Metro Vancouver Transit Discussion

[TransitJack]

Originally Posted by mrjauk

That prompts me to wonder if it would be possible in the future to run 24-hour Skytrain service. Maybe space them out 15 minutes or every half-hour between say 2:00 and 5:00 am. Has there ever been any mention of this?

Mostly maintenance of the track and all those related systems that allow for automatic train operation. It's pretty complex and a lot to maintain.

Besides the nightbus parallels all the lines and runs every 1/2 hour anyways. (I know, I know -- "it's not the same" )

[TransitJack]

Originally Posted by deasine

I have a few photos I'd like to share, which are photos of photos found in the SkyTrain OMC.

Great pics, thanks for posting.

I remember being a kid and seeing so many ppl crammed into the expo grounds, these pictures definitely show the crowds.

Weird to see the City Gate area as an office park/commercial mid-rise buildings in the Main St Stn rendering pic. I'm always surprised that other than City Gate, so little has sprung up around that station.

[cabotp]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

I have some land in Florida you might be interested in...

Hardy har har Sadly I'm already maxed out with my own property.

Anyhow I'm only interpreting what they meant by the 5 minute average. Officedweller might be onto something about how one station at a 30 min wait but with 5 stations at 0 wait time. That means the average with all 6 stations is 6 minutes. I realize it is a poor way of doing it but mathematically it is correct.

I must say though like I said before personally I hardly ever saw any line ups. I must of just hit things at the right time. There was one time where I saw a lineup to exit the station at Yaletown. This was on the first Saturday of the Olympics. I was heading home around 11pm. And I'm walking down the stairs and there was this lineup to exit the station that started from almost at the train level. I even went down one time hoping to find a lineup to get into to see how long it would take so I had an idea but I couldn't even find one .

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by CLC

Hardie has previously mentioned to reporters several times that ~15% of traffic from Richmond below Bridgeport.

It is my naive assumption that Translink uses station boarding count to define 'rider distribution'. I would imagine that most people do 'round-trip', say, if someone rides from Brighouse to Langara, he/she likely travels the opposite way to return home.

And in that scenario, I'm guessing that the first of your trips is used for the 23% Richmond statistic, and the second (return) trip is calculated in the 35% Cambie statistic.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by cabotp

Anyhow I'm only interpreting what they meant by the 5 minute average. Officedweller might be onto something about how one station at a 30 min wait but with 5 stations at 0 wait time. That means the average with all 6 stations is 6 minutes. I realize it is a poor way of doing it but mathematically it is correct.

I never stood in a serious lineup for the Canada Line during the Olympics, but I just had a problem with the spin they were putting on things. I go to Yaletown station now and the signs are still around, with Olympic logos that say things to the effect of "wait from here is 60/90/etc minutes". Sure, maybe across the entire service hours from 5am to 1am, at every station, the average wait was 5 mins. That's being disingenuous though. People here are complaining now that they are being passed up by trains at 100k/day volume, yet somehow we are to believe it handled 2x-3x the volume easily? That's my only point.

[DKaz]

Remember that during the Olympics, the Canada Line was busy for normal AM rush hour, busy from noon to midnight, and really really busy during the PM rush with combined commuter and Olympic crowds, whereas now it's just busy during AM and PM rush. the 200k-300k was spread out through the entire day while over half of today's 100k is concentrated into 6 hours.

[cc85]

UPass announcement coming soon.

[Zassk]

Originally Posted by cc85

UPass announcement coming soon.

Soon as in today?

[Gordon]

The U Pass announcement has been made. The program has been expanded to all publically funded postsecondary institutions in Metro Vancouver.

Will this make the 49 Metrotown Station/ UBC route even more crowded that it already is?

[Zassk]

I wonder what is the actual number of students affected by this announcement. When the U Pass originally came out for UBC and SFU (about 70 thousand students total?), there was a huge spike in transit usage the following year. This announcement covers a lot of smaller institutions who collectively may represent a greater number of students, and I wonder if there will be another spike next year as a result.

[cc85]

i can imagine there will be a significant rise in ridership in the south of the fraser region. A significant portion of students at Kwantlen's three campus drive to school.

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by Gordon

The U Pass announcement has been made. The program has been expanded to all publically funded postsecondary institutions in Metro Vancouver.

Will this make the 49 Metrotown Station/ UBC route even more crowded that it already is?

I was sorta expecting this when all the colleges were re-branded as universities - Emily Carr, Kwantlen, Capilano (off the top of my head)

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by DKaz

Remember that during the Olympics, the Canada Line was busy for normal AM rush hour, busy from noon to midnight, and really really busy during the PM rush with combined commuter and Olympic crowds, whereas now it's just busy during AM and PM rush. the 200k-300k was spread out through the entire day while over half of today's 100k is concentrated into 6 hours.

someone had the smart idea to borrow the unused lifeguard platforms and plunked them near & around the C-Line stations for crowd control overview platforms. I thought it was quite simple & effective to have someone with a tannoy directing traffic & also have a 'seagulls eye view' of the crowds.

I was at a condo party one night for the Yaletown fireworks, and it was a bit surreal to see everyone surge out of the park & bee-line straight to the yaletown station as soon as the show was over. I thought having the crowd control platforms was a simple way to get people organized for the next lineup they were heading into. It appeared to me that Davie @ Pacific was back to normal pedestrian traffic within half an hour or so.

[cabotp]

Originally Posted by Gordon

The U Pass announcement has been made. The program has been expanded to all publically funded postsecondary institutions in Metro Vancouver.

Will this make the 49 Metrotown Station/ UBC route even more crowded that it already is?

Well considering that Langara and UBC already are a part of the U-Pass program. I don't see why there would be an increase of students along that line. Unless of course someone living along there happens to be going to another school that is now part of the U-Pass program

Here is a link for the article

http://www.theprovince.com/news/makes+go...nsit+program+students/3132300/story.html

Students at all eligible institutions will have a chance to vote in referenda on whether to join the program.

The students of a school could vote to turn it down. Also a school may decide not to vote.

Either way if given the chance I'm voting yes at BCIT. I may only go to school 2 months of the year. But this would sure help me a lot.

[deasine]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

People here are complaining now that they are being passed up by trains at 100k/day volume, yet somehow we are to believe it handled 2x-3x the volume easily? That's my only point.

More importantly, why weren't there any news reports when people suffered passups using the old 98 B-Line. Unlike the Canada Line, trains don't come every three minutes. Buses supposedly come below ten minutes, but I've had countless incidents where the bus showed up 20 minutes later, and behind it, three other 98 B-Lines.

What should be reported is the 99 B-Line now.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by deasine

What should be reported is the 99 B-Line now.

I see the odd story on it... I think the problem with the Broadway debate is that everyone is already set in their ways. You can show all of the 99b line volume you want, some groups will still claim surface LRT is the answer, and others will claim "no rail of any kind on the west side".

[aberdeen5698]

This is a good thing, but where's the funding going to come from to supply service to all these new transit riders? TransLink was caught a bit off guard by popularity the UBC U-Pass program, and now it's in a budget crunch and scrambling to reallocate services without increasing service hours.

I think that getting students into the transit habit is an excellent idea, but if they end up being passed by because the buses are full it's not going to leave them with a very good attitude toward transit.

[CLC]

Originally Posted by Gordon

The U Pass announcement has been made. The program has been expanded to all publically funded postsecondary institutions in Metro Vancouver.

Will this make the 49 Metrotown Station/ UBC route even more crowded that it already is?

Ridership on 49 Metrotown Station/ UBC route has been rising crazily the past 9 months because Langara students had Upass last Fall coincidentally with opening of Canada Line. I notice the situation on 49 route is now stabilizing, Translink obviously received numerous complaints and adjusted the schedule with more short-trips.

[CLC]

Originally Posted by deasine

More importantly, why weren't there any news reports when people suffered passups using the old 98 B-Line. Unlike the Canada Line, trains don't come every three minutes. Buses supposedly come below ten minutes, but I've had countless incidents where the bus showed up 20 minutes later, and behind it, three other 98 B-Lines.

What should be reported is the 99 B-Line now.

There were reports for sure. I read newspaper story that 98B was the most "passups" route in metro Vancouver for a few years. If you count letter to editor, there were even more.

[SpongeG]

the worst lineups i had on the canada line during the games were idiots - usually durnk - who could not figure out how to use the machines to get a ticket - the lack of a cash button caused a lot of dumb moments and than not knowing where the ticket comes out...