Editor:
Re: SFU gondola plan is risky, won't ease transit issues, NOW Letters, February 23
Preferred title: “Facts lost in gondola debate.”
Thank you for your kind words in regards to the SFU gondola issue! It seems some facts are being lost in the debate and sometimes, assumptions run wild about what should be a straightforward plan.
Firstly, Mr. Wilson assumes door-to-door trip times may not be improved, stating concern for the northwest and northeast. Those coming from the northwest wouldn’t use the gondola, they would continue to use the 95 and 144. For the northeast riders (which includes myself), the 143 runs every 10 minutes from Burquitlam in the peak, which averages out to about a 5 minute wait, and a 10 minute bus ride to the lower loop and 12 for the upper. Getting to Production Way-University takes 5 minutes and the gondola comes every 30 seconds and has a 7 minute trip time. This is 15 minutes versus 12.5, and you would need 150 people in line in front of you (more than a full articulated bus) for the times to equalize.
Regarding door-to-door times specifically, this is circumstantial. Most of SFU’s major lectures are held in the Academic Quadrangle, equidistant from both the upper and lower bus loops.
However, when I have classes in the AQ, I generally use the lower loop as it’s an extra two minutes to the upper loop with no change in distance – instead of walking east from the lower bus loop, I would walk west from the upper.
Mr. Wilson is wrong again by stating it’s an uphill walk from the gondola’s terminus to the “centre of campus”. In fact, this would be a flat walk, and possibly even slightly downhill. The gondola’s terminus is on the east side (near many venues and buildings, not “remote”) and only about 10 meters lower than SFU’s ultimate height, and the campus slopes downhill as you head west. Classes in West Mall Centre, which are generally tutorials or small lectures, aren’t nearly as big as those seen in the AQ, so although some travel time may be added, it’s a trade-off we’re willing to admit.
Remember, this is door-to-door travel time, and in the week of February 10-16, we had 5 days of snow-related campus closures and transit disruptions, in which case any door was better than none at all.
In the case of the gondola, SFU would still have both the 95 and the 144, which both depart the gondola’s terminus station and can shuttle those, including those with disabilities or have trouble walking, down to the lower bus loop.
The neighbourhoods at the foot of Burnaby Mountain would have a service change, yes. What that will look like is not up to SFU, nor the Build the SFU Gondola group. It’s up to TransLink’s route planning department, in which case public feedback would, following tradition, be welcomed. However, the purpose of transit to and from SFU is not to create artificial ridership in the communities along the short 145 and 143 routes, who would not have 95% of their ridership had Burnaby Mountain not been on the route. SFU students drive the ridership, and although we must provide service to those along the route, the goal of an SFU-based project should be to serve SFU and UniverCity, not others who have happened to have won the lottery of being along the route.
The wind comment is very much out of left field. The gondola could operate in extremely high winds, and is in fact the same gondola technology used in the Peak to Peak gondola in Whistler (that has now been upgraded to the 4,000 passenger per hour capacity that the SFU gondola would be built to).
Whistler has notoriously worse conditions than Burnaby Mountain, and if Mr. Wilson would like more information, I suggest he reads the 2011 and 2018 case studies that both discuss wind and its mitigations. Speaking of the problems of global warming, did you know that the gondola would be fully electric, versus the current diesel buses?
We never said gondolas are a foolproof system. Look at the SkyTrain, for example: it has an on-time performance of more than 95%, yet still has delays from time to time. I assume, as logic would readily back up, that an evacuation plan for any students stuck on the gondola would be built in time for its opening day, and also like the SkyTrain, it would have a bus bridge as backup. In the case of intense snow and winds above 70 km/h, it’s hard to find any transit system that would be able to keep chugging along.
The agreement between YVR’s airport authority and TransLink was because the project was intended to go between Richmond and Vancouver, but the airport wanted a spur line, so it threw in funding via user fees. Similarly, SFU has (as heard on CBC radio this morning) publicly said they would be willing to donate financially to the gondola project to ease the financial burden.
However, seeing as Mr. Wilson is a Port Moody resident, and I live in neighbouring Coquitlam, let me ask this: Do we have to pay a $5 add-on fee for the Evergreen Line which, like the gondola, would be a TransLink funded project with help from federal and provincial partners, and fully integrated into their fare structure? The $5 airport fee, secondly, is for single use trips and does NOT apply to compass cards with previously stored value. Even if such a fee was implemented, SFU students and faculty would never have to pay it for that reason.
The former mayor of Burnaby is the reason why the gondola was never built in the first place. He voted against the gondola’s inclusion in the 10 Year Vision stating there was “no economic case” for it, even though it has a positive business case and Mr. Corrigan readily voted for the Surrey LRT, a project with eight times the cost and a negative business case. He also has a strong record of voting against many of the regional transit projects where Burnaby did not directly benefit, including the Evergreen Line.
I strongly encourage the gondola’s doubters to read the 2018 and 2011 feasibility studies, which are on TransLink’s website and freely available to the public. This would greatly reduce the amount of false facts and wrong assumptions flying around.
Colin Fowler, Coquitlam
