Broadway subway will provide major benefit for city residents

Re: Mega projects not the transit answer, Letters, Dec 23

Malcolm Johnston’s conjecture that the Broadway subway is a developer-driven project does not hold water. Even without future development, the Broadway-UBC corridor already has the highest population, employment density and office/retail/institutional floor area in the Lower Mainland outside of downtown.

Johnston’s misleading ridership numbers obscure the published TransLink estimate of 320,000 passengers a day within 10 years, at par or better than the ridership on four of 10 London Underground lines. It will outperform Seattle’s light rail by 400 per cent. This one line will also move three-quarters of the ridership of the entire Bay Area Rapid Transit system.

Johnston appears not to understand the network effect, the importance of transit frequency on influencing route geometry, or the differences between regional and local transit demand management.

He describes the cost with overheated words like “cannibalize,” overlooking the already committed majority senior government funding. Its one-time capital cost will amount to only 2.2 per cent of Metro Vancouver’s annual economic output. With 65 years of debt-free, profitable service during its 100-year life span, the subway is destined to be a vital investment in our future.

Regarding his concern about “postponing other (transit) projects” — that has already occurred when senior governments sacrificed a decent regional public transit future in favour of the almighty car.

The Broadway subway is long overdue.

M. Alexander Botta, Vancouver