Skytrain Reliability, or How TransLink Made My Head Explode

Alright, this is going to be a long one, and a little mathy, so grab a cup of coffee or three. 

Mayors' Council Part 2

I thought I was done with the Mayors Council, but then I saw this - more whining from the Mayors

Opposition to the Referendum

• “Referenda are tools without context and would be divisive to the region.” You have control over the referendum process.  You provide the context or lack thereof.  If you propose solutions that will divide the region, it will divide us. The region supports the LRSP and Transport 2040.  Show us the plan for that.  
• “Making complex policy by referenda is contrary to principles of good governance.”  You are not making complex policy by referenda.  You are seeking approval of tax increase. 

All this is short for we don’t want to do the work to with the region to increase their taxes and improve their transit.  We want the province to force it on them instead.  How is that good governance and accountability, some of the key points on the Governance proposal?

Project Priorities

• “Transit and road and bridge improvements need to be coordinated and implemented in a timely and expedited fashion to support the success of TransLink’s 2040, the Provincial Transit Pacific Gateway,”  September 23, 2010. 

So in 3.5 years, all the Mayors have managed to do is affirm they support the Transport 2040 vision.  A vision, even a strategy, is not a plan.  Neither the Base nor Supplemental 10 Year Plans discuss anything about what could or should be done if any of these major sources of funding become available, or how they will move us closer to the Transport 2040 vision.  So the Mayors are asking for new taxation to support a dream. 

I keep hearing the Mayors are unified.  They are unified in only two things – they want the province to increase their powers of taxation and they support the Transport 2040 plan.  Step one level below that though, and the unity falls apart.  Watch what happens when you ask

• Which comes first – West Broadway or Surrey rapid transit?
• Surface or grade separated?
• What form of bike infrastructure should we focus on?

I can see the fur flying from here. 

What they’re asking for the province to give them $200 million more a year to support Transport 2040, with no visibility into how they will do it  Forget it.  That money will get lost, absorbed into operations, and frittered away as the Mayors bicker over what to do with it.  We’ve already seen that with the squabbles over the Millennium and Canada lines. 

Conversely, if they ask us for $200 million more a year from a vehicle levy, a region specific 0.25% sales tax, and a $2 toll on the Pattullo to help us reach Transport 2040 by

• A subway along West Broadway to UBC  by 2020
• A skytrain extension in Surrey to Newton by 2022
•  A commuter rail a la Westcoast Express from Aldergrove by 2018
•  Addition of 50km of separated bike lanes per year until 2030
•  Extension of the Evergreen Line to PoCo by 2025
• Park and Rides at 20 stations over the next 10 years
• Frequent Transit Network expanded to the following routes....
• etc

people will get onside.  We all know we need this stuff.  Share how this work will improve life for everyone along the way?   Now we see why of late most transit referenda are passed.  It’s an easy sell, if you’re willing to do the work.  Apparently Metro Vancouver mayors are not.  If you think they can’t sort this out now, wait till they actually have the money. 

Funding Solutions

• “…the Mayors’ Council is against the use of property taxes as a further funding source…” So the Mayors are unwilling to use the existing tools they have, the tools which they bargained and gainedconcessions in other areas for, but they want the province to force new taxes on us? 
• “Appropriate funding sources for TransLink will include the vehicle levy in the short term and road pricing in the long term and land value capture;” Sure, just tell us what you’re going to do with it.
• “Emphasize that TransLink should not meet current budgets through service cuts or liquidation of assets” and “The Mayors’ Council has previously confirmed its view on additional short and long term funding sources" We’re not willing to live within our budgets or use the tools you already gave us to increase funding.
• “As per the legislation, the Mayors’ Council will consider supplemental plans that include funding proposals with the extension of funding sources being the responsibility of the province in consultation with various parties” You give us the money; we spend it how we want.

Governance Proposal

Everyone agrees this needs to change. 

If the Mayors spent the energy they have fighting the referendum to actually preparing it and getting the people of the region onboard, they’d be halfway done already.  We’ve done enough visioneering:   LRSP, Transport 2040 and its predecessors, and regional growth strategies have been spouting visions out for decades

The Transit Referendum, or Be Careful What You Wish For…

We all have our stories about things we wished for so much, and then once we got them found out it was a burden, not a gift.  Translink would do well to remember this as they seek new governance and more money from the province. 

All of the mayoral complaints boil down to the same thing: “the big bad Province won’t give us what we want.”  What do they want? 

1. A blank cheque
2. Complete authority to decide where to spend it

Where does the province fit into this?  They provide item 1.  Then go away. 

The province, rightfully, said hold on, we gave you that authority and changed the funding structure so you could own it 15 years ago.  But all you did was bicker for the first 10 years, fight with us when we offered to pay for major improvements, and blow every gas tax increase we gave you.  So we took control back, but still left you with oversight and final authority.  You want us to go back to the old way and give you more money?

The Mayors should be grateful the province didn’t spit in their face.  To their credit, the province is willing to discuss governance reform and is willing to commit 1/3 of costs to new rapid transit systems as well as the Pattullo replacement as a starting point. 

As for other money the province said

1. It needs to come from your region (you can’t tax the provinces stuff)
2. Your people need to agree (hold a referendum)

This is seen as an offence by those who consider the province the rich benefactor.  Those of us who lived here prior to 2007 think it’s not a bad check on their power.  Translink is dysfunctional now?   I remember when the cities were in charge…

A major strike that ended in back to work legislation.  Planning and building systems on funding not yet committed, let alone in place (federal gas tax, vehicle levy), the blaming everyone else when they have to make ‘cuts.’  Every time the province has come with funding for a major system, the board or equivalent fought with the province pushing for their own agenda instead of working with the province. Despite that, they have managed to find and gain significant funding from a variety of sources such as

• Increased fares, fuel and property taxes ($80 million / year)
• Increase parking sales tax from 7% to 21%
•  Expand parking taxes to cover all off street parking $18 million / year (later replaced with more property tax)
• New Deal for Cities ($60 million / year)
• Additional 3 cent gas tax
• Regular property tax and fare increases

As well, Translink did pass the vehicle levy in an attempt to generate additional funding.  But the NDP pulled the rug out from this. 

I think it speaks volumes that all rapid transit in Metro Vancouver has been driven by the province.  Expo Line?  Mid-80’s, transit was fully provincial.  Millenium Line?  Put together by the province just as Translink was being created.  Canada Line?  Shoved down Translink’s throat by the province.  Evergreen Line?  Finally going with the provincially appointed Board of Director’s.  Curiously, most of those were done under Liberal/Socred governments.  All this in a period when the federal government was practically shoving money out the door for infrastructure improvement. 

In short: the region wanted control over transit funding and operations and the province to butt out.  They got it and then some, trading provincial funding for municipal taxes and control over those taxes and operation.   But, surprise surprise, 22 municipalities couldn’t agree on what to do or how to do it.  To their credit, after 10 years the province recognized this and put an end to it.  Enter cries of ‘undemocratic’ etc.

The province is doing what it needs to do. It is responsible for inter-municpal transport, and can’t let the region or province wither while the Mayors bicker.  This is a ‘crisis’ of the Mayor’s own creation.  First by insisting on control, then by failing to manage it, and finally by whining when taken to task for it. 

If anything, this demonstrates why these major transit initiatives and inter-municipal transport should remain with the province.  Translink and the municipalities have shown them incapable of managing it to date. The first step to getting back on track would be to take this referendum as an opportunity.  Stop whining about it.  Todd Stone’s letter calls for the Mayors to define a vision with priorities and costs.  The vision thing is good – we've done that a dozen times by now.  What we need are for the Mayors to hammer out priorities and costs. 

So Mayors - we all want better transit for the region, and I believe most of us are willing to pay for it. I certainly am. But before we cut you the cheque, show us that you can work together as a region.  Show us what you’re going to buy with our money, when we’re going to get it, and how it will improve things for us.  If it’s reasonable, we’ll give you the money.  But if you’re not willing to do that, then you don’t deserve it, and we all will suffer for your pride. 

The Law and Grace, or How a Dollar Store Clerk one-ups Immigration Canada

Sometimes people need a little help. Sometimes people need to be forgiven. And sometimes they need to go to jail. And that is a very tricky thing on my part... making that call. I mean, the law is the law. And heck if I'm gonna break it. You can forgive someone. Well, that's the tough part. What can we forgive? Tough part of the job. Tough part of walking down the street. Jim Kurring, Magnolia (1999)

Well, my Christmas vacation from writing took a little longer than I originally planned.  Let’s return with a story.

A few nights back I was at our church for an evening event.  An ad hoc dinner table formed as a few of us wandered in with our take-out prior to the event, including a two of our pastors.  As we tucked into our IGA sweet and sour pork and McDonalds fries, Pastor Aaron (all names changed) told us a recent story from our shelter. 

Our church runs an overnight shelter once a week where people can come and have a hot meal and warm place to sleep.  Jason, a tall, stout man with a friendly laugh, has been coming for nearly 15 years.   Jason has a significant other – Erica.  Erica is a little frail and a lot clingy – for all those 15 years she’s been inseparable from Jason.  She relies on him to take care of her. 

Jason’s laugh is the outward expression of his heart – he loves and cares for his Erica, and has tended to her, cared for her, the whole time they’ve been around.  The two were a unit – it was impossible to consider one without the other. 

Until a few weeks ago.  Murray came into the shelter with no Erica.  Aaron went right to him to ask about her.  My heart stopped here – when I hear these stories of the marginalized, the homeless, the mentally ill my mind goes straight to the worst.  I knew Aaron was going to tell us how Erica had died, leaving Jason to himself. 

But Erica did not die.  After living here for 15 years with Jason, immigration officers took her into custody and deported her to the United States.  Now she is wandering around some strange city without her lover, her caretaker.  No one to help her, no one to guide her, no one to support her.  Alone. 

This is just bullshit.  Absolute fucking bullshit.  I’m a calm person by nature – it takes a lot to get me angry. But this makes me so freaking livid I’m shaking just writing this days later.

Perhaps ironically, when it comes to immigration, law and order, etc., I’m pretty conservative.  Follow the rules or suffer the consequences.  We have immigration and refugee processes.  They’re ugly, they’re slow, but they generally work. Follow them and welcome to Canada.  Don’t, and we’ll send you back.  A borderless world?  I’m sure it’s a nice feature of your hippie utopia, but I want some controls on who comes into our country.    

So in theory, I should be all for this.  An illegal immigrant living off the generosity of our community, and quite likely off the government? This is the exact thing people are talking about when complaining about illegal immigrants.  A drain on our resources, criminals, yadda yadda yadda, kick the bums out.  And maybe under different circumstances I would be less offended by this.  No doubt immigration kicks other people out of the country I am glad to have gone. 

Why does Erica’s story bother me?  Part of it is the timeframe.  Seriously, 15 years later?  At some point in time have we not de facto accepted Erica as a part of our country?  I realize there are moral hazards in setting time limits on immigration enforcement, but perhaps that would provide an incentive for our system to deal with cases in a timelier manner. 

But time is just a part of it.  As a terrible Christian, the question that really bothers me here is where is the grace?  Not just in Erica’s case, but where does grace fit into our justice system as a whole?

The official sources are not much help.  I read the BC Policing Plan.  I searched for grace, forgive, and a dozen other synonyms.  How many did I find? 

Zero.

Looking at the courts, I found information aplenty on how the courts work, but almost none on what their goal is, or where grace, forgiveness and similar values fit in.  We can see bits of it poking through – things like absolute (and to an extent conditional) discharges, amnesties, and certain prison programs show we want to move on and bring people who broke the law back into the family of Canada.  Officers can of course show discretion as the deal with their cases. 

The justice system is supposed to consider things like

• Seriousness of the crime
• Deterring the accused and others from committing the crime
• Rehabilitation of the accused

when determining how to deal with a convict.  I believe we need to be going beyond that.  I believe we need to start considering how we give more to the people who have broken our rules, who have hurt our society.  We as a country and as individuals need to show the people bearing the burden of the justice system that we love them and value them as citizens and members of our communities.  We need to welcome them in, be generous with them.  We need to forgive them. 

What specifically can we do to show grace?  Lots of small things. 

For people in or coming out of prison -

• We can have someone tell them we as a country forgive them and welcome them back
• We can give them a bus or train ticket to anywhere in the country they want to go
• We can give them a good set of clothes
• We can give them better facilities (cue the cries of “prison resorts” now)

For people interacting with law officers –

• We can take suspected criminals into services rather than jails
• We can help them right their wrongs immediately instead of through the courts
• We can just let it go

Would the people falling into the justice system take any of this seriously?  Some would, some wouldn’t.  Are we opening ourselves up to be taken advantage of?  Absolutely.  But somewhere in the middle of absolute grace in all cases and hard-core justice in all cases is a tension we need to find.   I would love to hear from front-line officials (law officers, judicial members, etc.) perspectives’ on how grace fits into their work. 

I went into a dollar store several months back.  The typical seasonal displays were up.  The typical seasonal line-ups were long.  The typical seasonal music was being accompanied by a hysterical wailing coming from the back. 

I couldn’t see what was causing the noise.  No one appeared to be freaking out, so I threaded my way through the aisles to get what I needed.  Eventually I ended up at the back and came upon the source of the wail. 

A gaunt faced woman was screaming, crying, yelling about how she can’t go to jail.  A store clerk was calmly talking to her.  “I’m not going to call the police.  I’m just going to look through your bags.  I’ll give you back anything that’s yours.” 

More screaming. 

The clerk went into two plastic shopping bags with ratty blankets on top.  Predictably, underneath was dozens of dollar store goods.  The clerk put the blankets down and told the lady those were hers, and then went through every item in the bags, one by one, keeping the store goods, but giving back the few items that did belong to the lady.

The whole time the clerk was very calm, very patient, very respectful in dealing with the lady – firm, but gentle.  Over time the lady calmed down significantly.  The clerk finished with the bags, told the lady to take her things and leave, and reiterated she would not call the police.  The lady started to cry again as she took her bags and left. 

Grace.  Did she deserve it?  No – that’s the point.  

Carnarvon Gardens, or Is That an Echo Down Here?

On November 18^th, I received an invitation to an open house regarding a development at 813-823 Carnarvon Street.  Top Vision Developments is proposing to develop a 25ish story mixed use development at the site.  Unfortunately I was unable to make the open house, so as usual I am spouting off on things I found on the internets. 

The current buildings on site are:

• Couzie’s on Carnarvon Cafe (whose owner graciously let my then recently toilet trained son use their bathroom after closing one time)
• Two old auto repair/sales shops that appear vacant
• Dollarama at what was formerly the Centre for Integration

Couzie’s and Dollarama are the only places that appear active, but I haven’t got a sense of what will happen to them after the development.  There will be street front retail but I haven’t seen anything indicating if they will have a right of return or not. 

While this looks like a generally good idea, there are a number of concerns with the proposal, some of which council and staff are dealing with to various degrees, and one they are not. 

The Grand Canyon of Carnarvon

This part of Carnarvon is getting quite dense with towers, and tall frontages that are very close to the street.  On top of the ground level retail will be three stories of offices fronting parking, and fifth story of above ground parking set back two-three feet in an effort to make things prettier. 

While I appreciate the efforts council and planning staff are making on this, setting back the fifth level parking one additional foot is not going to make Carnarvon less of a canyon.  Even fronting offices on the street, while making things somewhat more pleasant to look at, will still contribute to the canyon effect.  When you have a vertical wall 40-50 feet high straddling both sides of a street with narrow sidewalks, concessions like this are practically futile.  The problem on Carnarvon is less visible parkades and more being barely able to fit a stroller or wheelchair around a lamppost without falling into traffic.

Canyon environments can be pedestrian friendly, but they need room for people to breathe.  The place that does this best in my mind is the pedestrian malls in Perth, Australia. The streets have a definite canyon-like feel to them, but with no cars, dynamic storefronts and being able to walk without being pushed into traffic it’s a pleasant experience.  Walking down the sidewalk on Carnarvon feels like the big city pushing down on you, and adjusting setbacks and changing concrete for glass isn’t going to fundamentally alter this. 

Top Vision Development

Top Vision’s website is rather sparse.  They apparently have more than “20 combined years of construction and engineering experience,” and have dealt with single home through high-rise construction.  Their previous projects show two large homes in Metro Vancouver, and two high-rise projects in China.  City records show they have done a number of large suburban houses in Richmond as well.  Top Vision appears to share offices with related businesses including:

• Yuan Heng Construction
• Lu Tang Architecture – the archictects for this project
• Top Vision Realty – also provides strata management services, and presumably will for this project
• Giant Environmental Technology – no idea if this is related or not
• Carnarvon Garden Development – the project specific company and New West Chamber of Commerce member

Their record appears decent, but part of that may be their recency.  The BBB has them rated A- with no complaints, but they registered in November, 2012.  Stratawatch gave Top Vision Realty good rating, but there is absolutely no transparency on how that rating is generated. I found some more photos and information on the MINI Impression project.  It appears to be a similar scale to what is proposed here, and has some interesting features if google translate is to be believed. 

However, building a tower in Metro Vancouver is vastly different than building a suburban mansion, and quite different than building a tower in Dalian, China.  Does Top Vision have the necessary experience or partners involved to ensure a safe, durable building suitable for our environment is designed and constructed?  Codes set a minimum, but this tower is expected to last 50 to 100 years. We want to be sure whoever is developing it has a good idea what they're doing. 

Parking

As usual, the development is requesting to come up short on parking spaces.  Now that the Front Street Parkade is definitely going (hooray!) we can’t be cutting downtown parking, especially given a significant commercial space will be included in the development.  Give credit where it’s due – proximity to the skytrain, any features they include to reduce traffic demand, but don’t let this create spillover problems into the rest of the area.  Council appears to be holding fairly firm here. 

Commercial Space

One of the proposals from the developer to address the parking visibility concern was to eliminate the top level of parking and expand the parking on the levels below.  This comes with a price, though, elimination of half of the original 23,500 square feet of office space. 

That price is too high to pay.  All of Metro Vancouver has been focused on building out condos as prices have flown into the stratosphere.  It’s quick, (relatively) easy money for the developers, and then they get to go away and leave any problems down the road for the individual unit buyers.  Creating living space but no working space makes an unbalanced community – a suburb built vertically instead of horizontally.  

The land around the skytrain stations is high value, and very limited.  We need to use it to its full potential.  Making a space where people come as well as people go.  The Anvil Centre is a start, and this development will follow with some needed new office space in New West.  I’m glad to see Council holding firm here as well.

Overall, I think this project brings a lot of potential good to the area.  However, it needs to be executed well to deliver that.  If not, it will bring decades of eyesore and grief to the city.  Take the time to get it right now – we’ll be stuck with it for a long time. 

Back Alley Expropriation, or This Land is Your Land - sort of

Read this News Leader article.  Then, if you have the same reaction I did, read it again to make sure you’re reading it right.  Basically, the city is asking demanding owners of certain properties grant a statutory right-of-way for a potential back lane before issuing a building permit. 

 “In the past we certainly have missed opportunities to obtain statutory rights of ways. In terms of getting it, we try to do it more opportunistically, we’re not trying to disturb a home,” said Wat. “It minimizes the impact on the owner’s ability to build, it doesn’t affect square footage. They still retain the ability to build, they just cannot build on that part.”

One: they don’t retain the ability to build anything unless they agree to the city’s demands since the city won’t issue a permit.  Two: they do not retain the ability to build if their building plans require the use of that land. 

This just pisses me off.  The city is not taking your property, not paying you for it (in fact you’ll still need to pay property tax on it) or negotiating it’s use, just preventing you from doing anything on it on the chance they may or may not build a lane at some unspecified time in the future. 

All that said, I understand and appreciate the goal.  This is just an absolute garbage way to go about it.  The city has mechanisms to claim land for building roads, lanes, civic centres, etc.  If they want to claim the land to build a lane, use them – don’t blackmail owners into submission by preventing them from using their property. It's not fair or just to hold people hostage now for the city's lack of foresight or planning in the past. 

What’s not clear is if any of the applications were going to build in the claimed right-of-way.  I can see people getting pissed off if they built a shed at the back of their property only to have it demolished for a lane a year later.  But this is solved through openness and communication, not blackmail.  Responding “we are happy to grant your permit, but be aware the city intends to expropriate some of that land for a lane in the next year or two, proceed at your own risk,” is the polite way to do this.  Asking affected property owners nicely for them to grant a right-of-way, whether they are building something or not, is appropriate.  Bonus points for offering compensation for the loss of use of their land. 

What is wrong is to prevent them from building on their property, whether in the affected area or not, unless they agree to grant said right-of-way.  And in addition to being wrong, it may well be illegal.  See: Bylaw, Building, No. 6897.

Specifically, see section 14. 

14.1 A building official shall issue the permit for which the application is made, when:

Note that shall is government speak for must – if all the requirements specified are met, the city cannot withhold a building permit.  What are the requirements?

14.1.1 a completed application including all required supporting documentation has been submitted;

14.1.2 the proposed work set out in the application conforms with the Building Code, this bylaw and all other applicable bylaws and enactments;

14.1.3 the owner or their representative has paid all applicable fees prescribed by this bylaw;

14.1.4 the owner or their representative has paid all charges and met all requirements imposed by any other enactment or bylaw;

14.1.5 no enactment, covenant, agreement, or regulation in favour of the City authorizes the permit to be withheld;

14.1.6 the owner has retained a professional engineer or geoscientist if required by the provisions of the Engineers and Geoscientists Act;

14.1.7 the owner has retained an architect if required by the provisions of the Architects Act; and

14.1.8 the owner or signing officer if the owner is a corporation and the coordinating professional, if applicable, have signed the permit.

14.1.2 does refer to any other enactments or bylaws, so there could be a bylaw sitting somewhere allowing the city to withhold a permit unless the owners grant a right-of-way, but I have my doubts something like that exists.  Most of the provisions I found for withholding a building permit were related to Heritage buildings.  I have asked a Councillor what authority they are using to withhold the permits.

As mentioned in the article, builder Brian Lowka intends to address city council on this issue in February – I intend to see what comes of this and my requests for information from council.  If you are interested in hearing the outcome from the meeting or my discussions, watch the meeting in February or sign up for my email newsletter on the right.  The newsletter is where I put all my little ditties and follow-ups that don’t warrant a full blog post, and I don't send them out that often.  If the city is going to expropriate land or rights of way from property owners, let's make sure they do it properly.  

Queensborough Ferries, or If You Believe That I've Got a Bridge to Sell You

Ahh, the pedestrian bridge to Queensborough.  The final rabbit to be pulled from the casino grant hat.  With reconfigured plans for development east of the Fraser River Discovery Centre, linking Westminster Pier Park to Quayside and potentially all the way up to Sapperton Landing, we will only be missing one link – Lulu Island to the mainland without resorting to the Queensborough Bridge. 

Much has and will be said about the eventual bridge.  It’s still many years off.  What I, and apparently a few others have wondered, is if we need to wait until the sun goes supernova before we see it, why not use a ferry for the interim?

As is usual for these sorts of things, the answer comes down to money.  Just for fun, I did an electronic paper napkin business plan for one (yes dreaming up business ideas and spreadsheeting them death is fun for me). 

The obvious analogy and comparison comes from those cute little ferries running across False Creek.  However, the operation conditions for False Creek and New West are substantially different.  For one thing we don’t have 100,000 people living within walking distance of our docks.  Secondly, we have a river to contend with and larger distances between places people actually want to go than Vancouver. 

But first of all, to run a ferry we need a boat.  From what I can tell, a 12 passenger ferry is the largest one that can be handled by one crew – more than 12 passengers you get into a whole different world of rules.  Just in case you thought otherwise – the Canada Marine Act and Regulations are hard.  I can’t believe how much time I spent just trying to figure out how many crew members you need on a ship of a given passenger capacity, and I never did find a definitive answer.  As best I can tell, Transport Canada’s answer is “show us your ship and we’ll tell you.”  So one of these, with a hardtop and in a brighter colour should do nicely.

Next we need somewhere to go.  Being the one in charge of this fiction, I demand the route traverse the following points:

• River Market
• Quayside
• Port Royal
• Queensborough Landing

Let’s assume everyone involved is being generous and giving a dock to use at their location.  The distances as the sturgeon swims are roughly

• River Market to Quayside:  1.0 km
• Quayside to Port Royal: 0.4 km
• Port Royal to Shopping: 2.2 km

Assumption time!

• Boat cruises at 15 knots (mixing units FTW)
• Boat burns 8 gph at cruise and 2 gph at idle (let’s throw a few more in there for fun)
• Fuel costs $1.60 per litre (you thought I was kidding)
• Captain’s rate of $20 per hour, all in (how do you cancel out Captains?)
• Said Captain is also our clerk, deckhand, cashier, janitor, seasickness bag dispenser, first aid attendant, and overall superman
• Maintenance costs are equal to half the fuel costs
• We run 12 hours per day, every day

If you plug all that into a calculator, it will yell at you for doing science wrong.  Then it will show you that it is possible to make one round trip per hour, and your operating costs are about $62 per hour, or about $5 per seat per hour.  However, that doesn’t include overhead, depreciation, operating expenses that are non-revenue generating, and days lost due to ice on the Fraser.

Ice on the Fraser River – December 9^th, 2013 - photo by James Crosty 

Throw all that crap in there and you’re talking $7 per seat per hour to break even, and that’s not paying off the boat or paying you unless you are the superhero captain (yarrr). 

To make a real business of it you would really need to be generating about $8-10 per seat per hour. What does that mean?  It gets tricky as it depends on both fares charged and how many people are travelling, but an example might be $4 to go from the North Fraser to Port Royal, and $7 to Queensborough Landing.  With those fares, and a mix of 80% Port Royal Passengers and 20% Queensborough Landing Passengers, you would need to run the boat 100% all the time to make money.  And you have zero upside – there’s no way to run more passengers and make more money. 

The Queensborough Landing leg is long, expensive and risky in terms of passenger attraction. What if we chop that off, move the dock so it’s centrally located between the River Market and Quayside, and do a simple shuttle back and forth to Port Royal.  Now we can increase service to four to six round trips per hour instead of one.  Let’s say we do four, so a trip every 15 minutes.  And let’s assume with the shorter crossing we can manage with a less powerful boat that burns less fuel. 

That cuts our operating expenses down - $47 instead of $62 per hour.  Overheads don’t change, so we’re only reducing revenue requirements by $1.25 per seat per hour.  So we still need $7ish per seat per hour to make this worth our while.  Let’s say we charge $3 per trip – to make money we need to average 28-32 passengers per hour, 12 hours a day. 350 people per day, 7 days a week.  That’s only 33% of capacity, so we have the ability to make money, but are there enough people to carry?  And are they willing to pay?

I’m no marketing expert, but I struggle to believe a Queensborough ferry service would get that kind of demand at this point in time.  According to thecommunity plan in 2011 there were 7,155 people living in Queensborough.  There's some 9,000 at Quayside, but if you don't go to Queensborough Landing, there's not a huge draw for them on the island.  Even at the 2040 estimate of nearly 15,000 people in Queensborough I have a hard time believe you would average 350 people per day.

I’m not aware that anyone has done a market study of demand for a ferry service.  So this is going to be the first one, right here.  If anyone is reading this besides my wife, I would love to hear from you either in the comments or @lifeinnewwest on twitter. 

1. Would you use a River Market/Quayside to Queensborough ferry?
2. Where would you want it to go?
3. How often would you take it?
4. How much would you be willing to pay?

I can’t remember where I saw it, but someone on council said the city is supportive of a ferry, but isn’t willing to run one itself (politician speak for “Good luck, kiddo”).  If we sum all the expenses, it would cost in the neighbourhood of $400,000 per year to run the ferry.  The cost of a pedestrian bridge is estimated between $5 and $10 million depending on the whether they staple it to the rail bridge or build it completely independent.

 

$5 million would fund a ferry for just over 12 years, assuming no revenue and no savings on overhead from sharing with the city instead of being an independent venture.  If you can get the cost down to $350,000 per year, and revenue of $100,000 per year from fares (90 passengers a day at $3 per trip), advertising and the like, $5 million would run the ferry for 20 years.  Even better, take the $5 million and stick it in some bank preferred shares at 5% - the interest alone would pay for the ferry and you wouldn't need to touch the principal.  

Then there are other possibilities to promote it and encourage ridership.  You could integrate with Translink so one fare carries you from the ferry to a bus or skytrain.  You don’t need to run to Queensborough Landing every run, but set up a deal with the shopping centre to make less frequent runs down there.  Maybe the casino too.  If the winter demand is that friggen awful, run it seasonally.

But even with none of that, a small investment could let the money we already have for the pedestrian bridge pay for a ferry until it’s time to build the bridge. Maybe it’s time for the city to take a deeper look at running a ferry to Queensborough.