LRT - New Data

So finally I get to read more data about the LRT proposal and I am even more stunned than before at how this report was written.

1) They assume buses have a capacity of 65 people, not 75 to 100 that our buses actually do.   84 is a good average number to assume for the status quo.  They use this 65 person number and a 2 minute maximum headway to assume that the limit of buses is 2000 people per hour.   They then use this limit as the basis for showing how good the LRT option is.   The reality is that the current maximum capacity per hour is already over 3000.   Furthermore, if we look at all the buses that use Douglas for part of their route downtown, our maximum capacity is 6800.

This means there is a clear flaw through out the work which leads to major benefits being ascribed to the LRT over buses.

This comes volume 4 page 32.

2) They assume that staring now, the bus network out to the Westshore will not be able to increase ridership because it is already at capacity.  As I already pointed out, the system is not at capacity and can increase service to a lot more than now.   It would seem to be reasonable that buses should be able to continue on a long term standard growth rate.   The report specifically under estimates possible bus use increase

This comes from volume 4 page 27

3) The report assumes that business as usual involves a major capital project - building more lanes on the TCH just for buses.   If we factor that out, the actual capital costs of business as usual is $40,000,000 or so over 30 years.

Page 40 volume 4

4) The cost of interest during construction for the LRT is estimated to be $95,000,000, or more than twice the cost of business as usual if you take away the highway expansion.

Page 41 volume 4

5) The following bus routes are specifically named as to be replaced by the LRT (this is from the report directly, the report has the wrong names):

4 - UVic/Downtown
21 - Interurban/Downtown
22 - Vic General/Mayfair
31 - Glanford
30 - Carey
31 - James Bay
50 - Dockyard Westshore
51 - Dockyard UVic
61 - Sooke/Downtown
71 - Sidney/Downtown
72 - Swartz Bay/Downtown via Fifth
73 - Swartz Bay/Downtown via West Sidney
75 - Saanichton/Royal Oak/Downtown

Page 42 volume 4

6) The report claims that the LRT will return a value of $571,000,000 to vehicle drivers - that is more than a third of the assumed benefit of the LRT.   The report assumes that the LRT will reduce congestion enough to save people time worth that much time.   This assumptions falls apart because of the assumed level of transit capacity at the moment and the actual capacity at the moment.  It is also based on an immediate 30% increase in new transit users because of the LRT.   They used a very small sample and ignored ones in which transit use when down to get to the 30% number.

When we look at at the actual numbers of current users and the total number of people that would on transit and no longer in their car, the actual number of new transit users from the Westshore would be in the range of 200 to 800 people.   That reduces the demand on the TCH by 118 to 470 vehicles, or 1.3 to 5.2 cars per minute during rush hour.   This is not enough to make any serious impact on road congestion.  Given the reduction in lanes on Douglas, there will actually be an increase in congestion.

Page 57 volume 4

Enough for today on this thing.  They should not have released these reports because till now I could only assume of the issues, now I can be certain they do not understand or know the transit system they were looking at.