Metro Vancouver Transit Discussion

[DKaz]

Sweet MKI!

Originally Posted by ssiguy

It's true GO is more regional but mission isn't part of Translink but that didn't stop Westcoast Express.

Westcoast Express went into service back in the BC Transit days.

[go_leafs_go02]

Although in the GTA, they offer express bus services on top of train services.

Ie, you can get from downtown hamilton to downtown toronto in two ways:

1) Express bus (non-stop essentially) from Hamilton downtown to Toronto downtown
2) Local bus for Hamilton downtown to Aldershot (in Burlington) to connect to the Go Train that will travel to Toronto Downtown.

The urban areas, population and context are very different here. This would be akin to a Go Bus going from the South Surrey Park and Ride non-stop to Waterfront station. It would also be like a bus going from Mission station direct to Waterfront also without stopping.

Also our heavy rail network isn't really great in providing any regional connections other than to Mission. I'd like to see this potentially expanded south to Abbotsford and then Abbotsford residents to get to Vancouver via the WCE, while Langley & Surrey residents would rely on LRT & SkyTrain.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by go_leafs_go02

Although in the GTA, they offer express bus services on top of train services.

Ie, you can get from downtown hamilton to downtown toronto in two ways:

1) Express bus (non-stop essentially) from Hamilton downtown to Toronto downtown
2) Local bus for Hamilton downtown to Aldershot (in Burlington) to connect to the Go Train that will travel to Toronto Downtown.

The urban areas, population and context are very different here. This would be akin to a Go Bus going from the South Surrey Park and Ride non-stop to Waterfront station. It would also be like a bus going from Mission station direct to Waterfront also without stopping.

Also our heavy rail network isn't really great in providing any regional connections other than to Mission. I'd like to see this potentially expanded south to Abbotsford and then Abbotsford residents to get to Vancouver via the WCE, while Langley & Surrey residents would rely on LRT & SkyTrain.

I think what you say is all true, the main difference here being we don't have the
large Toronto-Hamilton population base - and market.

[quobobo]

Big delays on the Expo and Millennium Line tonight. Trains have been mostly stalled for the last hour or so.

Translink's Twitter says it's due to a problem train, but their on-train announcements are blaming passengers leaving a train outside of a station.

This summer has been godawful for the Skytrain...

Edit: seems to be fixed as of 6:05 PM

[red-paladin]

Originally Posted by quobobo

Big delays on the Expo and Millennium Line tonight. Trains have been mostly stalled for the last hour or so.

Translink's Twitter says it's due to a problem train, but their on-train announcements are blaming passengers leaving a train outside of a station.

This summer has been godawful for the Skytrain...

Edit: seems to be fixed as of 6:05 PM

Global TV 6pm news seems to conclude that the issue was made much worse by the passengers leaving the train as well. There was video of people pushing baby strollers on the catwalk, etc ....

I think Translink's weak response to passengers leaving the trains has to stop.
They really need to start giving out fines or something, or else passengers will be leaving trains every time trains stop from now on...

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by red-paladin

Global TV 6pm news seems to conclude that the issue was made much worse by the passengers leaving the train as well. There was video of people pushing baby strollers on the catwalk, etc ....

I think Translink's weak response to passengers leaving the trains has to stop.
They really need to start giving out fines or something, or else passengers will be leaving trains every time trains stop from now on...

Or start moving the trains while people are on the catwalks (but not on the tracks)

[officedweller]

Article from the Surrey Leader.

PS - for those who don't know, Daryl is xd_1771 on the forum.

http://www.surreyleader.com/news/274123731.html

Rapid bus now has Surrey stop


Daryl Dela Cruz stands at the new rapid bus stop at 156 Avenue and Highway 1.— image credit: Evan Seal / The Leader

by Kevin Diakiw - Surrey North Delta Leader
posted Sep 5, 2014 at 11:00 AM

The long-awaited access to a rapid bus to Vancouver is finally making a stop in Surrey.

...

After lengthy lobbying, and much expense to Surrey development funds, the stop for the #555 bus is now complete.

...

Surrey committed $193,000 in development cost charges to build the stop.

Coun. Tom Gill, who chairs the city's transportation committee, said the bus stop materialized thanks to the relentless campaign by 18-year-old Daryl Dela Cruz, who on his website, describes himself as a technology fan, a transit user, a researcher and a community issues advocate.

Gill describes him as a "outspoken, very smart, intelligent young man" who inundated Gill and the committee with well-argued facts supporting the need for the bus access.

"He has been non-stop for a year (pushing for the stop)," Gill said

Gill is upset that the city got hit with such a large bill. He said the stop should have been created when the Port Mann Bridge and Highway 1 improvements were done by the province.

Dela Cruz said it's great to see the stop put in place.

"I had a number of people helping me," Dela Cruz said Thursday. "People have been really enthusiastic about this stop, at least from the riders I've talked to."

In the future, there will be a bus exchange in the area, allowing people to better access the new stop by other transit.

...

He is heading to Japan on a scholarship this month, but says he'll be keeping in touch with local issues by Internet.

http://www.surreyleader.com/news/274123731.html

[WBC]

Originally Posted by quobobo

Big delays on the Expo and Millennium Line tonight. Trains have been mostly stalled for the last hour or so.

Translink's Twitter says it's due to a problem train, but their on-train announcements are blaming passengers leaving a train outside of a station.

This summer has been godawful for the Skytrain...

Edit: seems to be fixed as of 6:05 PM

I was on the train at 29th av station when the whole thing started. It was absolutely pathetic to listen to the announcement essentially blaming passengers for delays. They sounded like 7 year old complaining that dog ate his homework. Instead of whining - fix the system. And when the system fails give people clear instructions and estimated waiting time as opposed to repeating the same mindless message every 2 minutes. People are going to wait if you give them hope and time they need to wait. After 30 years you should be able to accurately estimate how long its going to take to fix the initial problem. Also hire somebody who does not sound like a whiny b**** on the PA. I would like to see the day when Tokyo subway or JR blames passengers for its failures. Pathetic and incredibly unprofessional.

[MIPS]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Or start moving the trains while people are on the catwalks (but not on the tracks)

Even if they could the track intrusion system would stop trains as they walked up to the stations and cause even more delays. I have to agree. No more "get out of jail free" cards. If people start walking down the track you'll have transit police standing on the platform handing out tickets like candy canes. That will get the point across very fast.

[GeeCee]

Originally Posted by MIPS

Even if they could the track intrusion system would stop trains as they walked up to the stations and cause even more delays. I have to agree. No more "get out of jail free" cards. If people start walking down the track you'll have transit police standing on the platform handing out tickets like candy canes. That will get the point across very fast.

Until they start turning around and heading back to the train once they see that people are getting tickets, leading to an even longer delay due to people on the track..

[WarrenC12]

Just make the doors more difficult to open.

[GeeCee]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Just make the doors more difficult to open.

They still need to be able to be opened easily in the event of a (real) emergency.

[DKaz]

Some people claimed that they smelled smoke in the trains which is why they evacuated.

[Meraki]

Given how ever since the original TV reports about emergency exits happened people seem trigger happy to pull the emergency door release (as in this case people pulled the emergency release 5 minutes into the delay.) I support Transit Police standing at the end of the platform, handing out tickets to each person if they want to get from the guideway to the platform. If there is an actual emergency that can be confirmed by the SkyTrain Attendants/Transit Police then it's an obvious priority to get everyone off. However if some jerkass decided to pull the emergency release because 5 minutes is too long of an inconvenience, they should be receiving the stompdown of causing a 2 hour transit delay for everyone else.

[Metro-One]

Exactly.

While Sktrain has had 2 major delays / problems this summer that Translink should take full responsibility for, people exiting trains after 5 minutes or so is unexceptable.

In general people have been spoiled with skytrain. 5 minute, 10 minute, even 15 minute delays are common place on most metros in the world.

Even here in Japan, the most punctual train system in the world, I have been caught up in a few 5 to 10 minute delays in the last year. No one would even think about leaving one of the train cars unless they were told to do so by the transit authority, or the thing was on fire.

Time for the transit police to crack down the next time there is a delay.

But it also time for Translink to become more professional in their transit service announcements / information relay systems.

[red-paladin]

I agree that the intercom announcements lately have been terrible.
You hear the crystal clear 'The next station is Metrotown' recording,
then staticy and phone handset banging around during the recently added patronizing messages.
If they really need those new American style announcements all time, they should properly record them.

[Millennium2002]

The biggest problem is the very dated nature of the SkyTrain communications system... it's only meant to do one of two things:
- live announcements to either the trains or the stations
- pre-recorded station/line announcements when a train approaches/stops at a station

The PSA recordings are probably a cheap addon to the recording system, and they are most likely done on the live feed manually by staff, which is why they are rather infrequent, of terrible quality, and interrupt any station or route annoucements on board trains when they go off.

Perhaps it's time for TransLink to upgrade the whole communications/ in-station destination display system to be more like the Canada Line, but I have a feeling the average person won't believe/understand it when they see the high budgetary costs for such an extensive rebuild.

Irrelevant ramble of requirements below:
- announcements in process of playing take precedence over new ones
- if new one arrives while existing one playing, queue for playing 10 seconds after the last
- more types of pre-recorded messages for most common types of situations (mechanical trouble, computer fault, medical emergency, person on tracks, escalator/elevator out of service, special events, etc)
- messages can be sent to either all trains, a specific set of trains, all stations, a specific set of stations, etc.
- selective train feature may require an upgrade to SelTrac - if cost-prohibitive, leave out for now;
- existing pre-recorded station/line features should be retained

[dpogue]

The PSA messages aren't done live, but it is broadcast over the live system as if it were a manual nnouncement. They're recordings on a schedule (originally every 20 minutes, but they've added more variety now).
They do unfortunately interrupt station announcements, because they're using the live broadcast system.

All anouncements and communication are done over a standard radio channel, which is different than the in-guideway loops used for automated train control. Annoucements can (in theory) be made to specific trains.

Info sheets on the TRIMS system:
http://www.trakcom.com/images/pdf/Vanc%20Proj%20Info.pdf
http://www.willowglen.ca/PDF%20Files/Light%20Rail%20System%20Case%20Study.pdf

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

Mark II cars and presumably future Mark III cars are capable of up to 100km/h - they operate at this speed in Beijing and New York. We'd just need to get rid of the Mark Is and test current track sections.

Definitely would like to see them at 100km/h eventually given if and when they do an extension to Langley, the full Waterfront -> Langley center is a long run, over an hour so 100km/h would drop down the total commute time and attract even more riders.

The last point is a great one - and in a low-tax-rate city, it's going to be a gongshow when people find out about the expense to convert a presumably paltry 10-15 minute off-peak/weekend service into something more tolerable for daily ridership.

The problem is no one in Surrey really cares about transit. I've seen people and advocates simply come and go - raise hell for a little but, but then suddenly disappear to be never heard from again. That new rapid bus stop on 156th that opened, I don't think there was anyone else (apart from city politicians) other than myself and a few others crying foul. Other transportation advocacy "organizations" in this city have gone completely inactive.

Completely agree. I think many in general don't realize the whole Surrey LRT push is really to pressure the Province and Translink to do something. Kind of a "if you won't we will" to make them look bad. While I'm not totally against LRT for the Newton to Guildford crescent (as long as they don't reduce road capacity), I think at this stage it is unnecessary. I am on the other hand completely against LRT down Fraser Highway and only support SkyTrain extension.

But you're spot on about many of the transit advocates that really just jump up and down to get their face in the news or on radio.

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by DKaz

Another triple 5 adventure this morning.

7:27 left house
7:41 arrived at 107 ave, parked car
7:44 arrived at stop
7:50 boarded bus
7:58 arrived at beginning of exit 40
8:03 arrived at braid
8:08 boarded train toward Waterfront (it came first)
8:43 arrived at office at Stadium

The backup on Exit 40 definitely delays the westbound trip, and the stars didn't align and all that other stuff. The Government St. bus ramp can't open soon enough.

So do you board at Braid and head back towards Expo line? Or do you go towards Broadway and switch over? I never looked at the travel times either direction from Braid am curious to know the difference.

And you're right about Fraser Highway being a gong show lately. We moved just onto Fraser Hwy just past the gas station towards KGB and I'm amazed how many cars are parked along Fraser Highway in the morning and how early. They only have a few years of that left though when the city starts widening Fraser Highway to 2 lanes either direction. All the parking will vanish and most of the side roads now have parking restrictions.

They installed parking meters along 100th now and are doing that near the hospital. Combine that with the reduction and near removal of the park and ride at King George station and I'd imagine many people will be itching for a park and ride near the 555 or the parking situation down at Scott Road will become insane.