Vancouver’s mayoral candidates are pushing for a SkyTrain tunnel link under the Broadway corridor to be the region’s top transit priority once Evergreen Line financing is confirmed.
The proposed link would connect with the Millennium Line and go as far west as Arbutus – a route that will inevitably cause friction given that many Broadway business owners fear any type of tunnel construction along their corridor will kill their enterprise.
TransLink spokesman Ken Hardie told Business in Vancouver that TransLink’s board has yet to determine the top regional priority after the Evergreen Line.
“Everything from Surrey rapid transit to Broadway rapid transit to gondolas going up Burnaby Mountain all fall into the queue,” he said.
Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson and his Non-Partisan Association challenger Suzanne Anton agree that reducing congestion on the Broadway corridor is vital for the region.
“It’s crucial that we have the SkyTrain technology through the Broadway corridor,” Robertson told BIV in an exclusive interview June 29.
“The growth and population and the traffic challenges in the Broadway corridor are unsustainable, so we’ve got to see the Broadway corridor served by the big pipe.”
Anton described the proposed link as a “regional line with regional importance.”
The Broadway corridor is the second busiest employment centre outside the downtown core, and TransLink estimates that there are 110,000 trips along the Broadway corridor each day.
“In central Broadway, the only way you can manage the number of trips is with SkyTrain technology,” Anton said.
Anton and Robertson’s mutual belief that SkyTrain is the only viable technology in the Broadway corridor worries business owners and frustrates light-rail advocates.
Ray’s Beauty School for Hairdressing owner Gina Law told BIV that she will close her 12-year-old business if regional politicians approve any form of tunnel along Broadway.
She likes the idea of a burrowed tunnel but fears that construction will cause more disruption than authorities say.
“I don’t trust them,” she said. “On Cambie Street there were so many businesses that went bankrupt or had to close. They did not expect to have the cut-and-cover [construction method].”
Indeed, Hazel & Co owner Susan Heyes suffered a drastic drop in customers for her maternity wear store when the Canada Line construction consortium dug a tunnel outside her store.
She lost a B.C. Court of Appeal judgment after she sued to recover $600,000 in damages from the consortium for business losses. Her only hope now is for the Supreme Court of Canada to agree to hear the case.
The West Broadway Business Improvement Association (WBBIA) officially opposes a tunnel.
Its directors have examined TransLink’s seven options for improved transit in the Broadway corridor and decided that at-grade transportation, whether it involves more buses or a light-rail system, is preferable.
“We don’t want a SkyTrain tunnel. Whether it is cut and cover or a bored tunnel doesn’t matter to us, because bored tunnels take longer and construction would cut off all the east-west traffic on West Broadway for a number of years,” said WBBIA director Donna Dobo, who owns the West Broadway costume store Just Imagine.
Light-rail advocate Malcolm Johnston has been lobbying to build light rail on Broadway for decades. Light rail would not require construction of a tunnel. It would instead run at grade along the existing corridor.
Now part of Rail For The Valley, Johnston spends much of his time lobbying to have light rail in the Fraser Valley. But he still thinks light rail on Broadway is the more practical and a better value than building a subway.
“TransLink’s planning is arcane,” Johnston said.
“It’s dated, and they misinform the public. What else can I say? I wouldn’t trust them to build an outhouse.”
Johnston, who is familiar with TransLink’s seven proposals, believes the transportation authority has skewed its figures to make rapid transit appear to be a more viable option than either light rail or buses.
He believes TransLink pulls numbers out of the air, such as its assertion that 110,000 bus trips are made daily in the corridor.
Despite BIV’s repeated requests for details about that figure and estimates, TransLink was unable to provide that data.
“TransLink says SkyTrain attracts more ridership than light rail. This is absolutely unproven,” Johnston said.
“Sit down for this. Light rail has a bigger capacity than SkyTrain. This is contrary to the spin that TransLink has. De facto, a streetcar or even light rail has proven to have higher capacity than a subway unless you build a London-style metro [with multiple lines and longer trains].”