those who are moving into the Cowichan Valley are retirees or semi-retirees, including professionals who work from home and/or travel on business. As they age they are less willing (and able) to drive. Without adequate mass transit between the CVRD and the CRD, they increasingly face mobility problems.

Meanwhile, there is an undertapped year-round tourism market into the Cowichan Valley, from American and Canadian visitors staying in Victoria. They are interested in other activities, such as learning more about the First Nations, touring wineries or biking and hiking yet they may not want to rent a car to reach these destinations. According to Tourism Victoria, each visitor spends, on average, $120 per day. The longer tourists can be induced to stay in an area the more spending takes place in that area.

4. Proposals for light rail transit (LRT) in the CRD

The CRD appears to support building an electric LRT line via the Galloping Goose Trail from the Western Shore to downtown Victoria in the medium to long-term, while developing the bus system improvements or 'bus rapid transit' (BRT) over the short term. If LRT is built, what would be the impact on commuter rail viability; if commuter rail is put in, how will it affect the demand and the business case for LRT? In an LRT-only scenario the CVRD would be served by feeder buses.

Both the Malahat Corridor and the Western Shore transportation issues, and traffic and pollution consequences, converge at the Trans Canada Highway in fast-growing View Royal/Colwood/Langford conurbation. The E&N and the Galloping Goose Trail right-of-way (an ex-CN Rail corridor) cross under each other.

The demand for both commuter rail and electric LRT services is comparatively small for the total resources (approaching $600 million--$300 million to $375 million for LRT alone--depending on the options) required. A study by Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute for Island Transformations in 2002 estimated that LRT could attract 3,650 peak-hour riders in the first year, rising to 6,951 riders after 10 years; daily ridership would start at 18,050 riders, growing to 23,751 10 years later.

If money is allocated for commuter rail, policymakers may easily say: "that's enough for rail transit". If money is expended on LRT, the same point may also be raised. Decisionmakers may not wish to outlay more cash for a comparatively low-volume commuter rail service.

5. Diesel light rail (DLR) - a blended commuter rail/rapid transit alternative - needs to be looked at by this study

DLR offers considerable advantages over the existing system and basic commuter options, which appear to use Budd RDCs as operated on the E&N, or similar self-propelled equipment, and over the advanced commuter option that envisages locomotives and coaches, as on the West Coast Express.

DLR consists of accessible, low-emission high acceleration/deceleration lightweight diesel railcars. DLR is used in commuter rail and in rapid transit. The equipment can be the length of electric LRT, or longer (31 to 48 metres). DLR cars can accommodate between 82 and 151 seated passengers, depending on seating density as well as length. Most commonly available DLR equipment types have toilets as an option. DLR typically has a service speed of 120 km/h.

DLR is in service in Ottawa (O-Train, linking Carleton University and the Confederation Heights office complex with two BRT routes), in New Jersey: (Camden-Trenton, RiverLINE) and soon in Austin, Texas (Austin-Leander Urban Commuter Rail) and north of San Diego (Escondido-Oceanside, Sprinter). O-Train is short distance (7.7 km) and operated like a rapid transit line (it will be phased out by LRT); the others are over 50 km; some are run like rapid transit (RiverLINE) with frequent service; others are more like commuter rail (Urban Commuter Rail).

Construction, including equipment, stations and maintenance costs also vary, from $21 million for the O-Train, to over $1 billion for RiverLINE. The construction costs totaled $2.8 million per mile for the O-Train and $17.7 million per mile for RiverLINE. While the O-Train's owner, the City of Ottawa, made incremental infrastructure improvements and built modest stations, NJ Transit, RiverLINE's proprietor, created virtually a new railway, with attractive if costly facilities, including 1 mile of street running in Camden.

DLR benefits include:

(a) Lighter weight, hence more fuel efficient and less polluting than the heavier Budd RDCs and the new-generation but traditional Colorado Railcar equipment

(b) Operationally efficient. DLR can be operated with 1 person, with rapid-transit-styled proof of payment fare collection enforced with roving inspectors, while commuter rail needs a 2-person crew at minimum

(c) Superior accessibility. Unlike RDCs and Colorado Railcar, self-propelled DLR is easily accessible through low-floor sections - usually 70 percent or so in the cars.

(d) Extreme operational flexibility and adaptable. DLR is compatible with commuter, intercity passenger and freight operation if they are operationally separated e.g. freight trains not operating when DLR is, or in siding. This would not be an issue with freight as there is no service south of the Duncan area. Also, short lines like the E&N would be accorded far more government flexibility than main line railways. DLR can also operate on-street, like electric LRT, but unlike RDCs, Colorado Railcar or conventional commuter rail like West Coast Express.

This compatibly is safe and proven. In Karlsruhe, Germany, DLR, electric LRT, freight, high-speed rail and even a heritage steam railway all use the same track system, using pragmatic management, operational, and signaling systems. In Zwickau, Germany, DLR and streetcars share the same downtown tracks.

(e) DLR can also substitute for LRT between the Western Shore and downtown Victoria, saving hundreds of millions of dollars in capital costs and keeping the Galloping Goose Trail for cyclists and pedestrians. The DLR option would provide commuter rail, to carry commuters, shoppers and visitors in both directions to/from the CVRD, along with more frequent all-day rapid transit from the Western Shore into downtown Victoria.

DLR on the E&N and LRT on the Galloping Goose are comparable in speed from View Royal into Victoria. DLR can easily be expanded, such as into Colwood to Royal Roads along the Island Highway and the Galloping Goose Trail. A Colwood-Langford loop can be created with tracks from the trail or Highway 1A up Millstream to the E&N.

DLR would access downtown Victoria, the Inner Harbour, the Legislative Precinct, James Bay and Ogden Point on tracks also used by a long-proposed downtown streetcar from the Arena through the city centre, planned originally for the Victoria Accord in the early 1990s. The LRT plans also envisaged using the streetcar route. The Greater Victoria Electric Railway Society (which I co-founded in 1986) proposed that the route go to Ogden Point. The E&N and the streetcar could be linked by tracks either on Store and Herald Streets, Pandora Street or on Store/Herald eastbound, Pandora westbound. Herald Street is wide enough and has little pedestrian traffic compared with Pandora.

DLR trains would be separated from commuter and the Victoria-Nanaimo-Courtenay and potentially future Port Alberni passenger trains by physical separation (one or the other would be in sidings between Victoria and Langford). Sidings would have signals using proven inexpensive train control systems. To serve offline markets there could be express BC Transit buses from downtown Victoria to RJH, Camosun College and UVic, and train-meeting shuttles from the DLR to the Railyards and Selkirk Water, to VGH from a View Royal station and Royal Roads University from Langford station. There may need to be a new VIA station just west of the Johnson Street Bridge for Nanaimo, Courtenay and Port Alberni trains, combined with a new bus depot for intermodal connections.

In conclusion: this is an excellent study. Examining the questions raised and alternative proposed in this paper in the next phase will help meet the goals of devising the best transportation strategy for the Malahat Corridor.