As the new light-rail lines that run from downtown to the airport in Seattle and Vancouver mark their one-year anniversaries this summer, the differences between the two are as striking as the similarities.
Both were built after years of public wrangling, cost staggering amounts of money, and had to grapple with challenging construction. But one has four times as many riders as the other.
Both are seen as triumphs for rapid transit. But for one city, the new line is just a first step in a journey to creating a modern-day rapid-transit system. For the other, it’s an addition that pulls the whole system together.
As a result, both the Canada Line in Vancouver and the Central Link in Seattle are case studies, examined intently by planners, transit experts and regular citizens anxious about the future of urban life.
Cities from Shanghai to Paris are scrambling to create rapid-transit networks or expand what they have, as the health of metropolitan economies becomes dependent on efficient ways to move large numbers of people around. Even Los Angeles, long viewed as the city of freeways, now has 130 kilometres of rail lines and ambitious plans to build much more.
So as the sister cities on the West Coast celebrate the first birthday of their shiny new lines, it is also a celebration of a year-long experiment, revealing exactly what has worked, and where they missed the mark. For many transportation experts, Vancouver has emerged the winner.
“Both lines are really important. Both are part of what are going to be incredibly successful systems. But Vancouver is out in front,” says Jarrett Walker, an Australia-based international consultant in public-transit network design.
“It’s because their system is driverless. The reason I talk about Vancouver all over the world is that it’s a system you turn on in the morning and it can go all day without costing any more.”
A Canada Line rapid transit train crosses over the Fraser River from Vancouver to Richmond, B.C., as Grouse Mountain is seen in the distance on Sunday August 16, 2009.— The Canadian Press
| Issue | Vancouver | Seattle |
| Community Support | Taxpayers never got to vote on the line, though they pay for it through fares and property taxes. Instead, council representatives from 22 municipalities had to approve it, with the provincial government pushing to have it completed for the 2010 Olympics. It took three contentious votes before it was passed in 2003. | Voters in three counties agreed to pay new fees and taxes in order to support a rail line in 1996. But it took another decade for Sound Transit, the regional authority, to get the line started, partly because construction costs soared far past the original amount taxpayers had approved. That sparked arguments among public officials on whether and how to scale the line back. |
| Business Support | Construction of the Canada Line set off major protests from businesses in the Cambie Village section of the line, after it was announced that a cut-and-cover construction method would be used instead of boring a tunnel. The province eventually created a $2-million fund available to help the Cambie business association. But 38 businesses out of 275 shut down or left Cambie. Susan Heyes sued for losses to her business during the two years of construction and won $600,000 in B.C. Supreme Court last year, but that decision is being appealed. The Cambie Village Business Association has started a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the others. | Sound Transit created a $50-million pool to help businesses affected by the construction. Business owners who could prove they made less money during the five years of construction could get grants from a $15-million fund, and another $26-million was available for loans to promote economic development. As a result, 80 per cent of the businesses that existed before the line's construction were still there five years later. |
