Missed opportunity
January 25, 2010
Back in 2005, “City Comforts” guy David Sucher recommended this for Whistler:
Those of you who know the winter resort of Whistler, BC can well understand that one of the questions about its ability to host the 2001 Winter Olympics has been access. The twisty, narrow, poorly-marked highway of last year is now much improved by widening/straightening. But, it seems to me that with an existing rail line from Vancouver BC to-and-through Whistler, Canadian transport officials should consider (at least as a forward-looking experiment with national implications) the Dual-Mode Vehicle.
Too late now, of course, but never too late for the future. (Video here.)
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3 Comments
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The issue with these types vehicles is that heavy rail operates on that line and current Canadian safety rules prevent light rail vehicles, as that bus/rail vehicle essential is, from operating on the same line. The Ottawa O-Train has a special certificate from Transport Canada to operate, but it needs to be time separated.
Certainly the investment might not have been worth it for the Olympics per se. As Corey Burger suggests technical issues with heavy/light rail etc etc (though of course the time issues with an event so unique as the Olympics could have been adjusted.)
But a national demonstration project with a dual-mode system could have been extremely useful.
In a metropolitan area a dual-mode system would multiply the utility of a fixed rail line by providing the means to serve a vastly larger catchment area and serving that area seamlessly without mode-change. A dual-mode bus can serve fairly far-reaching lower intensity buses and then transfer them seamlessly to denser areas.
What people hate is TRANSFERS and the dual-mode penetrates areas which could not ever feasibly serve a fixed rail line.
In my own neighborhood (Seattle) the fixed rail line will be 10-12 blocks to a transit station. Of course there is a bus a block from my house and I could readily get there — but the reality is that I won’t likely ever do a transfer — especially when I have to only go to the CBD in a shorter trip. You may say I should, but I won’t except under duress.
Friction creates transfers. Make them easy via dual-mode with no transfers and you’ll ride more transit.
That’s my theory, anyway.
Oops. I mis-spoke.
Of course I should have written that “What people hate is TRANSFERS. Fixed rail lines can never feasibly serve many lower-density areas, even in a city. But dual-mode vehicles penetrate lower-density areas by road and then can shift grade-separated lines for higher capacity and higher density.”