TransLink. The future of Rapid Transit on Broadway

Margaret Wittgens has been with TransLink for 6 years now and is the program manager for Major Studies and is heading the planning for the UBC line.

She has a masters in planning from UBC so knows her subject well having spent many hours travelling there from the city.

She is looking at the many options for rapid transit out to UBC.

The Evergreen line is the next to come, but what next?

The old Expo route is currently at capacity and could use up grading.  Longer platforms and longer trains.

Another extension in Surrey or the UBC line.

There are three main choices and then combinations of the three.

 Bus Rapid transit.  Diesel bus.

Light Rail transit.  Trolley car on the road level.

Rail rapid Transit.  Sky Train.  Either underground or in the air.

Or a combination of two, like Sky train so far then transfer to bus for the last part of the route.

Currently 60,000 people a day use the Broadway corridor and 2,000 people a day have to wait for the next bus.  Problem.

Diesel bus doesn’t meet environmental goals.  Transit time varies.  Hard to plan your trip.

Planning is in stage two now.

We can up grade the busses for $300  to $450 million but these cant meet future demands and is the slowest.

L.R.T. could be done for 1.2 to 1.4 Billion dollars.  Trolley bus on the road level.

Sky train is the fastest option which will boost ridership but is the most expensive at 3 Billion Dollars.  Time would be 25 minutes from Commercial drive.

It would also last longer at capacity before needing to be up graded.

TransLink is open to input today.

The speaker was thanked but President Paul.