Metro Vancouver Transit Discussion

[usog]

Anyone know anything about the stoppage at surrey central today? They had the gates down when I got there at 11AM this morning and apparently it continued through the afternoon.

[Waders]

Originally Posted by usog

Anyone know anything about the stoppage at surrey central today? They had the gates down when I got there at 11AM this morning and apparently it continued through the afternoon.

Problem train.
I am wondering whether the train is the old MKI or the new MKII. A few new MKII cars had some door problem.

SURREY (NEWS1130) - TransLink says full service has been restored end-to-end on the SkyTrain Expo Line. There was no service to King George and Surrey Central stations for over 4 hours because of a problem with a train near the end of the Surrey section.

TransLink says the bus bridge will stay in place for a bit longer from Gateway to Surrey Central and King George

Source: http://www.news1130.com/news/local/article/59429--update-skytrain-running-at-full-service-in-surrey

[Smooth]

From the CKNW website...

Translink names shortlist for Smart Card system
VANCOUVER/CKNW(AM980)
Marcella Bernardo
5/28/2010

Three companies have been shortlisted to run a new $170 million Smart Card and Faregate System for Metro Vancouver's transit services.

Translink's Ken Hardie says they were whittled down from a list of 10. The people who responded are some of the biggest names in Smart Cards in the world --the Octopus Card in Hong Kong's system, the Oyster Card in London Transit and a company that produced some pretty big systems for Australia, Belgium, England and Dubai are all in the final running."

Hardie says the winning bid should be selected by the end of this year and the new system should be installed by early 2013.

http://www.cknw.com/Channels/Reg/NewsLocal/Story.aspx?ID=1235023

[usog]

http://buzzer.translink.ca/index.php/201...ee-to-the-apta-rail-conference-june-6-9/

Anyone going to this? The tours look interesting.

[Alex Mackinnon]

Looks pretty shiny. I'm definitely going to go to at least some of the events. Woot for free student entry. I need to see if I can pick up a job somewhere.

[GeeCee]

Hmm.. thinking about it. As a student, of course.

[Zassk]

I don't know if the following presentation was posted here before, or not. I found it while doing a google search on SkyTrain ridership.

http://www.cebc.org/library/libraryfiles/cebcTransLink2010.ppt

Some things that were news to me in the presentation:

- Front Street parkade is due for "phase 1 demolition" in 2010
- Front Street 4-laning and a new overpass for local access to follow
- ramps from Front Street to Patullo Bridge are also indicated

[officedweller]

I thought the demolition would have been part of the parkade must be the eastern end - to assist with the riverfront park development - but the slide shows pretty much the whole thing highlighted in yellow.

[CLC]

Originally Posted by satishreddy

Does anyone have a link to these transit ridership statistics? How about station boardings for the Canada line?

Hardie's number quoted in the following article may be of interest to you.

http://www.richmond-news.com/story.html?id=3082101

The YVR line carries an average of 9,300 passengers per day, Hardie said. That's about 10 per cent of the total daily number of 94,000. By contrast, about 15 per cent of riders use the Richmond segment (Bridgeport to Brighouse).

While it is possible to dedicate some of the YVR trains to the Richmond segment to ease congestion, Hardie said that's not the preferred option.

"We want to maintain 50-50 service between YVR and Brighouse," he said.

[deasine]

That's quite interesting. Amazing how the YVR branch and the Richmond branch are comparable in terms of number of passengers.

[mr.x]

Great article..."It's a $2 billion system. It's brand new, and at times it's actually uncomfortable to use."


Quite well said. I think over the next few years, the issue on the Canada Line's service capacity will increasingly become front and centre of the region's transit discussions. I absolutely agree that Translink is locked in with its concession agreement, expansion or even simply adding more trains to increase frequency is difficult and expensive for Translink...whereas with the BCRTC operated SkyTrain they would simply punch some keys in a keyboard and more trains would come flying out of the OMC to service the increased demand.

Really, with current demand warrants all 20 trains to be in service. Not just the current 16 during the peak and mid-day. I do think that current capacity issues wouldn't exist had they gone with a side seating arrangement accompanied with tons of bars for standees to hold onto.

This is why I very much dislike this P3/concession agreement for the Canada Line.

And is it just me or has ProTrans become lax with the cleaning of the stations and trains? The smell of urine in the trains seems to be happening far more frequently, and there's also quite a bit of garbage in the trains whereas garbage almost never existed even a few months ago before the Olympics.

I'm not surprised that the airport section sees that much ridership.



P.S. I am not Gary Cross. :p

[Waders]

Originally Posted by usog

Anyone know anything about the stoppage at surrey central today? They had the gates down when I got there at 11AM this morning and apparently it continued through the afternoon.

The stoppage was caused by a Skytrain derailment, the 1st such incident in system's 25 year history.
It took 2 days for the true cause to get public. Was Translink trying to hide the incident?
Also the MKI train involved is only in service for 15 years, already time for replacement?

TransLink investigates SkyTrain derailment

METRO VANCOUVER -- TransLink is trying to figure out how one of its SkyTrains lost a piece of its brake on the Expo line tracks Wednesday, leading to the derailment of a second train and the closure of a section of track for five hours.

Doug Kelsey, president of B.C. Rapid Transit Co., said the second train was out of service and pulling into the turnaround section of track — at the end of the King George SkyTrain station — on Wednesday morning when it struck a brake caliper lodged in the track.

The collision forced one of the train's axles to jump out of the track and derail.

No one was aboard as the train was in the no-passenger zone, Kelsey said, so there was no risk to the public. The train had been travelling between four and eight kilometres an hour.

"This has never happened before, in 25 years," Kelsey said. "We're quite perplexed by it."

Meanwhile, the first train, which had continued on the route, was stopped at either the King George or Surrey Central Stations and placed in quarantine, Kelsey said, while the section of track between Gateway and King George stations was closed. A bus bridge was set up to ferry passengers to the Surrey Central and King George stations.

The tracks were reopened at 4:05 p.m. just before rush hour.

Kelsey noted the travelling public was never in jeopardy as SkyTrains have a multiple braking system — including an emergency stop mechanism — in each car. The brake caliper was one of the original pieces on the SkyTrain, which has been operating since 1995.

All the trains are expected every six weeks. The quarantined train was due for an inspection in two weeks' time, Kelsey said.

The whole fleet has since been inspected and Kelsey said as a precaution the checks will now take place every three weeks.

Kelsey acknowledged there's always the potential for a train to derail anywhere along the tracks, which could be "seriously problematic or nothing at all" as the guideway is fairly wide.

He noted transit officials are constantly monitoring the tracks for debris and there is also an intrusion system installed in the stations, which alerts officials to any objects, ranging from newspapers to tires, that might land on the tracks.

Officials weren't alerted to the brake caliper, he said, because the incident occurred in a no-passenger zone.

"This is a railway industry, you're dealing with trains," he said. "We always have to be watching out."

The train with the missing brake caliper will remain in quarantine until technical staff figure out what happened. "We won't be moving it until we determine what caused [the brake piece to fall off]," Kelsey said, but added: "The public is absolutely safe out there."

[email protected]
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Source: http://www.vancouversun.com/TransLink+investigates+SkyTrain+derailment/3084244/story.html

[cabotp]

Originally Posted by Waders

The stoppage was caused by a Skytrain derailment, the 1st such incident in system's 25 year history.
It took 2 days for the true cause to get public. Was Translink trying to hide the incident?
Also the MKI train involved is only in service for 15 years, already time for replacement?


Source: http://www.vancouversun.com/TransLink+investigates+SkyTrain+derailment/3084244/story.html

Oh fuck no. This is all someone like Zwei and his crack pot cronies need to hear. Next thing we know he'll be posting about how skytrain had a major derailment and caused untold misery. Now if we had one of his "ding ding" trains the driver would have seen the foreign object and stopped the train.


So the train derailed because of a foreign object that should not have been on the tracks. I wonder if it would be worth it to setup the detection system to detect objects on the entire track and not just the stations. I realize it would cost a bit to implement. But it something they could slowly work on.

Either someone or someones fucked up on one of the last inspections. Brake Callipers don't just suddenly fall off.

[jsbertram]

SkyTrain is wonderfully well-maintained when compared to other systems I've used.

In London, the Central Line was out of action for several months when a 1/2 ton electric motor fell from a train car and last 3 cars of the train were derailed inside the tunnel. Fortunately nobody died, but dozens were injured. It was discovered that a mounting bolt had failed, causing the motor to fall off and land on the track.

It was also discovered during the investigation that the PPP operator knew of this problem for over a year because other motors had gotten out of alignment while their bolts were failing, and the bolts on another motor had failed, but because the car was in storage overnight it was discovered hanging in place by its electrical connections during the morning inspection that is done before putting any train in service.

The accident happened while the PPP contractor operating the Central Line was still figuring out what the fix was to keep the motors from falling off, and how to do the fix during the routine maintenance cycle because they didn't want to take trains out of service just to fix the 'motor problem'.

The entire line was completely shut down for 3 months while every car was retrofitted with better motor mounts, and the line didn't get back to full operations with all trains running for 5 months.



In New York in the 90s, it wasn't a surprise to have something on a train break when getting it ready to start service and there wasn't a spare train available to fill in. The 8:07 you were expecting to get you to work on time simply never showed up, so the next train was extra-packed-full (if you could get on). Sometimes a train wouldn't be able to get to top speed because 1/3 or 1/2 of the electric motors weren't working. There were still enough motors working to 'pass inspection' before starting service. It seemed every week I would notice that distinctive burning oily electric ozone-y smokey smell that you knew meant a train was going Out Of Service.

[SFUVancouver]

2009 Translink ridership data is now online


Total Passenger Trips: 186,876,096
Bus: 129,656,262
SeaBus: 3,041,688 (first time over 3m)
SkyTrain Expo and Millennium Lines: 44,242,642
SkyTrain Canada Line: 7,575,262 (service began in mid-august)
SkyTrain Total: 51,817,904
WestCoast Express: 2,360,243

Total System Boardings: 313,289,616
Bus: 220,430,509
SeaBus: 5,777,870
SkyTrain Expo and Millennium Lines: 73,067,373
SkyTrain Canada Line: 11,391,371 (service began in mid-august)
SkyTrain total: 84,458,744 (we should easily surpass 100m in 2010)
WestCoast Express: 2,622,492

http://www.metrovancouver.org/about/publications/Publications/KeyFacts-TransitRidership.pdf

[Zassk]

This was mentioned briefly earlier in the thread, but it was actually in the print newspaper today (front page):

Canada Line at capacity?
Hardie: 'We're not maxed'

By Nelson Bennett, Richmond News May 28, 2010

When the Canada Line was being built, TransLink and its partners were hoping to see rider numbers hit 100,000 per day by 2013.

It's already nearly there. And that's a problem, says Gary Cross.

The Richmond resident said the Richmond segment of the line is already running at capacity at peak times, while trains to Vancouver International Airport (YVR) are nearly empty.

"It's a $2 billion system. It's brand new, and at times it's actually uncomfortable to use. My wife takes the train to work every morning. She rarely, if ever, gets a seat," Cross said.

"There's no doubt that the trains coming out of Richmond are very busy," says TransLink spokesman Ken Hardie. "It happens on the Expo and Millennium lines as well."

The city centre area plan calls for the densification of the city core -- something that is largely based on the Canada Line. But Cross fears the system is already at capacity and could therefore limit future growth.

The system was built by SNC-Lavalin as a P3 (public-private partnership) and is operated by ProTrans under a 30-year concession agreement with TransLink and YVR.

YVR's share of the $2 billion rapid transit system was $300 million, so it is one of the partners in the agreement.

Cross said the agreement is rigid in prescribing the level of service that can be offered. He fears TransLink is locked into an agreement that does not allow for expansion.

"You can't add more people in the current system," he says.

Hardie said that's not the case: "We're not maxed out."

The Canada Line is currently running about 94,000 passengers per day -- just 6,000 riders shy of the 2013 target.

"The fact is, there's a great deal of expansion room left," said Mayor Malcolm Brodie. "I'm told, on good authority, that they were running as many as 250,000 people a day during the Olympics."

There are 20 trains in the entire system, each with two cars. Typically, though, only 16 trains are running, with eight serving YVR and eight going to Richmond.

The YVR line carries an average of 9,300 passengers per day, Hardie said. That's about 10 per cent of the total daily number of 94,000. By contrast, about 15 per cent of riders use the Richmond segment (Bridgeport to Brighouse).

While it is possible to dedicate some of the YVR trains to the Richmond segment to ease congestion, Hardie said that's not the preferred option.

"We want to maintain 50-50 service between YVR and Brighouse," he said.

The system's capacity can also be expanded by adding more trains and running them more frequently.

Whether TransLink can afford to do that is another question.

It's not the physical ability of the system to expand that worries Cross -- it's the concession agreement, which he does not believe allows for that to happen.

"There's no room to make the system work better at peak times under the concession agreement," he said.

He said he doubts city officials realize how rigid the agreement is and how bad a deal it is for the city.

"It's like a bad joke on the city," he said.

The congestion problem is at its worst between Brighouse and Bridgeport stations.

Since the number of cars leaving Richmond double when they hit Bridgeport station (where trains from Richmond and YVR converge), Hardie said it is possible to ease congestion along the Richmond segment at peak times by redirecting buses. Buses that now let transit riders off at Brighouse could be redirected to Bridgeport.

Reworking the Canada Line system itself may not be financially feasible right now.

"Right now, the level of service on the Canada Line is basically shaped by what TransLink can afford," Hardie said.

http://www.richmond-news.com/story.html?id=3082101

[red-paladin]

Not to mention the stupid one track segment.

[paradigm4]

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

2009 Translink ridership data is now online


Total Passenger Trips: 186,876,096
Bus: 129,656,262
SeaBus: 3,041,688 (first time over 3m)
SkyTrain Expo and Millennium Lines: 44,242,642
SkyTrain Canada Line: 7,575,262 (service began in mid-august)
SkyTrain Total: 51,817,904
WestCoast Express: 2,360,243

Total System Boardings: 313,289,616
Bus: 220,430,509
SeaBus: 5,777,870
SkyTrain Expo and Millennium Lines: 73,067,373
SkyTrain Canada Line: 11,391,371 (service began in mid-august)
SkyTrain total: 84,458,744 (we should easily surpass 100m in 2010)
WestCoast Express: 2,622,492

http://www.metrovancouver.org/about/publications/Publications/KeyFacts-TransitRidership.pdf

I found these numbers quite surprising. After several years of outstanding growth for buses, the numbers have seemingly stalled just as expansion has been halted. SkyTrain increased consistently, without Canada Line numbers, which is good - SeaBus as well. But the WCE actually *declined* in ridership! I guess people just weren't willing to pay the premium price without guaranteed seats anymore? I could be reading these numbers wrong, but it seems to me like a simple case of build it and they will come.

[cabotp]

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

2009 Translink ridership data is now online


Total Passenger Trips: 186,876,096
Bus: 129,656,262
SeaBus: 3,041,688 (first time over 3m)
SkyTrain Expo and Millennium Lines: 44,242,642
SkyTrain Canada Line: 7,575,262 (service began in mid-august)
SkyTrain Total: 51,817,904
WestCoast Express: 2,360,243

Total System Boardings: 313,289,616
Bus: 220,430,509
SeaBus: 5,777,870
SkyTrain Expo and Millennium Lines: 73,067,373
SkyTrain Canada Line: 11,391,371 (service began in mid-august)
SkyTrain total: 84,458,744 (we should easily surpass 100m in 2010)
WestCoast Express: 2,622,492

http://www.metrovancouver.org/about/publications/Publications/KeyFacts-TransitRidership.pdf

I guess because they don't know when I board a bus or Skytrain due to not swipping in my monthly pass. That for people who bought a monthly pass they just assume each person would make a certain amount of trips per month with a certain number of boardings per trip.

[WBC]

Originally Posted by Zassk

This was mentioned briefly earlier in the thread, but it was actually in the print newspaper today (front page):



http://www.richmond-news.com/story.html?id=3082101

Yes, God forbid that trains get so "full" that some of the Vancouverites may even have to touch . Get a life people. Canada Line is not busy by any stretch of imagination.