Author: oi kiu suki tam

 

 

Proposed SkyTrain Extension Routes to UBC Under Four Scenarios

 

Emily Leung (# 46389152)

Kaz Shigeta (#12142155)

Suki Tam (#53591153)

Fiona Tse (#47086153)

 

University of British Columbia

GEOB 270

Sally Hermansen

 

Abstract

The existing transit network in the Metro Vancouver area is reaching its capacity to operate on current road infrastructure networks. With the Broadway corridor leading East towards the UBC Vancouver campus becoming increasingly congested, a new rail system is in need of development. This project aims to identify the feasibility to extend an express railway system to the UBC Vancouver campus. The report considers four scenarios to determine the potential route of the railway system across the Metro Vancouver area. The potential routing is based on the proximity to four separate factors or infrastructure types: schools (Grades 8-12), libraries and community centres, commercial districts, and population density.

The report considers 4 separate factors to determine the potential lines running across the Metro Vancouver area.

Description of Project, Study Area, and Data

The population of Metro Vancouver is steadily rising and the transportation infrastructures cannot meet the current and the future transit demands. Adding more buses routes or bus trips is not feasible and sustainable because this would increase the burden on vehicle traffic. In order to mitigate the traffic congestion and provide a more convenient transit system for public use, we are going to propose an express rail line connecting the city of Vancouver to the University of British Columbia.

We are focusing on the Metro Vancouver due to the densely populated with a rapid urban development that the transit system is exceeding the capacity. In our project analysis, we considered four different scenarios and proposed a feasible rail route for each scenario. The four scenarios are the community centres and libraries, population density, commercial land use, and the schools areas. We choose the community centres and the libraries because these two are the main facilities that the citizens will usually go to and we find that there are not adequate transits to access these facilities. Besides, we evaluate the population density in Vancouver in order to propose a route along the least population areas in Vancouver which can alleviate the influences on the society and provide them an accessible transportation option. Also, the commercial land use is chosen due to the considerations of employments and working places in Vancouver. And we also consider the schools areas aims at assessing the rail route that are more convenient for the Grade 8-12 students to go to school.  We think that the SkyTrains should close by different facilities that all the travellers can easy to access the facilities and infrastructures in Vancouver.  After comparing each scenario with a proposed route, we will predict the most feasible and convenient rail route along Vancouver to the University of British Columbia.

Data is retrieved from the University of Toronto CHASS, City of Vancouver Open Data Catalogue, Data BC, and UBC abacus website.

Methodology of Analysis

To begin with our project, we collected shapefile data from the City of Vancouver Open Data Catalogue, UBC abacus website, and Data BC. Census tabular data were gathered from the University of Toronto CHASS site. We organized all the data into the same projection format, which is NAD 1983 UTM Zone 10, to ensure scale accuracy. Different datasets were clipped to the Vancouvermask layer to narrow down the total study area. The factors we used for the multi-criteria analysis to determine site suitability for SkyTrain extension were population density, commercial land use, schools, community centers and libraries. The starting points for our proposed route were existing SkyTrain stations while the end point was the new UBC bus loop. To gain a better understanding of the existing SkyTrain stations availability, we merged the clipped SkyTrain and Canada Line stations layers. The merged layer was used in all four scenarios to evaluate the need for SkyTrain services in different locations.

 Schools Scenario

We first selected by attribute schools of grade 8-12 from the Vancouver school layer. The rationale behind this selection was that we believed students in these grade levels are more likely to plan for university and visit UBC. A new layer was created from the selection. We aimed to propose a SkyTrain route that was within a 5-minute walking distance from the selected schools. Since the average walking speed is 5.0 kilometres per hour, we buffered all the selected schools with a radius of 400m. Then we devised a proposed route that could connect most schools in our study area by editing a new line feature. A 400m buffer was created around the proposed route to indicate areas within a 5 minute walking distance from any future stations located along the route. Overlapping of the buffers means that students can walk from SkyTrain to their schools in 10 minutes and vice versa.

 Community centers and libraries Scenario

Similar procedures were applied in the Community centers and libraries scenario. We first buffered each facility with a 400m radius and we discovered that these facilities scattered throughout Vancouver. Therefore, instead of having a 5-minute walk radius, we created an 800m (10 minutes walk) buffer around each SkyTrain Station and along the proposed route in order to cover more facilities.

 Commercial Land Use Scenario

After clipping the land use date to extract the land use for Vancouver, we changed the Symbology of the Vancouver land use layer to assign a color to each ‘Category’ value (i.e. land use) to better understand the landscape. Since commercial land use is the focus in this scenario, we selected by attribute all the commercial land and created a new commercial land use layer from the selection. This layer was given a bright red color, while the general Vancouver land use layer was made 50% transparent in order to make the former stood out. As shown in the map, West to East Broadway was the most commercialized region where SkyTrain service was lacking. Hence, we created a new line feature that ran along Broadway, from Commercial-Broadway Station to the new UBC bus loop. A 5-minute walk (400m) buffer was created around the route to estimate the areas that are made more convenient due to the extension of SkyTrain.

 Population Density Scenario

The tabular census date we downloaded contains information on the total population in private household by Canadian citizens and non-citizens of both sexes.

The Vancouver census tract (CT) layer was extracted from the CT boundaries for Census Metropolitan areas in Canada data file through selecting the attribute “CMANAME” = “Vancouver”. A new layer was created from this selection. After that, we clipped this layer to the Vancouvermask layer to get data solely for the City of Vancouver. Next, we joined the tabular census information data to the Vancouver CT spatial layers to visualise the population density of Vancouver. COL0 in the excel table are the unique identifier for the CTs that match to the CTUID in the map files. Hence, we joined the two files using CTUID as the primary key. Then we performed quantitative data classification using natural breaks. Suppressed values (population=0) are excluded as they represent no data. The population density layer represented in a graduated color scale.

Similarly, a new line feature, the proposed route, was drawn and a 5-minute walk (400m) buffer was created around the route.

 Discussion and Results

Schools Scenario

We agreed upon this scenario as we thought that students from Grades 8 to 12 would have a large interest in checking out UBC for their post secondary studies. In the City of Vancouver, there are a total of 16 high schools. For both the high schools and the SkyTrain route layers, we applied a 5 minute walking distance buffer which is 400m. The rationale behind this decision is that the average walking distance is 5.0km per hour. So where the edges of the proposed SkyTrain route buffer and the high school buffers meet indicates a 10 minute walk to the SkyTrain and vice versa. Once the buffers were applied to both the high schools and the proposed SkyTrain route, we found that 12 out of the 16 high schools were within the 10 minute walking distance to the SkyTrain while the remaining 4 were not, but 1 out of the remaining 4 is within the 5 minute walking distance from a SkyTrain station (that is not part of our proposed route).

The proposed route we put forward aims at servicing as many high schools with a direct access route to UBC as possible. We suggest that the route begin at Joyce-Collingwood station as most of the high schools in Vancouver were to the West and North West of it which is 12 out of the 16.

 Community centers and libraries Scenario

We combined community centers and libraries in one scenario as we thought that many of them are close to each other. Also, we believed people who go to one of these facilities may be interested in going to the other. Therefore, it would be beneficial to take into account both facilities in this scenario to cater to most people’s needs. In the City of Vancouver, there is a total of 24 community centers and 22 libraries. 10-walk buffers and 5-minutes buffer were applied to the SkyTrain Station layer, and the community centers and libraries layer respectively. Where the two buffers touch means it is within 15-minute walking distance. We selected by location to find out the facilities that intersect with the existing SkyTrain stations buffer layer. The result shows that 13 community centers are 9 libraries are already within the 15-minute walking distance from existing SkyTrain stations.

The proposed route we put forward aims at including as many less accessible facilities as possible. We suggested the route to start from 29 Avenue Stations since the facilities southwest to it were not in close proximity to any SkyTrain stations (i.e. farther than 1200m away from stations). Another area where transportation services may be lacking is West Vancouver. A route we drew passed through these two areas. It was then buffered with 800m distance. By performing the select by locations command again, we found that 7 libraries as well as 7 community centers will be made more accessible to SkyTrain.

 Population Density Scenario

We agreed upon this scenario within the city of Vancouver as we assumed that the areas with high population density already have a convenient transit system and infrastructures around those areas. However, the areas with lower population density may have less access to the transit system and might have to transfer. Thus, we aimed to propose a route that can balance the transit demands between the densely populated areas and less populated areas.

According to the population density map, the south and west side of the City of Vancouver has the highest population density while the map is clearly showing that there is a SkyTrain transit system along from Waterfront SkyTrain Station to the Marine Drive Station within the City of Vancouver. In other words, the south west areas have an accessible transit system than the north side of the City of Vancouver where the areas are shown yellow in color on the map. 5-minutes walk buffer were applied to the SkyTrain Station layer. As the UBC campus is our rail route destination, we suggest the rail route will start straightly from the Commercial Broadway SkyTrain Station through Broadway City Hall SkyTrain Station to the UBC campus. In addition, few SkyTrain stations can be added along this route in order to provide a more convenient and accessible transit system for the people who live in Kitsilano areas and the northwest side of the City of Vancouver.

This can encourage the citizens make good use of the public transportation to alleviate the traffic problem in City of Vancouver and mitigate the overcapacity problem for the route 99-Commercial. Although more assessments and consultations are needed to evaluate the social, economic and environmental impacts on the community. If the route is building on less population density areas, the consequences of the new SkyTrain route is the least.

 Commercial Land Use Scenario

With an abundance in commercial land use areas throughout the Metro Vancouver region, we decided to propose a dedicated train route that is optimized for access to these areas. There are three prominent corridors of commercial areas which lack access to a SkyTrain station – Kingsway, Main Street, and Broadway. With the UBC campus being the established destination for the proposed route, we decided to route the railway system along the Broadway corridor. By routing the train along the Broadway corridor, large number of commercial zones including Commercial, Main, and Granville can be reached within 10 minutes on foot.

The proposed route will start at the Commercial-Broadway SkyTrain station, connecting to the Expo and Millennium Lines, then continue on to Cambie, where it will connect with the Canada Line, leading to increased mobility through the Metro Vancouver area. The route also aims to alleviate the high levels of congestion the Broadway corridor faces, due to the abundance of commercial buildings. By taking the riders underground along Broadway, less busses will be needed on the narrow surface road, making way for private vehicles. This process of traffic de-congestion will drastically improve commute times on the surface.

 Error and Uncertainty

While conducting our research and analysis for the different scenarios of the proposed SkyTrain routes, we encountered some errors and uncertainties that somewhat hinders the effectiveness of the maps made. One of the uncertainties is that we ran into is that we were unable to download the 2016 population data from the 2016 census. This is because that particular data set is slated to be released on May, 2017. As such, we are using the population from the 2011 census which is not an accurate representation of the current population of Vancouver due to the fact that population has the potential to change drastically in the span of five years. Another uncertainty in relation with population is the fact that we do not know what the population will be like in the future. There is a chance that the population density near our proposed SkyTrain route for the low population density areas will increase dramatically and that the SkyTrain may not be able to handle the sudden influx of passengers as it was created for a low density population in mind.

Another uncertainty and error that we came across is when we were downloading the data for the proposed high school SkyTrain route. Originally we wanted to get data on the schools that had Grades 10 to 12 because we believe that these are the grades that would most likely be thinking about their post secondary education and visit UBC. This is due to the fact that for high schools in the lower mainland have two different programs: the Intermediate Program and the Graduation Program. The Intermediate Program is for Grades 8 and 9 which gets them situated in high school and prepares them for the higher grades. On the other hand the Graduation Program is for Grades 10 to 12 and gets them ready for high school graduation and for post secondary education. It is because of the Graduation Program that we believe that students in Grades 10 to 12 will be more likely to visit UBC after school to possibly “check out their future”. However the only data that we came across is was from Grades 8 to 12 and not from Grades 10 to 12. We could not find a way to separate the data that we needed so we had to use data that did not fully suit our needs. As such there may be discrepancies in the amount of students from Grades 10 to 12 that would take the proposed SkyTrain route as there will be some Grade 8s and 9s mixed in.

The final limitation that we encountered is that due to UBC changing bus loops, the final proposed terminus station location of all our SkyTrain scenarios may not be accurate as the data we downloaded for the transportation lines only included the old location for the bus loop. As such we had to manually draw in the location of the new bus loop which would also act as our terminus station for all our proposed scenarios. By manually drawing in the terminus station and the new bus loop the UBC terminus stations as seen on the maps may not be in the accurate location.

Further Research/recommendations

This project made it possible to visualize potential routing of a new railway system to UBC campus, following different infrastructures/factors. While the proposed routes identify an approximation of the train lines, there is potential for further research on this topic.

Additional to the routes, proposed stations could be added to the proposed lines. By conducting further geospatial analysis along the proposed routes, the locations of the stations can be determined based on potential ridership numbers as well as spatial feasibility on the surface. Such analysis will add more weight to the proposed lines, as it will test their realistic feasibility.

A cultural impact assessment of the tunnel boring and station construction process could be conducted. While a large portion of the proposed lines are under urban areas deemed as public space, land closer to UBC consists of First Nations Territories. By assessing the traditional uses for those lands, better potential routes can be identified to circumnavigate culturally sensitive areas.

A spatial cost analysis could be conducted to determine if portions of the rail line could be raised above the surface level as opposed to being underground. The building costs could potentially be lowered if less tunnel boring was necessary for the rail routes.

Bibliography

Canadian Census Analyser. (2017). 2011NHS Canadian Citizens. Retrieved from  http://datacentre.chass.uToronto.ca/census/

City of Vancouver. (2017). Open Data Catalogue. City Streets data package. Retrieved from http://data.vancouver.ca/datacatalogue/cityStreets.htm

City of Vancouver. (2017). Vancouver Land Use. University of British Columbia, Geography. UBC G:Drive Database. Retrieved from G:\courses\data\vancouverlanduse

City of Vancouver.  (2017). Schools. University of British Columbia, Geography.UBC G:Drive Database. Retrieved from G:\courses\data\school

City of Vancouver. (2017). Library. University of British Columbia, Geography. UBC G:Drive Database. Retrieved from G:\courses\data\library

City of Vancouver. (2017). Community Centres. University of British Columbia, Geography. UBC G:Drive Database. Retrieved from G:\courses\data\communitycentres

City of Vancouver. (2017). Public Transit 2010. University of British Columbia, Geography. UBC G:Drive Database. Retrieved from G:\courses\data\publictransit

Appendix

 

Individual submission on experience with final project

1. Summarize the project:  your team’s project proposal and goal?

The existing transit network in the Metro Vancouver area is reaching its capacity to operate on current road infrastructure networks. With the Broadway corridor leading East towards the UBC Vancouver campus becoming increasingly congested, a new rail system is in need of development. This project aims to identify the feasibility to extend an express railway system to the UBC Vancouver campus. The report considers four scenarios to determine the potential route of the railway system across the Metro Vancouver area. The potential routing is based on the proximity to four separate factors or infrastructure types: schools (Grades 8-12), libraries and community centres, commercial districts, and population density. The report considers 4 separate factors to determine the potential lines running across the Metro Vancouver area. After all, we found that some errors and uncertainties that somewhat inhindered our map creations. However, we made some suggestions to address those issues. Overall, we wanted to visualize the potential routing of a new railway system to UBC campus.

2. Project Management

First of all, our members are not from the same lab group, hence it is a bit difficult to hold a meeting to discuss about the project at the same time. And as we were all in the hard time of the semester, distribution of work was very important to complete the final project. At the very beginning, we brainstormed what topics we wanted to investigate and came up with five interesting topics around the Metro Vancouver. Then we voted for the topics by considering the most feasible project. And I suggested different scenarios for our project and started retrieve data from different sources. After creating all the maps, each member responsible for our own parts in written report. We created a group chat on Facebook which we can help each other to solve the problems when we were writing our written project. And I am always willing to help the members who were in a very busy time for the assignments, mid-terms as to minimize their work burdens.

3. What are some interesting things you learned as a result of the process? 

The most interesting and challenging things of the project is to decide what to do and design a project without full set of instructions like the lab instructions. This course is my first time to use GIS analysis to do different geographical assessment. I think this is a very useful technique due to we need environmental assessment for every construction projects for balancing the social, economic, and environmental aspects. Teamwork is always the hardest part in doing a project because we need to collaborate and gather different opinions about the data. For example, different data files will have different visual impressions or even affect the data discussions. In acquiring the census data for the population density map, we found that we downloaded some unnecessary data which affected the outcomes. There were few failures in doing the project, but we all tackle the difficulties together.

As a natural resource planner, I propose the Ski Hill project in Garibaldi at Squamish. The project is a year-round destination mountain resort which is going to construct a ski resort, ski accommodation, and the commercial developments in Garibaldi at Squamish. The project estimates will provide more than 900 constructions job opportunities and 2500 other jobs during the 20 years operation. In this proposed project, I am going to examine the feasibility of building a ski resort in Garibaldi at Squamish and its potential effects on old growth forest, ungulate habitat, red-listed ecosystems and aquatic ecosystem, plus evaluate the project should it be allowed to continue.

Before parsing data, I first collect and download two data layers from DataBC including ungulate winter range and old growth management areas. Other data layers including project boundary, terrestrial ecosystem mapping, digital elevation model, parks and protected areas boundary, 20 m contours, roads and rivers are all acquired from G:Drive. Then, I import all vector and raster datasets into my geodatabase and clip the vector and raster layers to the project boundary. To know the areas that below 555m, I reclassify the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) based on 555m elevation and calculate the area of the DEM that are below 555m as the percentage of the total project area, the percentage of old growth forest in the project area and the percentage of the project area has Mule Deer and Mountain Goat winter habitat. In order to know what red-listed ecosystems are located within and the project boundary and its total area, I use the Terrestrial Ecosystem Mapping (TEM) layer and filter the 6 required red-listed animals by building queries in the attribute table respectively.

To create the variable width of protected area around the stream, I use the buffer tool to buffer distance of 50m for the streams that are above 555m and buffer distance of 100m for the streams below 555m. And the resulting buffer is the area of sensitive fish habitat within the project area. Then, I clip the buffer to the project area to find out the area of proposed project will fall within fish bearing streams, or within fish habitat riparian areas around streams. Lastly, I use overlay analysis command union to union the area of old growth forest, fish habitat riparian management zones, ungulate habitat areas, and red-listed species. And use the dissolve command to find out the total protected area.

The results are as follows:

• Proposed project area has 6.78% old growth forest
• Proposed project area has 7.9% Mule Deer and Mountain Goat winter habitat
• There are red-listed ecosystems located within the project boundary including Falsebox, Salal, Cladina, Kinnikinnick, Flat Moss, and Cat’s-tail Moss
• All the red-listed species represent 24.8% of the total area
• 0% of the proposed project area will fall within fish bearing streams
• 7% of the proposed project area falls in the sum of the protected areas

Among all the environmental considerations, the fish habitat riparian areas and the red-listed (endangered) species are the two greatest concerns to the project development. In contrast, the construction of ski resort has relatively low impacts on old growth forest and ungulate winter habitat. In order to minimize the construction impacts on aquatic ecosystems and wildlife ecosystems, I would suggest the developers (Northland Properties and Aquilini investment Group of Vancouver) not to operate constructions on these two area zones directly and they may separate the zones as the wildlife parks and riparian zone which can be one of the attraction spots to attract people to come the ski resort.

Comprehensive environmental impact assessment should be conducted at the same time with ski resort construction, even the project has been approved. This is because the rapid climate change can have negative impact the proposed ski resort project area in Garibaldi at Squamish. The environmental, social and economic in Garibaldi at Squamish should not be neglected in order to achieve sustainability.

Personally I do not think the project should be allowed to continue. The ski resort is offering one more entertainment facilities for the Canadians and the travellers which may good for the economy. However, the 20-years long construction must increase burden on the environments and the First Nations communities who live in the areas. The ecosystems will be affected including the wildlife and aquatic species. Constructing a ski resort is hurting their shelters. If they are not able to adapt to t he changing environment, they will die-off and will affect the ecosystem trophic webs. And yes, this decision is differ from my memo that i wrote above.

Housing affordability is measured in comparison to household incomes. According to United Nations, “If there is a single indicator that conveys the greatest amount of information on the overall performance of housing markets, it is the house price-to-income ratio.” In other words, the price-to-ratio is used to measure the middle-income housing affordability in housing markets. Using Housing cost markets instead of the neighborhoods due to it represents the selection of housing that is locally available to households. Housing affordability is a better indicator as it is an essential consideration for the people in the city “to seek a better opportunities and to companies evaluating economic factors in making facility location decisions.” (13^th  Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey 2017) The maps reveal the housing affordability in London and Metro Vancouver that London is more affordable than the Metro Vancouver.

The Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey uses the price-to-income ratio to determine the multiple median. The multiple median measures the middle-income housing affordability while the price-to-income ratio is based upon the United Nations schemes. However, the affordability categories are not trustworthy. It is because different data classification can show us different visual impressions on the map. It depends on what rating categories we use and what data classification break we use. If we use the housing costs instead of the housing affordability, the result will be totally different.

In my opinion, housing affordability is not a good indicator to rank the ‘livability’ of a city. Although housing is our basis needs for living and accommodation, if the citizens cannot afford this basic human needs, more and more conflicts will result due to the rising housing price. The ‘livability’ of a city should not be ranked only base on the housing costs or affordability, there are many different perspectives or indicators to consider such as the infrastructures and facilities like transit system, recreational parks, hospitals; government policies, tax policies, safety, environments, etc. Housing costs or affordability should not be the only indicator to represent the ‘livability’ of a city.

If I am a journalist, I would choose the method of standard deviation classification for my audience. It is because the standard deviation classification provides a more accurate average deviation of each class from the mean housing cost. In other words, this classification can provide audience a clearer details of housing cost distribution in different price level. Also, it is a good way to explore and show my audience the disparity between the high and low dwelling cost. The standard deviation classification highlighted the housing issues in Metro Vancouver and raised the awareness of my audience to urge government deal with the housing problem in Metro Vancouver.

However, if I am a real estate agent, I would choose the equal interval classification because in fact the housing cost near UBC area is relatively high due to the location close to UBC campus. It is better to use equal interval that viewing the price range evenly in the Metro Vancouver that this classification provides a more general detail of housing cost of the Metro Vancouver. As a result, the dwelling cost in UBC would not have a big difference and less deviance compared to other areas in Vancouver. Thus, using equal interval for presenting the housing cost near UBC is more attractive and easier to make the deal with the prospective home buyers.

There are ethical implications for y choice of classification method due to the data is from 2011 but now is 2017. Indeed, I should not use this data for presentation. It is because the data is not updated. There can be big changes in housing cost due to rapidly changing market needs for the housing, fluctuation economy, unstable exchange rate and else. The increasing populations of immigration have also greatly busted the housing markets in Metro Vancouver that more and more incomers would like to purchase the house for investment. These have greatly raised the housing prices in Vancouver which make the locals more difficult to afford the expensive housing costs. Thus, the 2011 data are not suitable for examining the housing costs in 2017.

There are some Healthcare and educational facilities within the City of Vancouver danger zone:

• Anthony of Padua
• Ecole Rose Des Vents
• False Creek Elementary
• Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design (ECIAD)
• Henry Hudson Elementary

I use the selection by location tool to select education and healthcare layers from Vancouver danger and intercept these two layers with the Vancouver_danger layer. Then, export them into new layers. And open the attribute table of the new layer to find out the name of the healthcare and educational facilities within the City of Vancouver danger zone.

There are some potential risks to the new site for St. Paul’s Hospital. Under geological and climate change weather events that have transpired recently globally, the new hospital site is in the danger zones in the city of Vancouver and proximity to the coast that are more at risk from a rising sea level, flooding and a storm which can surge driving coastal waters inland.