March 15, 2017

How would high-speed rail get to Vancouver?

Frank Ducote sends along a Crosscut clipping on the Washington State initiative to study high-speed rail between Seattle and Vancouver:

Frank asks:
This surely would require a safer, shorter and straighter alignment in BC, most likely along the Highway 99 corridor. But where could/would it cross the Fraser without headroom?

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  1. Is the demand there for the price tag? Is Amtrak getting a lot of daily train /bus traffic between Vancouver and Seattle? A lot of car/buses running daily between Vancouver & Seattle for past few years? It may unclog some border car/bus traffic.
    The catchment area on Canadian side, is Lower Mainland but only within maybe 200 km. radius of folks willing to make the journey to /from Lower Mainland to catch a high speed train. Meanwhile rest of southern B.C….is rural/wilderness.
    Between Metro Toronto (with its impressive (for Canada) built-out MetroLinx intercity transit network in past decade and candidate 1-2 points in the U.S. (NYC, Chicago or a Michigan point) would seem more logical. There’s much higher density of population in southern Ontario and strong, powerful and far more diverse economic base with more national Canadian headquarters, more educational institutions for in-person collaboration/learning, etc.

  2. This would require massive federal funding.
    Be certain that fast rail funding from the Canadian federal government will first occur where the political power and the population is. That is along the Quebec City/Montreal/Ottawa/Toronto/Windsor corridor.
    Once they get it BC might, although a very good case also exists for a rapid rail link between Calgary and Edmonton.

  3. This looks to be something that the state of Washington wants more than the province of BC. At present Vancouver and Seattle need little help growing. The rest of Puget Sound is another story. The article acknowledges the prohibitive costs of a “high speed” link but it also highlights that benefits fall primarily to communities along the route – most of which is in the US.
    If built, this could be a boon to Everett, Bellingham, and Blaine. By contrast, for Vancouver it would simply be kind of convenient – assuming ticket costs weren’t insane.

  4. In the past there has been talk of a rail station near Scott Road in Surrey – either as an alternative to Pacific Central Station or as a second station.
    That could be an option for high speed rail without the expense of a bridge and RoW through Vancouver.
    Not all passengers originate from or need or want to access downtown Vancouver.

    1. While not all passengers originate from or need or want to access downtown Vancouver, I can promise you that, to a reasonably close approximation *no* passengers want to access a boggy parking lot in Surrey

      1. Skytrain could be extended to a shared station at the border as BCs share of the cost. Skytrain should go further south anyway

  5. In most countries with HSR the national governments are almost always very heavily involved. Thirty billion US is a lot of money, but the feasibility study should be able to run some educated numbers based on experiences in other jurisdictions to refine that figure. Even with that, there is a huge variation in transit contracts between North American cities, with NYC being on the high side of outrageous. On the other hand, much of the route would be on the surface in rural areas which will help level out the costs of bridging and tunneling. If these numbers make people balk, then comparisons to the total cost of SeaTac, YVR, the 99 and the I5 would put it in context.
    The future market demographic in the Seattle-Vancouver corridor will actually be closer to 10 million people if the service terminated at salt water in Vancouver. The downtown waterfront is the only place where Vancouver Island and Sunshine Coast residents could have direct point location access to the city and a North American (or at least West Coast) HSR network from a passenger ferry terminal. I don’t believe the Flats off Terminal Ave would be adequate enough to provide a series of both land and marine transport services.
    The idea of building a direct Vancouver-Seattle HSR duo express service with optional stops at a few local towns is wise. Lots of HSR stations in Europe and Japan have bypass tracks. With that in mind, it’s feasible to suggest that a HSR station in Surrey would also serve the Metro and the province well. Essentially, the line could extend due north from Bellingham and turn NW along the Trans Canada corridor and go underground along 104th to Surrey Centre Station. Locals from south of the Fraser would have a reasonably short commute to HSR as opposed to having a single station in Vancouver.
    It’s great that there is a discussion on this. I suspect one of Frank’s motives is to nail down a long-term plan for the Downtown Waterfront. On this issue one needs to take the long view.

    1. Alex – I agree that the Vancouver terminus should be in the heart of the City where the most possible connections can be made by other modes. Presently I’m not sure if that is at the Downtown Waterfront station or the Main Street train station. However, I do think an impetus like this may help goose coordinated planning for the waterfront.

      1. Let’s postpone this discussion to 2050 or 2080 .. there are far more critical issues to be solved with this kind of money in the next 2-3 decades !

        1. No. The discussion must start now to address what the planning parameters will be, followed by the actual planning process over a decade or so. These things are never done instantly (even with government and private sector motivation), and if you wait until 2080 you are essentially downloading everything that ills our society today (depletion of fossil fuels while saturated with the stuff, environmental remediation, debt and financial instability, etc.) to the next three generations.
          Moreover, you risk not being prepared if the Americans march ahead. The British cut every shilling they could under Thatcher when the Chunnel was built by the private sector, and as the result there was a 20-year delay before the Eurostar came into being. Before that the French TGV had to offload passengers onto a fleet of horse-driven buggies, or so the cartoonists portrayed.
          This is as much about economic opportunity in the face of a low emissions future as it is about anything else. The Eurostar had a profound effect on invigourating the St Pancras – Kings Cross station area and provides a great non-stop service to Paris. It even outcompetes short flights.

        2. London and Paris BOTH have have 12M+ people each .. plus taking a car is not really a good option due to slow ferry. Not a good comparison. So 2080 is when we may reach these numbers or perhaps only 100 years from now !
          Not sure if the chunnel was such a great investment as it filed for bankrupcty and financial restructuring 10 years ago. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4088868.stm
          Seemed OK now after it emerged from bankruptcy after 2007 https://www.ft.com/content/170179ae-cd52-11e4-a15a-00144feab7de

    2. A terminus at Pacific Central is better than at Waterfront Station. The terminus must be integrated with inter-city bus services and the last thing we need downtown/Gastown is more big highway buses.
      A branch of the Millennium Line (Broadway) extension could turn north along Main Street into Waterfront Station from the east. Done well, this could be an excellent short shuttle from water based transportation services to the Seattle HSR.
      We should also learn from the Swiss about integrated ticketing. There you can get a single ticket that gets you from the city to the slopes: Train,bus,gondola and chairlifts all in one price one ticket. Why couldn’t a bus from Sechelt to a passenger ferry to downtown to the SkyTrain shuttle to the Seattle HSR all be on one pass?

  6. A non-issue.
    Use the money for more subways, LRTs, e-buses or affordable housing instead .. in both MetroPlexes !

    1. Are you forgetting the 99-lane, 500 m wide freeway to Seattle, which is the natural extension of some of your ideas on roads?

      1. 6 lanes will suffice, perhaps 8-10 in Seattle or for AVs.
        The less than 200 -300 folks in a hurry can fly today between the two cities. Anyone else can take a leisurely train, a bus or a car, and perhaps one day an AV or even Uber. A fast train is a complete non-issue – an academic exercise at best – down at #87 in the top 100 policy item list !

        1. Meanwhile California has already started construction of its voter-approved HSR project. It will no doubt be delayed by political wrangling between those who live in the past and love their cars and stocks in debt-ridden fracking companies and those who see a much cleaner, economically brighter future in catching up to many other technologically advanced countries.
          Thank the gawd of your choice that the political landscape is periodically subject to change and reset. My guess is that America will be ready for a major reset in two years — then four — to give their most incompetent and ideologically bankrupt administration in history some real opposition, hopefully in part by replacing all 14 Republican politicos in California.
          It’s only a matter of time before the advent of HSR will be forced in northern jurisdictions, not the least Seattle.
          Start the planning now.

        2. A non-stop, one-hour 300 km/hr downtown-to-downtown shuttle service with very comfortable trains in jurisdictions with potentially a combined market of 10 million people will create its own demand, and will outcompete short-haul flights. That has been the experience in Europe and elsewhere.

        3. UNLIKE Europe there is no rail history nor rail culture in Western North-America.
          We should also not copy the disastrous public debt creating and job destroying policies of many European countries and certainly not California’s socialist middle-class eliminating policies. California’s policies are not sustainable, and indeed, eventually it too will face the abyss. Much like Europe and now AB and ON, it has grossly overpaid civil servants with excessive unfunded pension liabilities. Eventually the middle class will wake up. Many have left to AZ or TX, including auto makers like Toyota with tens of thousands of jobs.
          Despite all of BC Liberal’s and CC’s shortcomings, at least they have a somewhat better fiscal reality check.
          Three related articles on public sector finances affecting California. A high speed project is not in the cards any time soon, and WA, OR, ON, AB are not much better under their left-wing thieves.
          https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasdelbeccaro/2017/02/22/ca-the-physical-collapse-of-a-social-state
          http://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/California-s-400-billion-debt-worries-analysts-6812264.php
          https://www.forbes.com/sites/charleskadlec/2012/07/24/the-governing-elite-are-the-greatest-threat-to-americas-middle-class/#5b705b3c503f

        4. Oh my. You really don’t know much about Canadian history do you Thomas?
          Here’s just a fraction of one nanometre slice of history:
          http://chung.library.ubc.ca/collection-themes/canadian-pacific-railway/canadian-pacific-railway
          The CPR was big, I mean VERY big when I was a kid and rode it through the Rockies 54 years ago when there was still a Stirling silver service in the dining car. Because they’ve switched to freight about the same time the Japanese introduced the world to bullet trains doesn’t mean we do not have a history in passenger rail.
          The non-alternative fact is that California has already broken ground on HSR. If you think they cannot afford this efficient mode of transport, then I suggest you conduct a study on the public cost (capital, operating and historical) of the California sections of the interstate highway system, LAX and the other top 10 airports, the state and municipal budgets for city roads, and the costs of servicing the automobile-dependent subdivisions.
          You comments about “socialist” debt is both a diversion and intrinsically biased toward an unreasonable ignorance of the conservatives who created the majority of it with stupid and unsustainable projects.
          FYI 82% of the BC municipal and public sector pension fund payments are self-financed from investment income. Public pension funds are a gigantic pool of capital that create wealth when invested intelligently. We certainly cannot say that about BC’s $65 billion debt, the vast majority of it created by the Campbell and Clark governments over 17 years. Transferring debt to the crown corporations to make the government’s annual budget look good is certainly NOT sound fiscal management.

        5. Yep that ole railroad barely registered in the Canadian psyche:
          “The most notable accounts of the construction and completion of the CPR are Pierre Berton’s twin volumes The National Dream and The Last Spike,[8] which together were depicted in the Canadian television docudrama miniseries The National Dream, an eight-part series whose rated audience of three million within Canada set a record for CBC in terms of dramatic programming.”
          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Spike_(Canadian_Pacific_Railway)
          Probably not enough John Wayne and Gary Cooper to align with Beyer’s fact-free version of the era.

        6. Thomas: “Unlike Europe there is no rail history nor rail culture in Western North-America.”
          Oh my. Alternative facts.
          Wander down to Yaletown to take a look at Engine 374.
          Read Steel Rails and Iron Men.
          Trace the Kettle Valley Railway route east from Hope.
          There are lots more. Perhaps others could suggest additional activities that would further your education.

        7. One railway from Prairies to Vancouver. I get that. One track in some sections. A second set of spurs to Prince Rupert.
          ALL FOR FREIGHT.
          Let me perhaps rephrase my statement to “no PASSENGER railway history” !!

        8. Re “No rail history”. I rode the passenger train between North Van and 100 Mile house on numerous occasions. It is no longer running. I rode one of the last runs of the E&N line. It too is no longer running. If I had to do it over again, I would have taken a ride on the Kettle Valley Railway between Hope and Trail before it was trashed. In Victoria, there was the Galloping Goose and there were three passenger lines running up the Saanich Peninsula of which the Lochside trail is the most obvious remnant. Metro Vancouver had a vast Interurban network which stretched from Vancouver to Chilliwack. Arbutus Greenway and Railway Greenway in Richmond are remnants to the Salmon Express Interurban line. The elementary school which my children attended is named Sir Willian Van Horne Elementary School after the man who lead the construction of the CP rail line through BC. Canada would look much different if the first national railway had not been built when it was. No rail history indeed.

        9. About a year after the ‘Last Spike’ passenger rail is making a transcontinental trip a question of a matter of days in Canada and blowing the land wide open for settlers.
          All for freight indeed. There needs to be a mechanism whereby chronic low information commenters get a time out so those of us who value the insightful comments so many learned people volunteer to contribute to this blog needn’t wade past clearly stupid comments in our efforts to separate dross from gold

        10. Re: Low information and Cleansing the Comment Roster of Unwanted Opinions.
          Transport Canada.
          ” In Canada, the rail transport industry generates approximately $10 billion per year—95% of which comes from rail freight operations and approximately 5% from commuter, intercity and tourist passenger rail services in major urban centres, corridors and regions. ”
          https://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/policy/anre-menu-3020.htm

        11. I arrived here in the 1980’s. I took the train once from Calgary to Vancouver. Si expensive and painfully slow it has at best tourism appeal for the last 30 years.
          Who takes the train for longer distances today ANYWHERE in Canada.
          It is a non-issue. Unlike densely populated and rail history rich Europe rail for passengers has almost no relevance in Canada, certainly W-Canada.
          People also used sail boats once upon a time to get to India or S-America. Shall we resurrect this deep history too ? Very green. Let’s convert YVR to a sail boat harbor. About as relevant as high speed rail to Seattle !!

    2. Yeah, I’d much rather see commuter rail lines built along 99 and #1. Similar to what Montreal is going to build – driverless lrt routed along freeways and rail corridors at a paltry 88 million/km.

        1. Rail transit to Seattle from Vancouver is NOT mass transit. Too few folks use it. As such it will never take off and a highway based AV type e-AV or e-bus is the better option, besides existing fast planes or cars.

  7. Oh come off it. You build separate faster tracks where you can do so for a reasonable price. For the rest you use existing rail corridors, and improve them in cost effective ways (lots of sidings, double or triple tracks, better control systems etc). Preserve a corridor so you can re-locate the sea side track when the rising ocean swallows it.
    The 100+ year old (single track) New West Rail Bridge needs replacing anyway, so make it a three track bridge.
    Is this so fracking hard?

    1. I can see the 150km/h train whistling past White Rock’s shore. The residents will love it.
      There is just NOT ENOUGH DEMAND for this train. Those that need to rush can fly 3x/day today and most folks do not find a 3h drive in a car all that onerous.
      Better is to improve I5 / Hwy 99 in Canada and allow faster buses at 120km/h or cars, say at 160km/h. With more e-cars and more AV features upon us you can take a 2h snooze past Peace Arch and the bell wakes you up as you enter Seattle.
      Also, with an expanded boundary Bay airport after Massey bridge is installed, there will be even more cheap flight options. Where are the pricetag blogs about a third commercial airport at Boundary Bay ?

      1. Yeah.. that would never ever happen, so it’s a useless hypothetical to even mention.
        The geometry of the existing tracks in that area aren’t laid out for HSR, and could likely never be retrofitted to be adequate for that purpose. These types of railways need to be almost entirely grade separated and fenced off. The turning radius of a HSR train is literally several kilometers. Just checking, the German ICE trains have a turn radius over 3km. The faster you go, the bigger that number gets or people make with the vomit.
        This could be a good impetus to expand the West Coast Express south of Fraser, maybe to Abbotsford. If theres only a couple HSR trains per hour, put a RER-style service on the same track.

      2. The scenario you paint Thomas is like the tail wagging the dog.
        HSR non-stop to Seattle will achieve speeds of 300+ kph. But a leg to Vancouver will never get built under your wobbly logic — which is puzzling because you have proposed so many outrageous and expensive debt-quintupling things on this blog before that this one using proven technology and with known positive effects should be a natural.
        North America will build a HSR network sometime this century. Do you want to be a part of that or get left out and allow the line to dead end in Seattle?

        1. HSR service has evolved as a very convenient downtown-to-downtown service, which in Europe and Asia makes it very appealing to business travellers, people who live within decent transit connectivity to the HSR station, and vacationers.

  8. A little surprised to see Portland only mentioned in passing.
    SEA-PDX is 175 miles, 2:45 drive
    SEA-Vancouver is 145 miles, 2:45 drive assuming the border is in good shape.
    So comparable distances, and comparable travel time savings vs. driving or flying.
    As a rough measure of demand where HSR might compete, note that there are ~35 flights a day SEA-PDX and vice versa. SEA-YVR is ~15 flights a day.
    Might make sense to study the southern connection first, northern connection as an add-on from a strict demand perspective? Also wouldn’t need to consider odd issues like customs pre-clearance, etc.

    1. When considered in a fully-networked context, ideally a West Coast HSR corridor will be completed from San Diego to Vancouver with stations in every major city.

      1. The network benefits may exist, but at what cost…
        The most viable corridors in the West at the moment are LA-San Diego, and San Jose-San Francisco-Sacramento.
        LA-SF, Portland-Seattle and Seattle-Vancouver would probably pencil out with some reasonable cost.
        I have a hard time seeing a Sacramento-Portland segment being economically competitive…distance is 580 miles, approx. 9-hour drive, 3.5-hour HSR, 1.5-hour flight.
        It’s the same reason Tokyo-Sapporo HSR is struggling…it’s not competitive in terms of time or cost, compared to flying (mainly due to the forced transfer to a local train at Hakodate…but even when the northern extension is complete it’ll still be a 5+ hour HSR ride or a 2-hour flight Tokyo-Sapporo). That line will eventually facilitate trade between Hokkaido and Tohoku, but the populations are relatively small compared to the rest of Japan and won’t generate the same degree of demand.
        Doesn’t necessarily contradict your argument that network benefits improve with a full West Coast network, I’m just wondering if it’s the most economically justified use of capital.

        1. Likely not at present. But as the climate continues to warm and the Pacific Northwest cities become more attractive to residents and businesses currently in LA, a completed network may be deemed viable in the latter half of this century, which is only a generation away.
          Long-term planning is required. Planning is cheap. Once the profitable parts of the network have been established, they could subsidize the sections with less revenue in successive decades. So could carbon taxes. And, of course, the Network Effect along with higher fossil fuel prices as the cheaper portions of the resource deplete will ultimately boost ridership.

    1. Yes, but are civil servants and academics willing to take the necessary 25-40% salary and benefit cuts to be able to afford this ? I highly doubt it. A purely academic exercise. Eventually, e-AVs or e-buses or dedicated lanes on Hwy 99 / I5 seem the better far more cost-effective solution besides flying for those in a rush.
      Brand new rail projects make sense in dense areas like Broadway corridor or within Seattle metroplex but not between them given the enormous cost and relatively low ridership. Perhaps if Trump annexes the Lower Mainland to make BC great again I can see more traffic between those two metro-plexes, but not with a border, existing good highway and regular air traffic already in place.
      An expensive solution for a non-existing problem ! There are more important issues to solve.

      1. Developers curbing their greed and offering real estate pricing that frees up our shared wealth at the expense of profit unsurprisingly absent from proposed solution. More money in our pocket makes sufficient taxation to pay for infrastructure easier to bear for the working majority. Not sure why economic altruism must be reserved for public employees, but wobbly logic isn’t my strong suit

        1. Sorry, but I don’t belong to or support any political organizations. I am a fan of smart policies — that’s why I can find some merit to any platform based in realities of science and principles of stweardship

      2. Feel free to become a real estate developer yourself. There is NO GREED here. it is a business. Are bakers, trucking firms or cell phone manufacturers greedy too ? Profit has to be seen in light of project risk. Assembling land in Vancouver, for example, may take several years. Then add CACs of an unknown amount to the city until development is approved. Numerous, ever changing building codes and requirements. A high risk very knowledge and capital intensive business until perhaps 6 years to a decade later a profit is realized whee the last 10% of condos have been sold as that is where the profits lie: in the last 10% of units.
        Light and shadow lie close together. Just look at the Olympic Village fiasco not so long ago.
        Perhaps take the excellent course by SFU, taught by Michael Mortsensen and Herb Auerbach to appreciate the development business a bit more.
        Also, large development profit are taxed at almost 50% in BC.
        We want profitable developers, do we not ?

  9. I wouldn’t say it’s the laws of physics for either. It’s more economics and scalability.
    The guy who is pushing Skytran seems to think the cars can be separated with almost no headway which is frankly suicidal. No engineer could sign off on that with any guarantee of safety.
    The switches for a monorail style system also move very slowly, so moving the vehicles in anything but a loop would be a huge limitation on capacity.
    Hyperloop has essentially the same problem, but at least it’s not a monorail. You could hypothetically make the hyperloop cars some kind of rubber tired bus like vehicle that levitates in certain sections. That would take care of switching problem.

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