January 21, 2019

UBC Skytrain Campaign

UBC has launched a campaign aimed at getting Canada’s Federal Gov’t and the Provincial Gov’t of BC to throw in a few billions of funding to build the currently-funded Millennium Skytrain extension all the way to UBC.  It’s good pre-election timing.

Slow and low capacity just won’t do.  And the B-line is past capacity limits.

As usual, Kenneth Chan at Daily Hive has written a clear and detailed story on the UBC line and its design tradeoffs.  It appears that you’ll have to fight UBC in a cage match to oblivion in order to get LRT on that route. Given the ridership numbers in evidence, I’d have to agree that fast high-capacity tech is the answer. Don’t forget integration with the rest of the region’s Skytrain tech.

The accompanying sketches show the Skytrain route passing near to the massive Jericho development.  But true to it’s oddly silent nature, there is no mention of any transit opportunity there. There is a coy little jog as the sketched route crosses Alma, and a station at Alma.

Still, these are mere details until the big issue is resolved:  the money.

UBC is Exploring a Financial Contribution

UBC is committed to working with regional partners, agencies and governments to accelerate planning and construction of a SkyTrain extension to campus.

Recognizing that Metro Vancouver transit projects are typically cost-shared between three levels of government (regional, provincial and federal), UBC is exploring ways to make a meaningful financial contribution to the regional share of the project without diverting any funding from its academic mission including provincial grants, current endowments, research funding nor student tuition.

Project costs will be more fully understood as detailed planning and design advances, but UBC’s contribution may take many forms:

  • Providing land for stations as York University recently did for the Toronto-York Spadina Subway Expansion
  • Charges collected from developers as the City of Richmond is doing for the new Canada Line Capstan Way station
  • A direct financial contribution from new revenues enabled by rapid transit as YVR did to support the Canada Line

Yet to be rolled into the planning is the massive land lift sure to follow at the UBC extensions’ stations and surrounding neighbourhoods.

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Leave a Reply to Chris KeamCancel Reply

  1. A non-financial but pivotal contribution UBC could make – and could be convinced to make probably only in the context of a project like this – would be to make schedule changes to help spread out demand.

    Off-setting class time slots through the day would be a nightmare, but accomodating some different class lengths for the first and last blocks could help stagger the commuter crush while maintaining the coordinated migrations between classes.
    Expanding evening and weekend classes wouldn’t have to be a huge offering to have a respectable share of commuters going opposite the main rush, and helps to draw and support part-time students.
    Offering a more substantial summer semester would help justify the permanent infrastructure (bus service is scaled way back between the spring and fall semesters) and could also be an asset to student co-op work programs.

    I’m not up to date on how UBC does things now (my student days there were last millenium) but in fairly recent years I recall reading about the West Van – UBC bus with reports on each side of the pro or con kerfuffle sincerely claiming drastically different costs. Proponents of the route not coincidentally quoted half the sum that the transit planners identified, because one group would count the packed bus one way and the other group knew the mostly empty bus had to return to make more trips.

    Demand management *matters* and a shift to frequent driverless trains creates both an opportunity and IMO an obligation.

  2. About time .. massive benefits along corridor .. https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/KPMG-UBC-Broadway-Corridor-2013-02-26.pdf

    Note UBC’s recent proposal to upzone the to be developed Stadium Neighborhood to 30+ stories https://planning.ubc.ca/sites/planning.ubc.ca/files/documents/projects-consultations/consultations/Stadium%20Appendix%20II-Public%20Open%20House%20Display%20Boards.pdf .. not favoured by all ie quite controversial and requiring a new context study as density will be beyond what was previously approved https://planning.ubc.ca/sites/planning.ubc.ca/files/documents/projects-consultations/consultations/Appendix-III-Stadium%20Phase%20II%20Verbatim%20Survey%20Responses.pdf

  3. I certainly agree that there’s a need for “seamless trips” to UBC. Most of those potentially using rapid transit in the Broadway corridor are not destined to the planned ‘end of the line.’ Theyore going to UBC or the larger UBC destination. There’s still likely some controversy on whether high speed transit or LRT is the best means. For good or ill, Vancouver already has a habit of using heavy rail where traffic might not justify it in other places.

    And there’s always something to be said for spreading demand through the day – and night.

  4. I am sad to see this project is 40 years late in coming. It’s a no brainer. Let’s get on with it already.

    Here is a link to the draft TransLink report:

    https://www.translink.ca/-/media/Documents/about_translink/governance_and_board/council_minutes_and_reports/2019/january/2019_01_24_technical_report_rail_to_ubc.pdf

    The report seems to overlook the impact of development at Jericho Lands and the Musqueam Lands at UBC, including the potential to develop the ~120 acre golf course which will surely be catalyzed by a subway to UBC. I can see at least two more stations evolving on that map.

  5. Virtual Reality will soon be so good that no one will travel places without a compelling reason. Listening to an instructor will not be enough reason to leave the house, when you can get the same experience online. That’s why this project is a mistake.

    I won’t even get into the foolishness of preparing for jobs that AI will be doing in 20 years (most lawyering, basic medical diagnoses and simple surgery, almost all accounting). UBC will gradually wither and die as a destination for schooling IMO. You heard it here first.

    Don’t let your babies grow up to be CGAs.

    1. In theory, you’re right.

      In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.

      Social media already makes humans more asocial.

      Humans are social animals. Social connections in the real world matter. Relationships matter. A Skype or FaceTime meeting is not the same as a face to face meeting over lunch, a party or a conference.

      Try dating over Facebook or Twitter.

      As such, social gathering and learning centres, such as UBC, will continue to exist.

      1. “Try dating over Facebook or Twitter”

        LOL, you haven’t been single in a while I take it? Where do you think first dates happen these days?

        Most people do work that doesn’t involve daily meetings, and for some, their co-workers are often the worst part of their employment experience. The fact that adults of today can’t switch seamlessly from meat space to the cyber world will have no impact on the workers of tomorrow, who will be choosing convenience and ease of access to their workspace over a crappy commute in an underground tunnel. Even more so for students, and even more, more so, for universities, who can enlarge every class far beyond the lecture hall capacity. What a money-making opportunity for them.

        This stuff is only science fiction if you are not paying attention. Couple it with the fact that companies can hire people from around the globe, at a fraction of the price, and this trend will only be limited by the technology — which is barely an impediment in this age of miracles lol.

        https://manilarecruitment.com/manila-recruitment-articles-advice/telecommuting-implications-workplace-infographic/

      2. posting again, in the correct spot….

        Virtual Reality will soon be so good that no one will travel places without a compelling reason. Listening to an instructor will not be enough reason to leave the house, when you can get the same experience online. That’s why this project is a mistake.

        I won’t even get into the foolishness of preparing for jobs that AI will be doing in 20 years (most lawyering, basic medical diagnoses and simple surgery, almost all accounting). UBC will gradually wither and die as a destination for schooling IMO. You heard it here first.

        Don’t let your babies grow up to be CGAs.

  6. Yes, because I have a stash of chemicals, Bunsen burners, an autoclave, centrifuge, assorted test tubes, flask and beakers in my apartment.
    Oh wait, not everyone is in Arts…

    1. What kind of work do you do? Meth lab?

      Not all jobs will be done online. Not every hour of work will be spent in a central office.

      Knee jerk responses to coming realities serve no one. Denying those changes are coming soon, and in a disruptive fashion, is foolhardy.

      1. Just responding to this generalization:

        UBC will gradually wither and die as a destination for schooling IMO. You heard it here first.

        1. You are welcome to disagree of course. A cogent argument that is more than a shopping list of lab equipment may be needed to sustain your position. Maybe a little less dismissive of the arts too, while we are at it, since it’s the real engine of the economy. Anyway, tomorrow’s chemistry education may not require quite the amount of gear it does today. One suspects basic chemistry will be another area of work that gets automated in short order anyway.

          https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/students/highschool/chemistryclubs/activities/simulations.html

          1. “As a professor who researches artificial intelligence and offers distance learning courses, I can say that online education is a disruptive challenge for which colleges are ill-prepared. Lack of student demand is already closing 800 out of roughly 10,000 engineering colleges in India. And online learning has put as many as half the colleges and universities in the U.S. at risk of shutting down in the next couple decades as remote students get comparable educations over the internet – without living on campus or taking classes in person. Unless universities move quickly to transform themselves into educational institutions for a technology-assisted future, they risk becoming obsolete.”

            http://theconversation.com/universities-must-prepare-for-a-technology-enabled-future-89354

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