Metro Vancouver Transit Discussion

[djh]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

OK, let's see now...

5 months = about 150 days.
550 in 150 days = less than 4 cheaters per day.

But wait - they probably didn't catch all the cheaters. Let's say they caught only 1% of the cheaters. That means there could be up to 400 cheaters a day.

With a ridership of around 100,000 per day that means a fare evasion rate of 0.4%. This is a problem worth spending tens of millions of dollars on?

As Jarret Walker said on Wednesday evening, this is basically a political issue, not a technical one. Politicians are appealing to peoples perception of unfairness, not of an actual, substantial problem.

Many millions of dollars to install fare gates may make the system "seem" fairer, but I sure hope they're not funding it on the expectations of recouped revenues...

I think the problem is with your calculations.
Imagine standing at the entrance to City Hall-Broadway station. A train disembarks. 100 people walk past you. Are you saying only 1 of those people paid for a ticket and 99 didn't?
That's just unrealistic from the get-go.

[red-paladin]

Originally Posted by ozonemania

This is what the UBC Millenium Line extension will be like too, right from day one. Not so much for the Evergreen, which at this point would act as a commuter line.

To be honest, as someone who used to live in Coquitlam, I think the Evergreen line will have higher than anticipated and fast growing number of users, but not on the scale of the Canada Line. The bus service in the area is bad in many respects, but the main routes like 97-B Line and 160 are still jam packed, and there has always been a great demand for the skytrain to be built from everyone.

[CLC]

Originally Posted by mrjauk

This is one of the things that I've been impressed with. I was pleasantly surprised at the level of ridership in the non-rush-hour direction. At 4:00 pm, the northbound train at City Hall is almost as full as the southbound one. That's really encouraging.

4pm is pretty much rush hour in Vancouver proper transit, regardless of direction. At 10am on a Thursday, all seats occupied when leaving Richmond Brighouse, seniors boarding at Lansdowne and Aberdeen had difficulty finding a seat.

[usog]

Took the Canada Line from Lansdowne to Aberdeen around 2PM today. All seats were taken from Brighouse, around 1/3-1/2 of the standing space was taken by the time I got to Aberdeen. There was a 10-person line for the ticket machines at Aberdeen. From my own observations taking the Canada Line almost daily, ridership is definitely healthy.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by djh

I think the problem is with your calculations.
Imagine standing at the entrance to City Hall-Broadway station. A train disembarks. 100 people walk past you. Are you saying only 1 of those people paid for a ticket and 99 didn't?

I said the fare evasion rate is 0.4%. In other words, 0.4% of the people didn't pay for a fare. That means a little less than one person out of 200 didn't pay for a fare.

That's based on the quoted figures and allowing a 100-fold increase in the number of stated fare evaders.

[CLC]

Translink had a news release:

Some Canada Line passengers arriving three years early for their trips
Milestone ridership levels close to being achieved
http://www.translink.ca/en/About-TransLi...g-three-years-early-for-their-trips.aspx

In addition to more frequent bus connections to the Brighouse and Bridgeport stations, some of the big articulated coaches from the #98 B-Line are bolstering service on the #43, #44 and #49 routes while the Coast Mountain Bus Company has used others to retire older units in the fleet.

#49? is it a mistake? I don't seem to have observed that.

[Mac Write]

The #49 is going to artics this fall on some trips due to the massive ridership to Langara.

[djh]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

I said the fare evasion rate is 0.4%. In other words, 0.4% of the people didn't pay for a fare. That means a little less than one person out of 200 didn't pay for a fare.

That's based on the quoted figures and allowing a 100-fold increase in the number of stated fare evaders.

Aah, thanks for the clarification. Makes much more sense to me now.

[worldwide]

thank god. I used to take the 49 there all the time until I switched to the 3. I remember waiting for 25 minutes after a night class for the 49 and then barely being able to get on cause it was so packed.

[CLC]

According to Singtao (Chinese) news, Ken Hardie did explicitly tell reporters that Canada Line capacity is expeced to carry 300000 daily ultimately. No more mentions of ridiculous low figure 142000

[whatnext]

Which makes the shortsighted undercapacity of the line even more perplexing. If you want to get more people out of cars transit has to be more appealing. Having it jam-packed almost from the word go isn't the way to do it.

[eduardo88]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Which makes the shortsighted undercapacity of the line even more perplexing. If you want to get more people out of cars transit has to be more appealing. Having it jam-packed almost from the word go isn't the way to do it.

The line can run at up to 15 000pph, with operations 20hours per day means 300 000 riders per day. Although we all would have liked for longer platforms, with C-cars and increasing frequency the Canada Line can easily handle demand for the next few decades.

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Which makes the shortsighted undercapacity of the line even more perplexing. If you want to get more people out of cars transit has to be more appealing. Having it jam-packed almost from the word go isn't the way to do it.

Perhaps you missed the part of the article that this "shortsighted undercapacity" Canada Line was able to handle 280,000 people during its busiest day during the Olympics.

Many transit systems around the world would be happy to have our problem - a new transit line that is reaching its ridership targets earlier than expected, and it doesn't appear that the ridership numbers are levelling off. The operators have experimented with running more trains per hour during the 'off hours' between the morning and afternoon rush hours because they apparently are surprised that the Canada Line is being used so much outside of the rush hours.

Since it was able to handle the Olympic crowds that were several times today's current volume, I'm not worried about the line's ability to grow to handle 300,000 daily passengers as new trains are added to the fleet. However,even if the money was found to buy more trains to add capacity, it would be years before they arrive and can get pressed into service.


Undoubtedly if the Canada Line daily ridership was only running 60,000 or 70,000 there would be people complaining that it was over-built and under-used and a waste of money just to get Olympic visitors to & from the airport easier.

[red-paladin]

I was one of the people who hated the short platforms the most.
However, I have started to think that multiple medium capacity routes is better in the long run than one massive capacity line. If there were one or two north-south LRT lines in Vancouver eventually too, it would be better to have those three lines than just one massive line, giving more travel options and more stations. My only complaint as that Expo line platforms can be extended to 120 one day if necessary, but the Canada line's platforms can't be extended past 50, But I do realise the cost involved, and I do think in the long run we will have several north-south routes and the Canada Line won't be so over capacity that it will have turned out it was under designed.

[Zassk]

Originally Posted by red-paladin

I was one of the people who hated the short platforms the most.
However, I have started to think that multiple medium capacity routes is better in the long run than one massive capacity line. If there were one or two north-south LRT lines in Vancouver eventually too, it would be better to have those three lines than just one massive line, giving more travel options and more stations. My only complaint as that Expo line platforms can be extended to 120 one day if necessary, but the Canada line's platforms can't be extended past 50, But I do realise the cost involved, and I do think in the long run we will have several north-south routes and the Canada Line won't be so over capacity that it will have turned out it was under designed.

The thing you have to remember is that the Canada Line 50m platforms are enough, even if none of your suggested parallel lines are built. The platforms only seem short because the Bombardier system has narrow trains and needs long platforms to compensate. As-is the Canada Line is nearly equivalent to a 3-car MKII line. The extended trains will be equivalent to a 4-car MKII line. This is good enough for our city's north-south line. I would love to have long London-style platforms, but it moved just under 300,000 one day as-is. The line has proven itself. The designers were right about the capacity of its wide trains, and we in the peanut gallery were wrong.

[Lee_Haber8]

Originally Posted by eduardo88

The line can run at up to 15 000pph, with operations 20hours per day means 300 000 riders per day. Although we all would have liked for longer platforms, with C-cars and increasing frequency the Canada Line can easily handle demand for the next few decades.

That 15000 is per direction, so theoretically it could handle twice that amount or 600000

[Alex Mackinnon]

If you run at it capacity for 20 hours day, which doesn't match usage patterns at all.

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

If you run it capacity for 20 hours day, which doesn't match usage patterns at all.

Even with the crush of Olympic crowds all day, it only got to 93% of design capacity on its busiest day.

It will be a few decades before this line tops 200,000 daily riders, and I doubt any of us will be around to see it hit 300,000 daily riders.

[Mac Write]

ˆˆˆ Speak for yourself I will be around.

How many trains would be required to maintain 90s headway+3m headway on the ends, and what would be the cost for trains for that? Then once that's done then go to 3-car?

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by jsbertram

It will be a few decades before this line tops 200,000 daily riders, and I doubt any of us will be around to see it hit 300,000 daily riders.

If gas prices go up significantly or if there comes to be a more general realization of how much trouble consuming the stuff is getting us into (in more ways than one), you could live to be wrong about that one...