Tuesday, August 31, 2021

Gardiner-ramps-tear-down-work-starting

 https://dailyhive.com/toronto/gardiner-ramps-tear-down-work-starting

https://www.blogto.com/city/2021/09/section-toronto-gardiner-expressway-vanished-into-dust/

A limited tear down but the overall Gardiner remains intact. The Vancouver approach is to let a couple of viaducts fall apart until they are taken down by the city.

https://www.toronto.ca/services-payments/streets-parking-transportation/road-maintenance/bridges-and-expressways/expressways/gardiner-expressway/gardiner-expressway-rehabilitation-strategy/

https://www.toronto.ca/news/city-of-toronto-and-waterfront-toronto-to-begin-construction-of-lake-shore-boulevard-east-project/

https://www.blogto.com/city/2020/10/toronto-waterfront-remove-gardiner/

https://www.cnu.org/what-we-do/build-great-places/gardiner-expressway

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardiner_Expressway

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardiner_Expressway#Elevated_section_maintenance

Construction officially begins on Canada Line's new...Capstan Station

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/capstan-station-canada-line-skytrain-construction-groundbreaking

Unfortunately, all the Skytrain stations should have been built to be at least 500 feet or 152m in length for future demand. Instead, the first 2 lines are barely half the length of a Montreal Metro station. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Metro#The_first_two_lines

It should have been built to handle at least a 10 car train, but 9 coaches is still pretty good.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Metro#Network

The C Line was deliberately built with stations that are only a 3rd of the length of a Montreal Metro station. So instead of a 9 car train, the C Line will max out with just 3 car trains. All that money spent and yet there was no provision for a longer big city train.

https://www.progressiverailroading.com/passenger_rail/news/TransLink-Richmond-break-ground-on-Canada-Line-Station--64549

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/richmond-translink-transport-2050-canada-line-steveston

For some reason, Vancouver and BC can't seem to build something right the first time.

"Unlike Bombardier ART trains, the Hyundai Rotem trains will not be operated as longer four- or six-car trains. Through inserting a middle "C" car at the articulated joint between two end cars, available capacity will be similar to a four-car Mark II or a six-car Mark I train. The Canada Line's station platforms are expandable to 50 metres (160 ft) in length to accommodate these future three-car trains; the five busiest stations are already 50 metres (160 ft) in length. The Canada Line has a designed future capacity of 15,000 pphpd when operating three-car trains at two-minute headways." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTrain_rolling_stock#Canada_Line_fleet

This is still the best article about how inept an shortsighted regional planing is in Greater Vancouver. https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/canada-line-skytrain

Saturday, August 21, 2021

New Massey-Tunnel-to Delta with no-light-rail-option

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/massey-tunnel-delta-light-rail-opinion

This is backward BC planning at its best.

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/george-massey-tunnel-immersed-business-case

Originally, it was to be a 10 lane bridge with a provision for light rail trains, but BC stopped it.

Seattle has a double level bridge, called the Ship_Canal_Bridge. It has a total of 12 lanes & V,BC wasn't able to stop it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_5_in_Washington#/media/File:Over_Lake_Union.JPG

Of course, because its in another country, BC couldn't mess it up. 

No lanes had to be removed from the bridge because of the University_Link_tunnel. It was able to provide an alternative to driving on that part of I-5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_1_(Sound_Transit)#Route

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_1_(Sound_Transit)#Stations

From the UW then under downtown & onto the airport & back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downtown_Seattle_Transit_Tunnel Unlike small thinking Vancouver, Seattle was able to have longer underground stations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Square_station#/media/File:Pioneer_Square_Station_center_platform_transfer_from_above.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_Street_station#/media/File:University_Street_station,_Seattle_-_02.jpg One can clearly see how much longer & higher the Seattle stations are.

The Canada_Line could have had stations that were already 3 times as long to meet future transit  demand. Apparently, Vancouver, BC & Canada saw no valid reason to plan for a big city train. 

"The five busiest stations have platforms 50 metres (160 ft) long, while the rest of the stations have 40-metre (130 ft) platforms that can be easily extended to 50 metres." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Line#Stations (In contrast, Montreal made sure that all of their Metro stations were 500 feet or 152m long, right from the start. It would be absurd to only build 50m long stations in Montreal, but they aren't under Greater Vancouver & BC short sighted planing.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadway%E2%80%93City_Hall_station#/media/File:Broadway-City_Hall_Station_platform_2018.jpg (A toy station that is only 50m long, when Montreal has 152m stations & even Auto-routes.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_City_Centre_station#/media/File:Vancouver_City_Centre_Platform_2018.jpg (Another inept 2 or 3 car station, when the Montreal Metro stations can accommodate 9 car trains.)

Metro-Vancouver-municipal-housing-approvals and-delays

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/metro-vancouver-municipal-housing-approvals-delays

Italy can fit into BC over 3 times, but the power-structure doesn't want that many people to live in BC.

https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?stateID=1&status=15 BC

https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?countryID=1&status=15 Can

G Challenger-map at the PNE

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/campaign-challenger-map-pne

Fortunately, no one from Vancouver went over to dismantle parts of the CNE. However, the power-structure in Vancouver was very successful in tearing down parts of the PNE.