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Huge cost of elevated transit and subways means Delta will never get a ‘train’

Editor: Sadly, Delta will not get "rail" transit in any form because of the huge costs of the present light metro system.

Editor:

Sadly, Delta will not get "rail" transit in any form because of the huge costs of the present light metro system.

Why so?

What we call SkyTrain is a transit systems, but is the name of TransLink's regional light metro system, which consists of two very different railways. The Expo and Millennium lines use the very expensive proprietary and now called Movia Automatic Light (MALM) metro system and the Canada Line, which uses conventional Electrical Multiple Units (EMUs) on a truncated mini-metro system.

Both systems are automated and driverless and are very expensive to build, maintain and operate, when compared to more conventional rail operations and embarrassingly, they are constricted in capacity as well.

Light rail transit is a modern tram, operating on a dedicated or reserved at-grade rights-of-way, and generally has only local signalling, making the system far more flexible in application at a far cheaper cost than light metro.

In the real world, modern LRT made light metro obsolete decades ago and is reflected that of the seven MALM systems built in the past 40 years, only three are seriously used for urban transport.

No one has copied the Canada Line, an orphaned truncated heavy rail metro, operating as a light metro.

Not only is light-metro very expensive to build, it costs more to operate and maintain, lacks capacity and operational flexibility for future expansion.

Our SkyTrain light-metro system has had much research, studies and reviews done by domestic and international transit authorities, who then went home to build with light rail instead.

It is cost that has made SkyTrain light metro obsolete, just as cost doomed the Edsel in the 1960s.

A study done by Ontario's Metrolinx, a province of Ontario Crown agency that manages and integrates road and public transport, shows the long term costs of elevated or subway operation were massive, when compared to at-grade light-rail.

The 50 year per kilometre cost of at-grade LRT is around $200 million, while the per kilometre.costs for elevated LRT (MALM and EMU operation would be a little higher) is almost $600 million. Subway's costs are stunning at $1 billion per kilometre.

Spendthrift TransLink, the TransLink board and the Mayors’ Council is not telling the taxpayer that the long-term costs for elevated transit and subways are three to five times higher than at-grade LRT, yet in Metro Vancouver, at-grade LRT would have a higher capacity than the capacity constricted Canada, Expo and Millennium lines at at least one-third of the cost.

The huge extra costs of elevated transit and subways, instead of at-grade LRT, is financially cannibalizing the rest of the transit system today and for the next 50 years and why Delta will never get a "train."

Malcolm Johnston

Rail for the Valley