Patrick Condon, a landscape architecture professor at the University of British Columbia, was asked by David Beers of the Vancouver Planning Commission for his views on the proposed RAV (Richmond Airport Vancouver) rapid transit line.
Professor Condon says he "supports transit but would like to see the maximum benefit to the maximum number of people when public money is spent. I am also concerned that our transit investments help create a more sustainable region for our children. I believe that there is a better solution than RAV when assessed against these criteria."
With permission, I reproduce Professor Condon's views, as distributed to the Smart Growth BC Livable Communities listserv.
The dismantling of the Vancouver streetcar system was a tragedy. Similar
tragedies hit most other North American cities, Toronto the notable
exception. It is well documented that General Motors and a consortium of
other auto related interests intentionally dismantled many North American
streetcar systems - first by purchasing profitable systems in the 30s and
40s, then dismantling them in the 40s and 50s. Yet the bones of cities
built around the streetcar system remain essentially unchanged. Vancouver
is still a streetcar city - so is Portland.
Citizens of Portland have begun rebuilding their streetcar system. They are
the only North American city to do so. Originally they chose the
inexpensive streetcar option out of desperation, having narrowly lost a
regional referendum aimed at financing an expansion of their MAX light rail
system, a system that costs over 50 million US per mile. That is about half
of what Skytrain costs per mile, but still more than Portland could afford.
With the failure of that initiative, Portland officials needed to either
give up on rail transit or become smarter. Fortunately, smart won out. Now
the city of Portland has its first ten miles of a modern streetcar system.
Soon they will have thirty.
Streetcars are much smaller and lighter than light rail systems, with cars
that are similar in scale to our 99-B articulated buses. Streetcars ride
either on or off street right-of-ways. They can be integrated with
traffic, use a dedicated lane in the street, or have their own right of way
as local conditions and performance demands dictate. The technology used in
Portland is capable of speeds up to 90k.
The cost for the Portland streetcar system? Under 20 million US per mile.
They went with streetcar because it was all they could afford. Today they
could not be happier with their thrift. The neighbourhoods through which
the streetcar line runs have seen enormous increases in high intensity
mixed use development. Real estate valuation increases in surrounding
blocks will likely make the streetcar the smartest public infrastructure
investment in Portland's history. These increases occurred precisely
because the system, small in scale and street friendly, added quality to
the neighbourhoods through which it traversed rather than degrading them.
For the 1.7 billion CD budget for the RAV you could buy enough Portland
type streetcar to connect to the airport and Richmond up both Arbutus and
Granville - and you could throw in a line on Main Street for good measure.
You would still have enough money left to connect the Commercial Street
Skytrain station to UBC up Broadway and/or 4th. And did I mention you would
still have enough to connect Langley and Cloverdale to the Surrey Skytrain
terminus using the old interurban line? And let's not forget that you could
probably expect the same increases in neighbourhood quality and value
experienced in Portland for all neighbourhoods traversed.
If it works this well in Portland why are we spending 5 times more per
kilometer here? The answer is single-track thinking, literally and
figuratively speaking. From the beginning, RAV planners (and the Millennium
Line planners before them) seem to have presumed that speed was all that
mattered. Planners argued that trips from the urban periphery to the urban
centre had to be less than an hour to lure suburban residents from cars
onto transit. Streetcar systems are not the best choice for that so they
never got a hearing.
But this thinking has a fatal flaw. It assumes that the key trip to
accommodate is the trip from suburb to centre. This assumption contradicts
the "complete community" premise of the GVRD's Liveable Region Strategic
Plan. Building complete communities is the number one goal of that plan -
places where folks can live, work, and shop within a reasonable distance
(say within a 5k radius). The plan presumes that job centres will still
exist and that many people will still commute long distances, but that over
time the distribution of jobs and homes will come into balance. This is
already happening. Even RAV advocates recognize the two-way nature of
commuting. Center cities are no longer the dominant providers of jobs. RAV
proponents acknowledge this when they include "reverse commuters" to
justify their ridership projections, ignoring the fact the RAV system is
part of the Skytrain "hub and spoke system" concept that only makes sense
if you assume that suburbs will stay largely residential forever - while
the vast preponderance of jobs will be downtown. That's not the way it is
now, jobs are increasingly moving out to where people live.
Our original streetcar system, based on an interconnected web concept
rather than a hub and spoke concept, served all districts equally. That is
why our cities look the way they do, with linear commercial and job areas
hugging the "streetcar arterials." Quiet residential blocks sat back from
these arterials, people living a short walk from a streetcar arterial and
the shops that lined them. It is a design that made sense then. It makes
even more sense now. Streetcar systems are more in keeping with the
Livable Region Strategic Plan than Skytrain and will most certainly be
more compatible with the Sustainable Region Initiative which may replace it.
The simple fact is worth restating. Vancouver and its immediate neighbours
are streetcar cities without the streetcars. Unlike Skytrain transit,
streetcar transit would support the continued development of higher density
mixed-use projects along the miles and miles of "trolley car arterials"
that are our greatest but most unappreciated urban resource. For most of us
these trolley car arterials are the centres of our daily activities - the
centres of our community life.
It is becoming increasingly obvious: The transit question is not about
getting visitors from the airport to downtown. It is about re-enforcing
mobility for area citizens where they live, close to where they live. It is
about providing transit for our neighbourhoods, not through them.
Patrick M. Condon
Posted by wetcoast at August 1, 2003 03:55 PMThis all makes sense... and not! It IS tragic that the streetcar system was dismantled, but you are comparing a streetcar to SkyTrain. Apples and oranges. Should I travel to Europe by car or jet?
Now that we have buses instead of streetcars, what is the advantage of converting back? Because that is what you are really talking about. Buses serve the old streetcar lines and offer similar service. Streetcars are similar in scale to the B-Line buses... so no increased capacity. But a bus can be quickly rerouted around an accident or street closure where a streetcar is just stuck. A bus can be operated every way a streetcar can but with greater flexibility. So what is the advantage?
Certainly for the longer trips (more time = more cars on the road = more pollution) the streetcar WON'T serve the need and won't get people out of their cars. Travelling from Coquitlam to Richmond would still be faster by
SkyTrain through downtown Vancouver than by any streetcar system, no matter how direct. Streetcars may be capable of 90 km/h but where do you see that happening (at street level) in our city?
Lets face it: our cities are a mess because of 50 years of poor planning dependent on the automobile. It will take at least 50 years to reverse the situation (probably longer because of the recent trend of every kid being driven to school). It's all well and good to return our cities to clusters
of villages but I don't see the streetcar being that saviour in spite of what happened in Portland. There may be many other factors that led to that transformation. Look at the growth in False Creek/Concord and Coal Harbour that was accomplished with abysmal public transit service. Look also at the development around Joyce station surrounding the evil SkyTrain. In the meantime we have a sprawling city that isn't going to go away. Yes we need to get more people working/shopping/playing close to home. But the need to
travel throughout this region isn't going to suddenly dry up. Stopping every two blocks in a streetcar isn't the way people are going to travel from Richmond to Vancouver.
We need to stop looking at the U.S.A. for our solutions too. Everyone knows that it's the Americans that gave us this mess to begin with. What do you see in Europe? Streetcars? Absolutely. But not exclusively. Buses too. But ALWAYS a fast train system. Whether it be subway or conventional rail almost every major city has a network of one or the other or both. Streetcars usually only serve fairly small areas, maybe half the size of Vancouver proper.
So, conventional rail down Cambie? Or Arbutus? Or L.R.T.? But with fenced in right of way and alarmed gated crossings? Not going to happen is it? Not through the west side of Vancouver. Or do we bite the bullet, go with a
system that's already in place (expensive as it might be), and complete a reasonable network to serve and further compact the denser districts of our sprawling mess. Streetcars? I love the idea on an emotional level but I just
don't see how that expense gives you anything more than more buses would.
The real key isn't fighting over the use of scraps of cash but to get real money invested in our public transit system. Then we can have a fast network AND decent local service.
Ron is absolutely correct. I live in Toronto and we have charming streetcars, and everyone hates them. They are slow, tie up traffic, and create horrendous problems in downtown. They are extremely expensive to service and require frequent track replacement which compounds the traffic chaos. Portland is a small city with a very compact downtown. In Vancouver PERHAPS streetcars may work ONLY in downtown, but I personally don't see why we can't use trolleybuses instead. And as Ron pointed out neither streetcars nor buses will work for longer trips. In Portland MAX is used exclusively for trips into downtown from the burbs, while their streetcar serves only a limited area downtown.
Posted by: robert at August 31, 2003 05:31 PMRon is absolutely correct. I live in Toronto and we have charming streetcars, and everyone hates them. They are slow, tie up traffic, and create horrendous problems in downtown. They are extremely expensive to service and require frequent track replacement which compounds the traffic chaos. Portland is a small city with a very compact downtown. In Vancouver PERHAPS streetcars may work ONLY in downtown, but I personally don't see why we can't use trolleybuses instead. And as Ron pointed out neither streetcars nor buses will work for longer trips. In Portland MAX is used exclusively for trips into downtown from the burbs, while their streetcar serves only a limited area downtown.
Posted by: robert at August 31, 2003 05:32 PMWhat everyone is seeing in Portland is remarkable and it scares them. Not only is it working but max is also currently expanding into washington state and cottage grove in the future along I-5(just outside eugene; about 200 miles away).
Visit Portland and you will see that it is among the greatest western cities. vibrant and culture rich city it is.
Ive visited Reno, Las Vegas, San Fran, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Sacramento. Portland ranks either 1st or 2nd (either portland or san fran)among western cities due to its culture and extensive max line which adds a ton of character. San Fran has wonderful trains, but Portland possesses a greater train system; such that you cannot walk a block and not see a max train.