To the editor:
Re: “Transit planners are on the wrong track,” Oct. 1.
Every summer, fulfilling my on-site duties as an organizer for Anime Evolution requires me to commute to UBC from Surrey several times in a weekend. Thousands of participants, many wearing cosplay outfits, join me each time on crowded 99 B-Line buses. The stuffy, long ride for many of our attendees has given us challenges in accommodating our event’s growth. It’s hard to reach out to South-of-Fraser fans who are more than 90 minutes away by transit.
Anime Evolution is one of numerous annual conventions, conferences and other events held at UBC that could seriously benefit from an underground extension of SkyTrain on Broadway — which is about far more than giving cosplayers a break a few times a year, and far more than about just UBC.
Anti-SkyTrain critics like Malcolm Johnston don’t understand that rapid transit isn’t just about investing in moving people: it’s about the economic and productivity potential that we couldn’t achieve on the Broadway corridor with on-street light rail.
In elections, campaigns need to be worded so that the average voter can understand, so it’s easy to think that the assumptions behind the campaign are too simple to be trustworthy. However, numerous studies — including TransLink’s UBC Rapid Transit Study — have repeated the positive business case of a Broadway subway and its superiority over light rail alternatives for years.
Over 15 SkyTrain-type rapid transit lines exist around the world, among hundreds of driver-less rail systems — all of which exist because we pioneered the technology with our Expo Line. Today, the largest network of SkyTrain lines is in fact in Guangzhou, China — where 100 kms of linear motor railway complement conventional subway lines. Guangzhou’s newest SkyTrain-type line, opened last December, is now carrying more than 700,000 riders daily.
These systems have done marvelously in shaping the cities they service — which can also certainly be said about SkyTrain and Vancouver. It became evident that we’ve made great choices in planning transit when the Canada Line surpassed high ridership projections. SkyTrain allowed Vancouver to outperform virtually every other North American city in attracting rapid transit ridership and making positive change.
I find it hard to think of a reason why we shouldn’t extend such an effective system that’s popular around the world to the areas that desperately need something like it.
Daryl Dela Cruz,
Surrey
