I have been meaning to write something about this but life got in the way.
Central Saanich has given fourth reading approval for the project - here is the A Channel report on it
The decision is a good one and reinforces building more housing next to existing suburban development and on land that has no value for agriculture and has no wilderness values. Ideally the site should have been the home to a much denser development because we need a lot more housing to be built in this region. Each house built reduces the demand a bit and ultimately keep prices from rising.
The development should allow for the finances of the farm to be in a better situation that it is now. Most farmers are land rich and cash poor and have no easy mechanism to allow for a farm to pass from one generation to another one.
The Vantreights should recognized for taking the single biggest action to protect farm land in this region since the start of the ALR, that being the consolidation of titles in larger properties. A number of the properties are now large enough to make them functional for some form of farming long into the future. The Vantreight land is now some of the only farm land in the CRD that has a covenant on title stopping future subdivision. One of the lots will be 177 acres which makes it one of the largest fee simple titles in the CRD.
The loss of the farm would have meant the loss of one of the last farms with the infrastructure in place to produce any significant volume of produce. We now have the Vantreight farm around for another generation at least and likely longer.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Peninsula Coop Payment
We have been members of Peninsula Coop for about two years now and we have just received our second rebate. I thought I would go through it.
First off, the year was from March 29th 2009 to April 3rd 2010, we got our rebate at the start of December, eight months after our last qualifying purchase.
The rebate we got this year was 5.1% on fuel purchases. We spent $2155.55 on fuel and have been given a rebate of $109.93 though we only received $59.
Peninsula Coop only pays out half of the rebate and retains the half as preferred shares. The preferred shares get paid out after six years. We will get our first preferred share rebate in December of 2015 and that will be for $7.26.
We did not spend our rebate last year and so that $32.91 was added to the $54.96 in common shares from this year and a $5.53 GST rebate. I can not make sense what this GST refund relates to as we would have paid about $107.78 in GST on the fuel we purchased. $1.49 was withheld as income tax and Sheila can claim this on her income tax return in the spring.
We also did not get the rebate as money, but has vouchers for Peninsula Coop. So we have $59 in vouchers for the coop - one fill of the car - and the coop is holding another $95.14 of our rebate. If our purchases continue as in the past, we should have about $360 worth of preferred shares of Peninsula Coop by 2015 when we see our first preferred share rebate. December 2016 should be the first time we see a refund of over $100.
The retained refunds are acting as an interest free source of capital for the coop. If there are 55,000 members with an average retained refund of $200 each, this means the coop effectively has a no interest line of credit of $11,000,000. This not an accurate figure, just a ballpark number to show the scale of the money held by the coop.
So the refund system of Peninsula Coop is not nearly as good as it sounds on the radio adds. It makes the idea of buying gas at Costco look like a decent deal because the lower price is one we see now and not years down the road and we are left with money in our pocket.
First off, the year was from March 29th 2009 to April 3rd 2010, we got our rebate at the start of December, eight months after our last qualifying purchase.
The rebate we got this year was 5.1% on fuel purchases. We spent $2155.55 on fuel and have been given a rebate of $109.93 though we only received $59.
Peninsula Coop only pays out half of the rebate and retains the half as preferred shares. The preferred shares get paid out after six years. We will get our first preferred share rebate in December of 2015 and that will be for $7.26.
We did not spend our rebate last year and so that $32.91 was added to the $54.96 in common shares from this year and a $5.53 GST rebate. I can not make sense what this GST refund relates to as we would have paid about $107.78 in GST on the fuel we purchased. $1.49 was withheld as income tax and Sheila can claim this on her income tax return in the spring.
We also did not get the rebate as money, but has vouchers for Peninsula Coop. So we have $59 in vouchers for the coop - one fill of the car - and the coop is holding another $95.14 of our rebate. If our purchases continue as in the past, we should have about $360 worth of preferred shares of Peninsula Coop by 2015 when we see our first preferred share rebate. December 2016 should be the first time we see a refund of over $100.
The retained refunds are acting as an interest free source of capital for the coop. If there are 55,000 members with an average retained refund of $200 each, this means the coop effectively has a no interest line of credit of $11,000,000. This not an accurate figure, just a ballpark number to show the scale of the money held by the coop.
So the refund system of Peninsula Coop is not nearly as good as it sounds on the radio adds. It makes the idea of buying gas at Costco look like a decent deal because the lower price is one we see now and not years down the road and we are left with money in our pocket.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Why not Bus Rapid Transit?
Over and over again there are people saying we need to go to a rail based rapid transit system in this region but no one ever explains why this would be better than a bus rapid transit system.
In Vancouver there have been bus rapid transit lines in use for some years now the first being the 99 B-Line started in September 1996 along Broadway to UBC. The 98 B-Line operated along Granville to Richmond from 2001 until the Canada Line opened last year. The 97 B-Line runs where the Evergreen Line will eventually operate.
The 99 B-Line moves about 45,000 people a day which is about 40% of what all of BC Transit carries in the CRD. The 97 B-Line moves a lot less but would still be a very significant route. Surveys done in the past found that about 20% of the riders in the B-Lines are new to transit.
The major reason the B-Lines have worked well is that follow the existing traffic, they do not try to create it. UBC is a major daily destination for people in the lower mainland and it is way off on the western edge of the region. There are plans for two new B-Lines, the 95 B-Line to run along Hastings out to SFU and the 91 B-Line to run along 41st out to UBC. As you can see both lines are connected to the two largest universities in Metro Vancouver.
Over in Kelowna this fall they started a new bus rapid line, the 97X which goes from UBC Okanagan to downtown and will eventually go over the lake to West Kelowna. This service is once again following existing traffic. The system will be fully built out for less than $65,000,000. The current 15 kilometre stretch has been put into service for $21,500,000.
The Seattle region is currently adding bus rapid transit to the choices in their mix
Bus rapid transit can easily and quickly be put into operation. It is capable of a decent speed and it is flexible in how it and where it operates. Best of all, because it is much cheaper to implement you can do offer a lot more rapid transit.
A bus rapid transit line to the Westshore would mean there should be no reason BC Transit could not be immediately looking at bus rapid transit to UVic. UVic to Uptown and then downtown strikes me as an obvious line that should be under consideration right now. It is also a line that would have enough traffic from day one to pay for the cost of operations.
If our goal is to improve transit in this region soon, there really is no case for anything other than a bus rapid transit system that makes any sense.
In Vancouver there have been bus rapid transit lines in use for some years now the first being the 99 B-Line started in September 1996 along Broadway to UBC. The 98 B-Line operated along Granville to Richmond from 2001 until the Canada Line opened last year. The 97 B-Line runs where the Evergreen Line will eventually operate.
The 99 B-Line moves about 45,000 people a day which is about 40% of what all of BC Transit carries in the CRD. The 97 B-Line moves a lot less but would still be a very significant route. Surveys done in the past found that about 20% of the riders in the B-Lines are new to transit.
The major reason the B-Lines have worked well is that follow the existing traffic, they do not try to create it. UBC is a major daily destination for people in the lower mainland and it is way off on the western edge of the region. There are plans for two new B-Lines, the 95 B-Line to run along Hastings out to SFU and the 91 B-Line to run along 41st out to UBC. As you can see both lines are connected to the two largest universities in Metro Vancouver.
Over in Kelowna this fall they started a new bus rapid line, the 97X which goes from UBC Okanagan to downtown and will eventually go over the lake to West Kelowna. This service is once again following existing traffic. The system will be fully built out for less than $65,000,000. The current 15 kilometre stretch has been put into service for $21,500,000.
The Seattle region is currently adding bus rapid transit to the choices in their mix
Bus rapid transit can easily and quickly be put into operation. It is capable of a decent speed and it is flexible in how it and where it operates. Best of all, because it is much cheaper to implement you can do offer a lot more rapid transit.
A bus rapid transit line to the Westshore would mean there should be no reason BC Transit could not be immediately looking at bus rapid transit to UVic. UVic to Uptown and then downtown strikes me as an obvious line that should be under consideration right now. It is also a line that would have enough traffic from day one to pay for the cost of operations.
If our goal is to improve transit in this region soon, there really is no case for anything other than a bus rapid transit system that makes any sense.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Victoria City Council Decision on Rapid Transit on Douglas
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| Artist rendering from BC Transit |
The council has opted for splitting Douglas into three, one section for rapid transit, one for bikes and one for cars. Cars will only have two lanes on Douglas if the plans go ahead.
The council decision only covers Douglas till Hillside. The City of Victoria boundary is significantly further north of that. What are the plans for the line from Hillside to Tolmie? Is the expectation for the same pattern to continue? Will Saanich follow suit?
The last time rapid transit was talked about, there was significant opposition to it from the merchants along Douglas Street, what has changed to remove this opposition?
This change will have a major impact on Douglas Street from Herald Street south.
If the rapid transit lanes are on the eastern side, this will make left hand turns going south very hard to use. It will also remove right hand turns from streets onto Douglas going north bound effectively unavailable.
Will the rapid transit lanes allow regular buses on them? And will there be stops as often as there need to be for local bus service? If there is local bus service in the transit lanes, I suspect this will hold up the rapid transit service as there is no way to get around the slow buses. So this says to me the local buses will be on the car lanes and will not have much space to stop.
I am trying to figure out how to make the local buses on Douglas work if this work out as I suspect. Some buses could simply end when they get to Douglas and no longer continue downtown, these routes are not a problem. The problematic ones are the ones that run through downtown on Douglas on their way to other locations. #11, #14, #22, #27, #28, #30 and #31 all pass through downtown on Douglas street on their way somewhere else. Will all these bus routes be changed?
With rapid transit the odds are that a lot of current direct bus routes will be scraped or altered and force people to transfer onto rapid transit for part of their trip. Each transfer adds another disincentive to transit use, the first one being the biggest barrier. Currently most people in this region do not transfer when they take transit and I doubt would welcome having to transfer
Douglas Street is a major commercial street in the city, to make a two lane street concerns me because of the impacts it will have on traffic. It will be a problem for commercial traffic that needs to access the downtown core. It will be another disincentive for people to go downtown to shop that normally go via Douglas. I suspect there will be something close to gridlock on Douglas Street in downtown if this goes forward.
The current traffic on Douglas Street will have to go somewhere and it will be pushed to streets around it. I am not sure that there is the capacity of the streets to handle this extra traffic.
The decision to express a preference for rail over bus is very much premature of council and seems to have been done without any information backing a reason for a preference. There is light rail mania going all over North America but not a lot of solid data indicating the increased expense of building and operating a light rail makes sense in most cases.
The capital costs of a light rail system to Langford will be five to ten times more expensive than bus rapid transit and the operating expenses would also be higher light rail over bus. Light rail makes sense when it is grade separated and deals with very high existing volumes but not when it is on a level grade and has a low volume. There is no indication that there will ever be the sort of volume on a rapid transit line to Langford to justify the need to go to light rail instead of bus.
Thursday, December 09, 2010
A comparable rail project to consider
There is currently a project underway in Honolulu to build a 32 km rail transit line.
Honolulu County covers the whole of island of Oahu and has a population of 876,000. This compares closely to Vancouver Island's 750,000 people. The area of Oahu is roughly the same area of the primary populated areas of Vancouver Island. I raise these to give you some idea that the two locations are roughly the same. Admittedly Honolulu has a much higher number of tourists.
Here in the CRD and the east coast of the island people are looking at two rail based transit options. The first being the E&N line and the second being some form of rapid transit from downtown to the Westshore. We may not be looking at a 32km elevated line like in Honolulu, but we are considering two significant projects that will have many more kilometers of track than anything on O'ahu. In the order of magnitude, our two projects compare to the one project in Hawai'i.
Honolulu and Victoria have one more thing in common, both cities are avid bus riders.
The reason I raise Honolulu is that their project was slated to cost about $5.5 billion but is now going to be at least $7.2 billion. This includes the construction costs and subsidies needed to operate the line.
Other than the classic rising costs during the capital stage of the project, there is a major concern that ridership will not be achieved. The line is being built in the hopes of getting people to leave their cars behind and take transit and has some very optimistic assumptions. If the numbers are not achieved, the system will have to have large per rider subsidies.
One of the few cities in North America that has approached rapid transit in a reasonable way is Metro Vancouver. The Canada Line was built along a route that had enough existing bus riders to warrant a rail based transit solution. There was no attempt to socially engineer the city with the Canada line, it was built to match where the demand was at the moment.
The demand in our region is from downtown to UVic. There are not that many people on the Westshore taking transit. Once they take transit is when rapid transit should be considered. Till then any rapid transit should be focused on access to UVic.
Metro Vancouver also managed to dodge the capital cost problem by using a P3. The price for the Canada line may have looked expensive at the time at about $80,000,000 per kilometer, but when comparing it to other projects in North America lately, the price is looking more and more like a good deal.
More and more rail based projects in the US are coming in at costs over $100,000,000 per kilometer. Honolulu is only one example of the costliness of rail based transit and it is not the most extreme. There are projects that come in on time and on budget but they are the exception and not the rule. Rail based transit projects have been more of a gamble on a hope for the future than a reflection of reality.
A Canadian comparable project is the Region of Waterloo rapid transit project, currently estimated at a cost of $925,000,000 for about 20 kilometers or about $26,000,000 per kilometer. I expect that number to rise once the project is underway. The estimate has a range of +50% to -25% placing the cost range from $20,000,000 to $39,000,000 per kilometer. This project does not follow existing transit traffic, does not have a good business case and assumes significant transit ridership growth due to the line.
Any rail based transit needs a very detailed and realistically costed business plan. There have to be mechanisms in place to ensure there is no danger of cost overruns in the projects. And finally, rail based transit has to follow the people and not try to be an expensive social engineering tool.
Honolulu County covers the whole of island of Oahu and has a population of 876,000. This compares closely to Vancouver Island's 750,000 people. The area of Oahu is roughly the same area of the primary populated areas of Vancouver Island. I raise these to give you some idea that the two locations are roughly the same. Admittedly Honolulu has a much higher number of tourists.
Here in the CRD and the east coast of the island people are looking at two rail based transit options. The first being the E&N line and the second being some form of rapid transit from downtown to the Westshore. We may not be looking at a 32km elevated line like in Honolulu, but we are considering two significant projects that will have many more kilometers of track than anything on O'ahu. In the order of magnitude, our two projects compare to the one project in Hawai'i.
Honolulu and Victoria have one more thing in common, both cities are avid bus riders.
The reason I raise Honolulu is that their project was slated to cost about $5.5 billion but is now going to be at least $7.2 billion. This includes the construction costs and subsidies needed to operate the line.
Other than the classic rising costs during the capital stage of the project, there is a major concern that ridership will not be achieved. The line is being built in the hopes of getting people to leave their cars behind and take transit and has some very optimistic assumptions. If the numbers are not achieved, the system will have to have large per rider subsidies.
One of the few cities in North America that has approached rapid transit in a reasonable way is Metro Vancouver. The Canada Line was built along a route that had enough existing bus riders to warrant a rail based transit solution. There was no attempt to socially engineer the city with the Canada line, it was built to match where the demand was at the moment.
The demand in our region is from downtown to UVic. There are not that many people on the Westshore taking transit. Once they take transit is when rapid transit should be considered. Till then any rapid transit should be focused on access to UVic.
Metro Vancouver also managed to dodge the capital cost problem by using a P3. The price for the Canada line may have looked expensive at the time at about $80,000,000 per kilometer, but when comparing it to other projects in North America lately, the price is looking more and more like a good deal.
More and more rail based projects in the US are coming in at costs over $100,000,000 per kilometer. Honolulu is only one example of the costliness of rail based transit and it is not the most extreme. There are projects that come in on time and on budget but they are the exception and not the rule. Rail based transit projects have been more of a gamble on a hope for the future than a reflection of reality.
A Canadian comparable project is the Region of Waterloo rapid transit project, currently estimated at a cost of $925,000,000 for about 20 kilometers or about $26,000,000 per kilometer. I expect that number to rise once the project is underway. The estimate has a range of +50% to -25% placing the cost range from $20,000,000 to $39,000,000 per kilometer. This project does not follow existing transit traffic, does not have a good business case and assumes significant transit ridership growth due to the line.
Any rail based transit needs a very detailed and realistically costed business plan. There have to be mechanisms in place to ensure there is no danger of cost overruns in the projects. And finally, rail based transit has to follow the people and not try to be an expensive social engineering tool.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Recall in Oak Bay Gordon Head
I do not think there is much of a chance of a recall campaign working in this riding for a host of reasons
Oak Bay Gordon Head only managed to get 7266 signatures in the anti-HST petition which is significantly less than the vote for Ida Chong in 2009. It is also less than half of what is needed to for a recall. With 60 days and not 90 days and with a target that is much higher, there would have to be a a huge new groundswell against Ida Chong, but there is nothing to indicate this will happen.
The campaign does not focus on personal decisions or actions of Ida Chong but decisions of the whole government. Certainly Gordon Campbell or Colin Hansen could be said to have a personal responsibility for the HST but Ida Chong is in the same boat as all the government MLAs. There is no specific reason for anger towards her.
The recall campaigns were said to be there to push the government to change their position on the HST. The campaign has seen the resignation of Gordon Campbell and all the candidates promise for an earlier referendum or a free vote in the legislature. The argument for the recall campaign was to get the government to act, well they are acting, any non-partisan person will see the actions of government a reasonable response to the demands of the Anti-HST campaign. This means it is going to very hard to get most people to sign recall on the basis of the government is not listening
The campaign looks significantly partisan. Too many of the people involved are very publicly known New Democrats and Moe Sihota has made it clear this is a riding the NDP would like to see recall in Oak Bay Gordon Head because they can win the by-election. The fact that Moe Sihota is wanting a recall here is going to make a lot of people on the right that signed the Anti-HST petition refuse to sign recall.
The campaign is not being run by someone from the riding and they do not have their office in the riding and many of the canvassers are not from the riding. This outside 'interference' is going to make some people refuse to sign the petition.
Meanwhile the MLA will be defending herself and has volunteers going door to door for her. She is working to galvanize people not to sign.
The campaign period is December 6th to February 4th. I am not sure who the brain trust that thought these dates made sense. The fact the campaign goes over the Christmas break means the 60 day campaign losses five days completely and effectively losses 16 days. Many people in Oak Bay Gordon Head with kids will be leaving town starting on December 17th and not have to return till January 2nd.
If we take the five lost days and say the other 11 are only half effective, this means the campaign basically losses 10 days of campaign time meaning there are only 50 effective campaign days.
With 50 days and a target of 15368 signatures, this means 308 signatures a day. Realistically the campaign needs to get at least 16,000, and ideally more like 18,000, to have any hope of reaching the target for enough signatures or 320 to 360 signatures a day.
The first 6000 signatures will be easy to get and should be in hand by the end of next week at the latest. The next 6000 will be hard to get and will require a lot of canvassing and really needs to in hand before January 1st. The last 6000 will be very hard to get, it will require serious door to door campaigning and a very hard sell for those that are reluctant to sign. I do not see how the numbers can be reached.
My guess is that the recall campaign will reach 12,000 or so signatures but not manage to come close to getting the signatures needed.
Oak Bay Gordon Head only managed to get 7266 signatures in the anti-HST petition which is significantly less than the vote for Ida Chong in 2009. It is also less than half of what is needed to for a recall. With 60 days and not 90 days and with a target that is much higher, there would have to be a a huge new groundswell against Ida Chong, but there is nothing to indicate this will happen.
The campaign does not focus on personal decisions or actions of Ida Chong but decisions of the whole government. Certainly Gordon Campbell or Colin Hansen could be said to have a personal responsibility for the HST but Ida Chong is in the same boat as all the government MLAs. There is no specific reason for anger towards her.
The recall campaigns were said to be there to push the government to change their position on the HST. The campaign has seen the resignation of Gordon Campbell and all the candidates promise for an earlier referendum or a free vote in the legislature. The argument for the recall campaign was to get the government to act, well they are acting, any non-partisan person will see the actions of government a reasonable response to the demands of the Anti-HST campaign. This means it is going to very hard to get most people to sign recall on the basis of the government is not listening
The campaign looks significantly partisan. Too many of the people involved are very publicly known New Democrats and Moe Sihota has made it clear this is a riding the NDP would like to see recall in Oak Bay Gordon Head because they can win the by-election. The fact that Moe Sihota is wanting a recall here is going to make a lot of people on the right that signed the Anti-HST petition refuse to sign recall.
The campaign is not being run by someone from the riding and they do not have their office in the riding and many of the canvassers are not from the riding. This outside 'interference' is going to make some people refuse to sign the petition.
Meanwhile the MLA will be defending herself and has volunteers going door to door for her. She is working to galvanize people not to sign.
The campaign period is December 6th to February 4th. I am not sure who the brain trust that thought these dates made sense. The fact the campaign goes over the Christmas break means the 60 day campaign losses five days completely and effectively losses 16 days. Many people in Oak Bay Gordon Head with kids will be leaving town starting on December 17th and not have to return till January 2nd.
If we take the five lost days and say the other 11 are only half effective, this means the campaign basically losses 10 days of campaign time meaning there are only 50 effective campaign days.
With 50 days and a target of 15368 signatures, this means 308 signatures a day. Realistically the campaign needs to get at least 16,000, and ideally more like 18,000, to have any hope of reaching the target for enough signatures or 320 to 360 signatures a day.
The first 6000 signatures will be easy to get and should be in hand by the end of next week at the latest. The next 6000 will be hard to get and will require a lot of canvassing and really needs to in hand before January 1st. The last 6000 will be very hard to get, it will require serious door to door campaigning and a very hard sell for those that are reluctant to sign. I do not see how the numbers can be reached.
My guess is that the recall campaign will reach 12,000 or so signatures but not manage to come close to getting the signatures needed.
Saturday, December 04, 2010
November Real Estate Stats
The Victoria Real Estate Board released their MLS stats for November a few days ago and I meant to comment on them for a few days, but other things intervened.
The stats for November do not show the market getting worse, but at the same there is little to show that it will be getting much better anytime soon. People spent a lot of time looking at the average sale price and it is close to the peak of $650,000 for single family houses, but little attention is being paid to the median value. The November value of $530,000 is close to 50% below the median in the first six months of the year. The gap of $120,000 between the median and the average means that the sales of houses at the top end of the market are skewing the market numbers.
What this says to me is that the pattern I have been observing of the lower end of the market is that prices are falling. Anecdotally, the prices in my neighbourhood are down to lower than the prices were at the start of 2007. The gap between the average and median can not remain so large over any length of time. Something on the order of 10% is a reasonable long term difference between the average price and the median price. The current median indicates that the average is likely $50,000 to $60,000 too high.
Meanwhile, other than a few months at the end of 2008 and start of 2009, the median value of condos has remained close to $300,000 for more than three years now. But even here there has been some fluctuation in the last few months to lower values.
When it comes to sales volume, November was not good but not abysmal. The fact that it was up from October is not the normal pattern, but sales were in single family homes month on month were up and were higher than in September or August. Sales numbers in the last few months would have indicated November could have been horrible.
Units on the market has been falling and could indicate that finally there will be an inventory stock that is below 3500 units in 2011, though unless the inventory falls below 3000 we are unlikely to see a rising market.
The stats for November do not show the market getting worse, but at the same there is little to show that it will be getting much better anytime soon. People spent a lot of time looking at the average sale price and it is close to the peak of $650,000 for single family houses, but little attention is being paid to the median value. The November value of $530,000 is close to 50% below the median in the first six months of the year. The gap of $120,000 between the median and the average means that the sales of houses at the top end of the market are skewing the market numbers.
What this says to me is that the pattern I have been observing of the lower end of the market is that prices are falling. Anecdotally, the prices in my neighbourhood are down to lower than the prices were at the start of 2007. The gap between the average and median can not remain so large over any length of time. Something on the order of 10% is a reasonable long term difference between the average price and the median price. The current median indicates that the average is likely $50,000 to $60,000 too high.
Meanwhile, other than a few months at the end of 2008 and start of 2009, the median value of condos has remained close to $300,000 for more than three years now. But even here there has been some fluctuation in the last few months to lower values.
When it comes to sales volume, November was not good but not abysmal. The fact that it was up from October is not the normal pattern, but sales were in single family homes month on month were up and were higher than in September or August. Sales numbers in the last few months would have indicated November could have been horrible.
Units on the market has been falling and could indicate that finally there will be an inventory stock that is below 3500 units in 2011, though unless the inventory falls below 3000 we are unlikely to see a rising market.
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