The Daily Durning: A tour along the Broadway line to Arbutus

Lost momentum over the past 3-4 years?
Have you not noticed the core sampling on Broadway in anticipation of the project?
http://www.vancitybuzz.com/2015/09/soil-test-drilling-underway-for-underground-broadway-extension-of-skytrain/
I wouldn’t necessarily judge on-line sampling as a measure of whether gears are turning behind the scenes.

The Canada Line has Hyundai cars because the efficiency of using the same cars on all lines wasn’t allowed to be considered in the bidding process and because the consortium that bid with Bombardier followed the original instructions and proposed a mix of bored tunnel and surface running on Cambie. The Hyundai group went with cut-and-cover to offer lower construction costs. Had they been required to compensate for the 3.5 years of mess on the surface, the Hyundai bid would have had to have been higher and perhaps a modified Bombardier one might have won.
Bombardier cars operating on the Canada Line would have been quieter because the axles can steer around corners. A different bunch of designers and engineers might have also found a way to reduce the curvature of the track around QE Park and banked the corners to permit higher speed through that section. It’s rather hard to believe anyone with an engineering degree specified flat corners.
The NDP changed the Millennium Line from low cost European LRT to SkyTrain so they could claim to be creating more jobs in BC. As you note those jobs didn’t last long because virtually no other jurisdiction is interested in Bombardier’s mini metro system.
TransLink is cutting bus services because you and your friends all voted No in the referendum.

“Nothing ever said that voting NO would mean cutting services within a few months.”
What an absurd claim. That point was made repeatedly during the campaign.
The Mayor’s Council plan lays it out quite clearly: Costs were estimated to rise 6.9% per year, due to population growth and inflation. Meanwhile, revenues were not keeping up. Transit fare revenue was shown to be climbing with ridership, fuel tax revenue was dropping as people are driving less and/or consuming less fuel, and property tax and fuel tax revenue are capped by legislation. The net increase in revenue was shown to be 3.6% per annum. The gap in those two meant that without new revenue sources, services would have to be cut. They won’t be cut on the Skytrain lines because those have a higher cost recovery. They will be cut on the more expensive to operate bus routes, most likely. And so here we are. It isn’t a surprise at all, except perhaps to those who thought that money would just show up from somewhere else if the no vote carried the day.

I don’t work closely with Translink, but I am able to read and understand the plan the Mayors put forward. The official plan. The one that talks about the funding gap.
“Rapid population growth and inflation mean that costs are growing every year. And, while we’re seeing some growth in transit fare revenue, fuel sales tax revenue is declining every year because of less driving and more fuel efficient vehicles. Ultimately, the growth in current revenue sources is not keeping up with the growing need, meaning that the cost/revenue gap continues to grow every year”
Full details, with figures referenced above, are here; see page 33 http://mayorscouncil.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Mayors-Council-Vision-Document-Mar-2015.pdf
Lots of quotes available from various leaders on cuts to service should the plan not pass. Surely this isn’t a surprise. Maybe someone should call the leaders of the no side campaign and ask them where the buses are.

Lots of quotes you say Jeff but none you can find right now. Where have I heard that before?
Perhaps when TransLink slows down from throwing their own executives under the bus with a fat wad of our cash they will start to try and understand. Maybe. The best advertising move that TransLink could do is to improve service. If they think that reducing service will do anything other than turn more people away from them and and from giving them any more money they are dreaming and doomed.

Nice try Jeff but it really falls short. The commentary was about being advised that a No vote would result in service reductions. Your quote from the June 2015 Vancouver Sun by Mr 35,000 dollars-a-month-on-top-of-his-other-salary, and now departed, Doug Allen was AFTER the voting had been closed.
Incidentally, nobody thinks Doug Allen being brought in as CEO II, after CEO I, Ian Jarvis was kicked down the corridor was any help the Yes side at all.
Perhaps you would like to try again, bearing in mind the chronology.

I will accept that some cuts were planned regardless of the referendum outcome. They were the result of the financial reviews of TransLink that strongly suggested “optimizing” service levels. In other words, cut service on poorly subscribed routes so service on other routes could be maintained or perhaps improved.
What we have is the classic shape versus serve debate in public transit. Clearly the current mood of the Provincial government and the public is that serving existing demand should be the priority: services that aren’t pulling in enough customers should be cut because they’re too much of a strain on the overall financial picture.
If the will of the people is that transit should only exist where demand warrants then we should anticipate a complete halt to expansion into new areas and further cuts to existing service that isn’t pulling in enough customers.