I think that a couple of things can be true at the same time here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture
the WCE is pointless at this point basically. the costs vs how many it benefits is abysmal. it wouldnt exist post-pandemic if it wasnt a legacy from the 1990s when more people commuted downtown before other cities started to get bigger.
even just keeping it running today is getting harder to justify. and people want to add more to what is pretty much just a resort town?  |
I agree. But I think that there can be more to salvage from the system to benefit the future rather than nixing the system entirely because it's inconvenient
right now.
A good example of this,
and I hate to make the comparison because the conversation can go off the rails so to speak (pun intended), is Toronto's streetcar system. Even though I am comparing apples to oranges, the city decided to keep their 100+ year streetcar system and invested the time and money to give it proper purpose. I do think that the same
sentiment can be applied to the WCE. Asking what an ideal WCE system would look like, how to fund it, and what to do with it right now are all viable questions before giving it the axe.
The WCE needs a facelift and a vision badly. And this is something worth doing a case study over as much as I hate those.
Also, as a side note, the municipalities that have WCE stations need to ramp up their TOD (read: density) and I think that a lot are reluctant to do so because the WCE lacks a strategic vision.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut
It's the Intercity thread - some of us want to move the most people from City A to City B for the best use of resources, not just have a lot of trains.
I accept that waking up at the crack of dawn to get downtown in an hour is more convenient for you and 5,299 others. By the same token, you have to accept that 3,010 other passengers would rather take the R3 and SkyTrain any time of the day for not much more travel time (not counting the 26-29,000+ passengers already on the Evergreen Line)... and the latter combination is much easier to upgrade and operate. |
I do think that if the WCE were to be nixed that a good tradeoff would be to extend the Millennium line eastwards to POCO sooner rather than later. After all it is a consideration for part of the
regional transit vision going forward.
The only problem with prioritizing this extension would be slowly obsoleting the WCE for trains that run more frequently which I would say is already happening. With that said, if phasing out the WCE is a part of the regional plan then the region needs to plan for it. Or the region needs to plan for how WCE integrates into the system in the future.
And yes, I do think that the direct connection to Waterfront station is a very important part of making the WCE a desirable option.
Threaded Mode