Metro Vancouver Transit Discussion II

[Tvisforme]

Originally Posted by gaviscon

Would a Hastings - Brentwood - Metrotown Skytrain make other cities feel jealous?

Arguably, the City and District of North Vancouver, plus West Van (although they'll never admit it).

[Migrant_Coconut]

Purple/Gold is the best option; let's have at least one major "ring road" SkyTrain that doesn't have to go downtown.

[Sheba]

I stumbled across this tonight

• Video Link

[Vantage]

Originally Posted by mcj

I was jealous watching the REM open, but the Finch LRT makes me glad we dodged the Surrey LRT bullet. ~50 mins to travel ~10km, no thank you, most of our buses do better than that.

I can *run* 10k faster than that. I am definitely glad we have so far avoided building any crappy LRTs here in BC.

[madog222]

I’ll wait to see how much our BRT lines end up costing for final judgment, but yes, slower than the 99 B-line (even after post-opening optimizations) after 3.7 billion spent is embarrassing.

[RedArbutus]

They've said they hope to make it faster over time, finding efficiencies and optimizing traffic signals, but honestly the response has been really milquetoast and I don't think there will be much budging from that 55-ish minute time. Maybe 45-50 minutes?

Unless they can get full traffic signal priority along the entire route, then maybe it will have a chance.

[SFUVancouver]

The underwhelming rollout of Toronto's Finch West LRT (it's slower and comes less frequently than the bus it replaces) further underscores how much of a bullet Metro Vancouver dodged with the Canada Line, Evergreen Line, and the Surrey Langley extension. There was vigorous debate over the years that some form of these lines should have been LRT. Evergreen was even initially green-lit to be LRT, before the Province stepped up with additional funding.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Signal priority means very little: the opening target time is apparently 46 minutes end-to-end, or 13km/h average.

Most RapidBuses manage 20km/h+. Finch West with signal priority will be fighting to keep up with a RapidBus without it. And the RapidBus doesn't cost billions.

Glad we avoided that turd sandwich here.

[scryer]

Originally Posted by mcj

I was jealous watching the REM open, but the Finch LRT makes me glad we dodged the Surrey LRT bullet. ~50 mins to travel ~10km, no thank you, most of our buses do better than that.

The REM opening was proof to me, yet again, that automated metro should be the standard for all major cities that want to take metro transit seriously in this day and age.

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

The underwhelming rollout of Toronto's Finch West LRT (it's slower than the bus it replaces) further underscores how much of a bullet Metro Vancouver dodged with the Canada Line, Evergreen Line, and the Surrey Langley extension. There was vigorous debate over the years that some form of these lines should have been LRT. Evergreen was even initially green-lit to be LRT, before the Province stepped up with additional funding.

I have been saying this over-and-over again on these forums that at-grade LRT is a very, very niche transit solution. And I think that a lot of people are brainwashed into thinking at-grade LRT is a rapid transit system when in fact it is a capacity transit system. And not always a great one at that.

In my opinion, at-grade LRT is best at addressing capacity, comfort, and bus shortages.

Ironically, one of the most successful models is the TTC streetcar network since it doesn't pretend to be anything other than a streetcar. And a big reason is that buses on the same TTC streetcar routes will still run as fast as a TTC LRT vehicle with all of that traffic downtown; it's just that Streetcars are able to carry a lot more people at once.

[MIPS]

I wonder what TransLink has planned to celebrate the SkyTrain turning 40 on Thursday.

[gaviscon]

We gotta do something about the 19 through Kingsway though. It crawls. Also, we need better bus connection between the Vancouver area of Kingsway, Middlegate, and upper New West imo

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by gaviscon

We gotta do something about the 19 through Kingsway though. It crawls. Also, we need better bus connection between the Vancouver area of Kingsway, Middlegate, and upper New West imo

Translink and CoV are improving that corridor.

https://vancouver.ca/streets-transportation/kingsway-main-street-transit-improvements.aspx

[mcj]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Translink and CoV are improving that corridor.

https://vancouver.ca/streets-transportation/kingsway-main-street-transit-improvements.aspx

The Burrard Penninsula Area Transit Plan also had the 19 being overlaid with 19x, an express service overlay, however it doesn't extend to Middlegate/Uptown New West. Although there is also a 123x express bus that would go through Uptown New West, as well as a new route along 10th Ave.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by gaviscon

Also, we need better bus connection between the Vancouver area of Kingsway, Middlegate, and upper New West imo

Scroll through what's proposed in the Burrard Peninsula Area Transport Plan.

[logan5]

Skytrain extension into East Van is needed far more than North Van, but that is not on Translinks radar at this point.

[mcj]

Originally Posted by logan5

Skytrain extension into East Van is needed far more than North Van, but that is not on Translinks radar at this point.

2 out of 3 of existing Skytrain lines run all the way across East Van (with two stations under construction technically in East Van with the Broadway extension). There's a better way to frame this statement.

[SFUVancouver]

Goodness, what a mess at the TTC board meeting today dealing with the fallout of the slow Line 6 Finch West LRT.

The original contract for Lines 5 and 6 included round trip travel times that were later found to not be possible. Moreover, the "transit signal priority" measures that are already in effect (and not having much of an effect) never contemplated priority for transit over left turning vehicles. That's "aggressive" transit signal priority and it was never contemplated at all.

Even though the City through the TTC is free to increase travel speed and revise transit signal prioritization, if these changes result in any modification to the P3 operator's contract, the changes must be made together with Metrolinx and the P3 operator.

[nname]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Signal priority means very little: the opening target time is apparently 46 minutes end-to-end, or 13km/h average.

Most RapidBuses manage 20km/h+. Finch West with signal priority will be fighting to keep up with a RapidBus without it. And the RapidBus doesn't cost billions.

Glad we avoided that turd sandwich here.

A big issue is that their LRT was meant to replace local bus service in that corridor. So it is in fact a "local" service rather than express transit. So they pretty much spent billions to put bus on rail, and essentially have the same effect in term of speed as recent TransLink's project to slightly reduce stops at local routes to speed up bus service. The LRT train does provide higher capacity though, at a cost of less frequent service...

At least for our RapidBus, or any of our rapid transit line here, they are still maintaining a separate tier of local service that serve all stops.

[officedweller]

Oakridge station will close early for a month over the holidays. Here's why
https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/local...ation-close-early-holidays-2025-11606269

[MIPS]

Ahem.