Metro Vancouver Transit Discussion

[Express691]

Originally Posted by nname

Top 3 as of Dec 2016:

45km 354 Bridgeport Station/White Rock South
44km 701 Coquitlam Central Station/Mission City Station
44km 352 Bridgeport Station/Ocean Park

Also the 351 Bridgeport Stn/Crescent Beach at 47 kilometers.
410 22nd/Railway is at 31 kilometers (Its been generating discussion on CPTDB tryinget figure out how to shorten it.

[nname]

Originally Posted by Geof

My thinking (uninformed by any real data or research) is that if people feel that fares are fair, they won't worry so much about the amount. But if there are edge cases, like short trips across zone boundaries, they will go out of their way to pay less. (Maybe this sense of fairness explains bridge toll avoidance too.) That's why my hope is that a fair distance-based system would be the most invisible to travellers, for whom fares would then be like tap-and-go gas in the tank.

There is no method that is fair for all circumstances. The main problem for distance-based fare is that, a neighborhood route that loops around will always be more expensive than a direct route running in grid.

For instance, a low performing route can be "optimized" by adding some slight detours to serve new market and potential new ridership. But with distance-based, this will result in a fare increase for whoever who are already taking the route... pretty much killing the route off....

Now, this can be solved by using straight line distance instead of actual distance travelled, but then fare calculation with transfer would be much much more complicated... Remember Pythagorean distance and Cosine Law?

[Alpine]

Originally Posted by nname

Top 3 as of Dec 2016:

45km 504 Bridgeport Station/White Rock South
44km 701 Coquitlam Central Station/Mission City Station
44km 502 Bridgeport Station/Ocean Park

On the subject of the length of bus routes, I measured the length of some bus routes in Burnaby using the OpenStreetMap API (more specifically, plotting out the routes turn by turn on Graphhopper, exporting the gpx files, and then having uTrack analyze them):

134 EB (loops at Curtis/Sperling): 12.8 km
134 WB (no loop and doesn't serve Enterprise St. or Underhill Ave.): 10.3 km
136: 13.7 km
144 NB (no figure-8 loop at SFU): 18.3 km
144 SB (makes the figure-8 loop at SFU): 19.6 km

I mentioned cuts to the 134/136 a few pages ago. I wasn't expecting the routes to be so short. The fact that they're pretty short routes (unlike the 144, which is nearly 20 km) makes it even harder to justify increases in service.

I should do one of these for the 129 at some point.

[nname]

Originally Posted by Express691

Also the 351 Bridgeport Stn/Crescent Beach at 47 kilometers.
410 22nd/Railway is at 31 kilometers (Its been generating discussion on CPTDB tryinget figure out how to shorten it.

Accidentally missed the first line when I copy & paste

I measured 46km... but yeah, 351 is the longest

[cganuelas1995]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

The problem with distance-based fares is that it's very hard to predict what you'll pay.

You're joking, right? Even if it was as simple as $X.XX per stop/station and that fare was the same regardless of mode or day or time of day? If you make regular trips that you have done over and over, like going to work, it should be easier than breathing to predict. Just simple mental math.

[nname]

Originally Posted by cganuelas1995

You're joking, right? Even if it was as simple as $X.XX per stop/station and that fare was the same regardless of mode or day or time of day? If you make regular trips that you have done over and over, like going to work, it should be easier than breathing to predict. Just simple mental math.

It got to be more complicated than that.

Taking the 555 from Carvolth to 156th is 1 stop and 11km
Taking the 183 across David Ave is 1 stop and 95m

Same fare for both of them?

Another example, taking transit from Ocean Park to Bridgeport is 36 stops with 351 and 18 stops with 352. The service is designed for most people to take the more frequent and higher capacity 351, and leave the 352 to the people at Crescent Road who otherwise have no other choice. But why would anyone pay double to do that? People who relies on the 352 will just see full bus passing by one after another because everyone is trying to save money, and the frequent trunk route would just be running half empty...

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by cganuelas1995

You're joking, right? Even if it was as simple as $X.XX per stop/station and that fare was the same regardless of mode or day or time of day? If you make regular trips that you have done over and over, like going to work, it should be easier than breathing to predict. Just simple mental math.

If I'm a low-income individual and I'm taking a route I've never taken before, with $3.45 on my Compass Card, how can I be sure I'll have enough to make the trip, or to return? Where am I supposed to find out how many stops this route will take? Or how am I supposed to find out how many kilometres it goes for?

If you're making regular trips like to work, sure, it's not an issue. But for spur-of-the-moment trips, distance fares raise a lot of questions. I just want to eliminate as much uncertainty as possible.

I'm not even that against distance-based fares. I'm just discussing a big downside of theirs. I'm more open to a reforming of the zone system, though I'd have to see a detailed plan for that to say that with confidence.

[cganuelas1995]

Let's move the fare discussion over to a thread I made for this specific issue http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?p=7699107#post7699107. This thread is for general discussion, I believe.

[retro_orange]

Originally Posted by cganuelas1995

Let's move the fare discussion over to a thread I made for this specific issue http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?p=7699107#post7699107. This thread is for general discussion, I believe.

Agreed. Something that should be done more to reduce clutter in general threads.

[Alpine]

Originally Posted by cganuelas1995

Let's move the fare discussion over to a thread I made for this specific issue http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?p=7699107#post7699107. This thread is for general discussion, I believe.

Thanks for that. I felt sad that my musings on possible Burnaby bus route restructures and the length of various Bby routes were drowned out by fare system arguments, and didn't get much attention (no disrespect intended, Sheba, I'm quite grateful for the suggestions you gave me)

[retro_orange]

Originally Posted by Alpine

Thanks for that. I felt sad that my musings on possible Burnaby bus route restructures and the length of various Bby routes were drowned out by fare system arguments, and didn't get much attention (no disrespect intended, Sheba, I'm quite grateful for the suggestions you gave me)

I honestly missed it entirely because i couldn't be bothered reading the same arguments about fare structure.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by Alpine

Thanks for that. I felt sad that my musings on possible Burnaby bus route restructures and the length of various Bby routes were drowned out by fare system arguments, and didn't get much attention (no disrespect intended, Sheba, I'm quite grateful for the suggestions you gave me)

No worries - I missed it too because of all the fare structure debates.

[nname]

Originally Posted by Alpine

Thanks for that. I felt sad that my musings on possible Burnaby bus route restructures and the length of various Bby routes were drowned out by fare system arguments, and didn't get much attention (no disrespect intended, Sheba, I'm quite grateful for the suggestions you gave me)

My post about 2016 ridership got no response too (was waiting for some comment about the +21% gain on SkyTrain and -10% decline on SeaBus )

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by Alpine

On the subject of the length of bus routes, I measured the length of some bus routes in Burnaby using the OpenStreetMap API (more specifically, plotting out the routes turn by turn on Graphhopper, exporting the gpx files, and then having uTrack analyze them):

134 EB (loops at Curtis/Sperling): 12.8 km
134 WB (no loop and doesn't serve Enterprise St. or Underhill Ave.): 10.3 km
136: 13.7 km
144 NB (no figure-8 loop at SFU): 18.3 km
144 SB (makes the figure-8 loop at SFU): 19.6 km

I mentioned cuts to the 134/136 a few pages ago. I wasn't expecting the routes to be so short. The fact that they're pretty short routes (unlike the 144, which is nearly 20 km) makes it even harder to justify increases in service.

I should do one of these for the 129 at some point.

Am I low tech for only using google maps and photoshop?

I can waste stupid amounts of time on google maps. I found a topographical map that's pretty useful. It's saved me time plotting a route only to dump it because there's a massive hill (so there has to be a good reason to put a route there).

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by nname

My post about 2016 ridership got no response too (was waiting for some comment about the +21% gain on SkyTrain and -10% decline on SeaBus )

I'm guessing the Seabus drop is because zones are in effect there and not on buses. The only reason I can come up with for the rise on Skytrain is because riding it arouses people.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by Sheba

I'm guessing the Seabus drop is because zones are in effect there and not on buses. The only reason I can come up with for the rise on Skytrain is because riding it arouses people.

Well here we go again another snowfall another CoV/Translink fail. Busses getting stuck trying to get up Granville to Broadway with just a couple centimetres of snow. You think they would have learned they need to plow the road not just salt! And buy some goddamn snow tires Translink!

[cganuelas1995]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Well here we go again another snowfall another CoV/Translink fail. Busses getting stuck trying to get up Granville to Broadway with just a couple centimetres of snow. You think they would have learned they need to plow the road not just salt! And buy some goddamn snow tires Translink!

And the Canada Line is broken too. I have a very strong feeling that it will experience a nuclear detonation when a big earthquake hits.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by cganuelas1995

And the Canada Line is broken too. I have a very strong feeling that it will experience a nuclear detonation when a big earthquake hits.

I'm so glad Gregor is back from Mexico to supervise the city's efforts. Fail.

[cganuelas1995]

Originally Posted by whatnext

I'm so glad Gregor is back from Mexico to supervise the city's efforts. Fail.

Yeah when I saw facebook posts regarding more snow coming, I just thought "Oh this can't be good". Looked out my window this morning after seeing posts regarding it snowing again and I'm just like "FUCK".

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Well here we go again another snowfall another CoV/Translink fail. Busses getting stuck trying to get up Granville to Broadway with just a couple centimetres of snow. You think they would have learned they need to plow the road not just salt! And buy some goddamn snow tires Translink!

Well, this is Vancouver- I would think that they don't think we have enough snow on average to justify snow tires.