Why we are testing this?
This project’s purpose was to test Translink’s proposed rapid transit line that would connect the University of British Columbia (UBC) to the existing rapid transit system, the Skytrain. This would allow for the more a faster, more efficient form of transportation of students to UBC. The current public consultation that is taking place right now by Translink takes into account a study area that spans from West 4th Avenue up to 16th Avenue and encompasses Main Street, Broadway, Commercial, and VCC-Clark Skytrain Stations as potential link points to UBC. The public consultation has addressed multiple forms of transit across the city including express buses, light rail, rapid rail transit as well as a combination of these. The Translink consultation plan also accounts for how these transportation forms will cross the city as well as what existing Skytrain Stations these will connect to. This project will not address any other form of transportation other than rapid rail transit, or in other words, an extension of the Skytrain system. This project will also disregard VCC-Clark Skytrain station due to the proximity of this station to Broadway Skytrain station. The proximity would likely have a result to similar to the Broadway Skytrain station result. Instead Nanaimo Station was taken into account due to its latitudinal centrality in Vancouver and its more easterly location within the city helping to provide added accessibility by Vancouver’s east side residents. This project’s objective it to compare Translink’s proposed route down the Broadway corridor to other possible routes based upon shortest distances and the most cost effective distances. The proposed Broadway route follows the existing 99 B-Line bus route along Broadway. Adding a Skytrain to this path would effectively reduce traffic and buses along Broadway but this route seemingly would only be useful to students. It would provide added accessibility and speed up and down Broadway, which may increase use of the commercial area along Broadway but the issue arises of a line that seemingly devoted to a student population. If a new Skytrain line is going to be added to Vancouver, it needs to serve more than just a student population going to and from UBC. Starting at Broadway, already one of the busiest Skytrain stations in Vancouver also adds a further busyness to an already high traffic area. This project looks at alternative routes across the city that has the potential to serve a wider population than just students using Broadway station as a start point as well as other stations as start points in an effort to increase the use of other stations as well as create different, potentially better routes across the city than what following Broadway provides. The 800-meter buffer is also an arbitrary buffer but is based upon the City of Vancouver Land Use and Development Policies and Guidelines. The guidelines state that sites selected for family housing should fall within 800 meters of a community center, among other services, and within 400 meters of a public transit stop. These guidelines were taken for this project as a way to see if school aged children could effectively utilize the proposed rapid transit lines in an effort to better serve all age groups in the city and not just the university student populations as well as provide reasonable walking distances for all ages from rapid transit to assets within the community.
There were many limitations of this project due mainly to time constraints and increased complexity. One limitation was our choice of land values on the land use layer, which is what gave the total cost of each route. These choices of land values are based on a pre-existing lab based in the lower mainland, which gave a framework for what the values of different land should be. These land values are arbitrary. Depending on individual priorities, these values could change easily, which could change the total cost of each route drastically. These values are also unit-less, giving no real world cost and this is due to the lack of knowledge on the cost of developing different types of land in dollars. The unit-less values are simply in place to compare different routes, not to give an actual cost of each route in dollars. There was also the choice not to include road systems on the cost map. Although this may have forced the routes to follow existing road networks rather than be slightly removed from the road networks, it would not have given an accurate comparative between routes. This project could also have taken into account population concentration in certain areas which would have helped show whether a Skytrain line would actually be accessible to areas of greater population. The data was also a limitation. The data on community centers is not accurate considering the new community center on the south east side of false creek is not included. The inclusion of this community center into the data could change the number of community center buffers that interact with certain lines that have been proposed. Land use data is also not the most current data. The zoning or designation of certain areas that the multiple lines run through may have changed since the data has been put out. This could change the overall costs on each line or even change the entire route completely.
