From: fuzzface@cats.ucsc.edu (Aaron Priven)
Newsgroups: ba.transportation
Subject: Re: How did SkyTrain get built/run so cheaply?
Date: 28 Aug 92 07:58:58 GMT
Distribution: ba
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz (College Eight)
NNTP-Posting-Host: am.ucsc.edu


In article <p2q9eoc@sgi.sgi.com> jeremy@classic.asd.sgi.com (Jeremy Higdon) writes:
>In article <2403@tymix.Tymnet.COM>, burke@doright.Tymnet.COM (John Burke) writes:
>> subj: How did SkyTrain get built/run so cheaply?
>> 
In article <p2q9eoc@sgi.sgi.com> jeremy@classic.asd.sgi.com (Jeremy Higdon) writes:
>> If I understand about SkyTrain (I've never seen it)
>> 
>> 	It's fully automated.
>> 
>> 	It's fully grade-separated (elevated structures? tunnels?)
>> 
>> 	It runs through some congested metropolitan areas.
>> 
>> 	I presume its speed is not ridiculously slow.
>> 
>> This sounds like the complete recipe for a high-cost urban rapid transit
>> system.
>
>I don't have details on Skytrain, but it sounds like a recipe for a low
>(operating) cost system, not a high cost one.  Fully automated means
>you don't have to pay a driver $30 per hour.  Congested metropolitan
>areas means that there are lots of potential riders.  High speed (about
>30 mph) means you get people where they're going quickly.  Slow speed
>tends to increase costs, as well as reducing attractiveness of service.
>The cars are also light weight, which helps on energy usage.
>
>jeremy
 
Stuff about SkyTrain I don't think people around here realize:
 
(1) There is no freeway route to downtown Vancouver.  Kingsway, 
the road that approximately parallels the SkyTrain route, is akin 
to San Pablo Avenue or El Camino Real -- it's a four-lane 
arterial.  This makes grade-separated SkyTrain a very good bet 
for commuters. 
 
(2) SkyTrain has taken tremendous advantage of pre-existing 
railroad routes.  Most importantly, *the tunnel under downtown 
Vancouver was built years previously for the Canadian Pacific 
Railway* (CPR).  That saved a lot of money in building it.  
Needless to say.  Stations are somewhat akin to BART stations, 
and would have been expensive, but they use the basements of 
nearby buildings as mezzanine levels (the main entrance to 
Granville station runs right through the Bay Company department 
store basement, something the Bay Company is quite happy about).  
The terminal station, Waterfront Station, is actually the old 
CPR station.  Also, it's a proof of payment system so they don't 
have to be as big for people to wait in line.  And in Vancouver 
bus transfers are good as SkyTrain fares, so there are a lot 
less people using the ticket machines.) 
 
   The rest of the system outside downtown Vancouver is on an 
aerial guideway.  (That's why it's called "SkyTrain".)  The 
entire 1986 route from downtown Vancouver to New Westminster 
runs along railway routes.  Part of it is on Burlington Northern 
ROW and part on ROW described by the AAA map as "B.C.H. and P.A. 
Ry." and the BCAA map as "Southern." 
 
(3) The cost figures for SkyTrain that people have been citing 
are probably prior to the opening of Columbia and Scott Road 
stations.  Columbia is in a (presumably new) tunnel under 
downtown New Westminster (a very old suburb -- actually older 
than Vancouver) and they built a bridge across the Fraser River 
to reach Scott Road in Surrey (a newer suburb).  Future expansion 
in this direction is supposed to be down the King George 
Highway, another arterial road (not a freeway), not down 
railroad routes.  This will almost certainly drive the costs up.  
(I haven't heard which route was chosen, but the other expansion 
route, down the west side of Vancouver, was planned for either 
the Canadian Pacific Railroad right of way, or Cambie Street, a 
"dual carriageway" with a very wide median.) 
 
I assume that the really cheap figures that are given are for the 
original length of SkyTrain -- from downtown Vancouver 
(Waterfront station) to New Westminster station.
 
(4) SkyTrain was planned along with centers for future 
development in the Greater Vancouver Regional District, not 
separately from land use planning.  Thus they have succeeded to 
some extent in creating draws for SkyTrain riders away from 
downtown Vancouver. 
 
All of these things contribute to making SkyTrain what it is.  I 
think it's true that driverless operation contributes greatly to 
making SkyTrain's low operating cost.  But I suspect low capital 
costs aren't the kind of thing that could be duplicated easily 
here.
 
  =Aaron=
 
-- 
Aaron Priven, aaronrp@ucscb.ucsc.edu or fuzzface@cats.ucsc.edu
  Bring in the workers, and bring up the rails;
  We're gonna lay down the tracks, and tear up the trails. 
  Open her heart, let the life-blood flow,
  Gotta get on our way 'cause we're movin' too slow.
    -- Gordon Lightfoot, "Canadian Railroad Trilogy"