Opinion: A $10 billion regional rail system to revolutionize Metro Vancouver transit

Example of regional rail: S-Bahn in Cologne, Germany. (Markus Mainka/Shutterstock)

Written for Daily Hive Urbanized by Lee Haber, who is an urban and transportation planner and the Director of Strategy and Partnerships at Mountain Valley Express, a non-profit organization whose mission is to bring world-class regional rail to the South Coast of British Columbia.

If you live in Metro Vancouver, you know that our region is making progress when it comes to expanding transit and enabling sustainable modes of transportation.

Less than 40 years ago, the region didn’t have any rail rapid transit. Now it has an almost 80 km network that will soon grow with the additions of SkyTrain’s Broadway extension on the Millennium Line and the Surrey-Langley extension on the Expo Line.

However, there is a long way to go.

TransLink has stated that it wants to see parity between sustainable modes and driving by 2050. The ratio is currently over 3-to-1 in favour of driving. Between driving and transit, it is 5-to-1.

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SkyTrain is far from enough

The reason for this is simple: transit times for most trips are simply not competitive with driving.

Below is a chart comparing travel times between various regional centres (green cells represent faster travel times using transit, and red cells represent faster travel times by driving).

Existing travel times between various regional centres (green cells represent faster travel times using transit, and red cells represent faster travel times by driving). Click on the image for a larger version. (Lee Haber/Submitted)

As you can see there are a few trips where transit is faster than driving. But for the most part, it is a sea of red.

If you look closely, this diagram tells us something else: that rapid transit alone isn’t enough to achieve parity. Look at any of the trips from downtown Vancouver to destinations on the Millennium Line (Brentwood, Lougheed, Port Moody, and Coquitlam). They are all red. That’s because a transfer is required at Commercial-Broadway Station.

Although SkyTrain competes well for trips that run directly on its path through urban areas, it starts to fall behind when a trip requires a transfer or when it runs parallel to a freeway.

We need a regional rail revolution

If we want transit to achieve parity with driving, regional rail is the missing piece. Virtually every large city in the world where more people use transit than drive has a regional rail system.

What do I mean by regional rail? A regional rail system is designed to connect an entire region using faster trains (typically over 100 km/hr) and with stations spaced further apart (typically over three km between stations). In contrast, rail rapid transit systems, such as SkyTrain, meant to connect major local hubs are typically limited to a top speed of 80 km/hr and have stations every kilometre or so.

But regional rail is often confused with commuter rail.

The key distinction is that regional rail service runs all day in both directions whereas commuter rail systems, such as the West Coast Express, only have trains enter in the morning and leave during the evening.

Regional rail systems are therefore a much more reliable form of transit, serve a far greater variety of trips, and typically move much larger volumes of passengers.

brightline orlando international airport station mco

Inside the Orlando International Airport (MCO) station for Brightline. (Brightline)

New trains for the GO Train system in Southern Ontario. (Metrolinx)

With trains that can travel at speeds up to 160 km/hr (far faster than even freeway speeds), regional rail trips can be far shorter than even the least congested drive. It also means that if a transit trip requires a transfer between rapid transit and regional rail, it is still usually faster than driving.

The diagram below shows a similar comparison of trip times between different regional centres — this time after comprehensive investments in regional rail and rapid transit have been made. The difference is almost night and day, with a majority of transit travel times now competitive, if not superior, to driving.

metro vancouver travel times regional rail

Faster travel times with regional rail between various regional centres (green cells represent faster travel times using transit, and red cells represent faster travel times by driving). Click on the image for a larger version. (Lee Haber/Submitted)

However, there is no free lunch here. Building this network will cost billions of dollars. We estimate that regional rail alone will cost around $10 billion.

But this is a necessary investment if we want to reach our economic and environmental goals.

The benefits of regional rail extend far beyond making regional attractions or neighbouring municipalities conveniently accessible. It’s about tying our region together with sustainable transportation and allowing all its residents access to its full range of opportunities.

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