T2000BC: Transport 2021 Medium Range Transportation Plan

A Medium-Range Transportation Plan for Greater Vancouver

The following very condensed summary is composed of extracts from "A Medium-Range Transportation Plan for Greater Vancouver - Transport 2021 Report, October 1993". Transport 2021 was a joint project of the Greater Vancouver Regional District and the Province of British Columbia.

What does the medium range plan cover?

[The] Medium-range Transportation Plan springs from the TRANSPORT 2021 Long-range Transportation Plan ... [which] provided a vision of the transportation system ... in the year 2021, but did not describe a path to arrive at this vision.

Therefore, this medium-range plan addresses the question of what to do first. It looks forward to the period between now [1993] and 2006 ...

The plan finds that key decisions are needed soon in three areas:

• the interplay of growth management and transportation investment in the region
• the introduction of transportation demand management
• the supply of new and enhanced transportation facilities and services

Growth Management conclusions

• where governments make transport investments aimed at helping to shape land use, they should be aware that the strength of the shaping effect is not well understood
• despite this uncertainty, transport investments should be made within the medium-range horizon with the goal of shaping land use
• the land use shaping effects of transportation improvements mean that governments should give priority to those investments which improve the accessibility of the inner suburbs to and from each other, as opposed to making early improvements in accessibility for longer-distance commuting
• governments should not make transport investments ahead of municipal land use plans and other supporting initiatives, but should dovetail transport investment and land use plans
• governments should hold in reserve major capital investment decisions which require dovetailing with land use plans until it becomes clear that the appropriate land use policies are very likely to be put in place
• the mechanism of partnership agreements, identified in the GVRD Board resolution of July 30, 1993 offers an avenue for co-ordinating land use plans and transportation investments. This opportunity should be further explored and advanced

Transportation Demand Management conclusions

• a program of public education and incentive measures should precede the introduction of disincentives such as bridge tolls, gas taxes and parking management. Incentives introduced early should be:
  • promotion of telecommuting, van pooling, a computerised match-up program for car-poolers, and programs to support employers in reducing vehicle trips to their work sites
  • bus priorities on the street and high-occupancy vehicle privileges
  • measures to give workers with free/subsidised parking the opportunity of receiving this employment benefit in cash or as a transit pass; and moves towards "pay as you drive" vehicle insurance allowing those who drive less to realise savings in their premiums
• tolls and taxes, which are revenue-generating measures, should be clearly dedicated to transportation improvements to improve the acceptability of the measures to the public
• a sector-by-sector package approach, linking road, bridge, and transit improvements in a single sector will further assist public acceptance and behaviour change

Supply of capacity conclusions

• For transit capacity, the first step is to enhance the existing area-wide bus services to keep pace with population growth. Second, four corridors [Richmond-Vancouver, Broadway-Lougheed, Coquitlam-New Westminster, Coquitlam-Vancouver] warrant "SuperBus" treatment - meaning fast, frequent, comfortable, limited stop bus service (up to 5,000 passengers per hour), using bus priority measures and HOV lanes as available.
• On one of these corridors, Coquitlam-Vancouver, SuperBus could be (partially) replaced by a commuter rail service, if the detailed examination of commuter rail which is currently underway by the Province of B.C. demonstrates that this is the most cost-effective solution.
• By 2006, the three other transit corridors ... warrant further upgrading to an "Intermediate Capacity Transit System" or ICTS, which is a system with capacity of some 10,000 people per hour with regular peak and off-peak service over a separate right-of-way. ...

The first stage of high-occupancy (HOV) facilities would give HOVs priority treatment at each of seven major bridges. The second stage would see HOVs given superior service along entire corridors ...

Targets

Finally, the report proposes a set of numerical targets that permit the measurement of future success. Some key targets are: