With the relocation of buses to Central Blvd, I was thinking about the potential consequences for routes having Metrotown as a terminus. It seems to me that there may be a few problems in terms of turning around to begin the route/pick up passengers, even if the bus loop is retained and not redeveloped. I want to know what you think.
Stated on the diagram it says that "major" buses will be located on the station side of Central, while "minor" buses will have bays on the north side of Central as well as in the bus loop. I assume this is for two reasons: keeping the majority of bus passengers from having to cross Central to do a connection, and also enabling buses to pick up and drop off on the same side of the street, rather than on opposite sides as at Waterfront Station downtown (which can get really confusing).
This makes a good deal of sense, since on Central Blvd there are precious few places where buses are able to turn around, without actually doing a whole loop around either Station Square/Metropolis, Maywood neighbourhood, or Bonsor. The only place currently available for doing this is the bus loop itself, so let's optimistically assume for the time being that this turn-around space will remain open after the restructuring of the station.
In that case, the minor routes will not necessarily have problems turning around, since their bays can still be located in the bus loop itself. The major routes, however, if they are supposed to be departing in a westbound direction, may have to turn around. And this is where I foresee immediate problems with route alterations.
Let's classify the current buses originating/terminating at Metrotown in terms of minor/major routes (disagree with me if you think I've classified wrong):
Major:
19 (Kingsway to Stanley Park),
49,
106 (New West via Edmonds and 6th St),
130 (soon to be Willingdon B-Line to Capilano),
430 (soon to be B-Line to Richmond)
Minor: 110 (Sperling/Lougheed via City Hall), 112 (New West via Edmonds and 12th), 116 (South Slope/Market Crossing), 129 (West of Willingdon/North Burnaby), 144 (SFU via City Hall), C6 and C7 (South Slope community shuttles, which actually use and probably will still use Beresford)
As I said, assuming the minor routes can still use the bus loop, they should have no problem turning around. So let's concentrate on the major routes.
19: Dropping off shouldn't be a problem since the bus is coming from the west/McKay. Beginning the route should also be ok, as long as Translink is fine with the bus returning to Kingsway via Bonsor/Nelson, which might shaft a paltry few passengers who board the westbound bus on McKay--not a tragedy, since we'd also be adding westbound stops all along Kingsway between Nelson and McKay. In this case it is providential that Kingsway runs parallel to Central.
49: Here is the first difficulty, where unless we find a way for the bus to turn around right after leaving its eastbound bay on Central, the necessary route alterations will be problematic. The most sensible alteration would be for the departing bus to go eastbound until it hits Imperial, where it would turn right and continue until Imperial becomes 49th. The problem with this, however, is that it cuts westbound service to a significant number of people on Willingdon, without any attendant improvement in the efficiency of the route (unlike the current proposal to cut out a diversion on this bus route west of Boundary, departing eastbound from the station to intersect with Imperial would actually make the route
less efficient by increasing its length). So it would behoove us to find a way for departing buses on this route to turn around immediately before beginning the route.
106: Since this route uses Kingsway, but still arrives from McKay, it faces the same inconvenience as the 19. Eastbound departing buses, if they want to avoid turning around immediately, would go to Kingsway via Bonsor and Nelson. As with the 19, this alteration would cut out one direction of service from people who would normally board on the 2 stops on McKay--not a huge tragedy since Metrotown station is within walking distance from there anyway. However, since this bus is eastbound rather than westbound (unlike 19) the alteration would also cut bus service to Edmonds/New West from all stops on Kingsway north of Station Square and Metropolis, which is a bigger loss. However, this loss is partially recovered by the continued existence of 112 as a much more infrequent minor route, which could start via McKay by beginning in the bus loop. Nevertheless it would be preferable if this major/FTN bus could begin the route by going up McKay despite the eastbound orientation of its prospective bay.
130: As a future B-Line it is important for this route to have efficiency and as little time on minor roads as possible, so even though it is a major route it should be able to begin by going westbound on Central directly to Willingdon, rather than diverting eastbound via Bonsor, Nelson, and Kingsway. This route is therefore a high priority for immediate turnaround capabilities.
430: This bus is also a future B-Line, and although beginning its route is possible in the same way as the 49 bus (assuming the future B-Line maintains the same routing along 49th-Knight) by going eastbound on Central and turning right on Imperial, this would leave us with the same problem of shafting westbound passengers who would board on Willingdon. It would also necessitate the B-Line-ification of a whole portion of Imperial up to the intersection at Central Park, which might irk residents of Maywood/South Slope. This route would therefore have a higher priority for immediate turnaround on Central than even the 49 route.
So in order of priority for immediate turn-around departing from bays on the south side of Central, we have 130 (most important), 430, 49, 106, 19.
As said before, the only option for immediate turnaround from the east-facing bays on Central is the bus loop. Continuing further would necessitate turning around in the mall's underground parking, in the Target or Bonsor parking lots, or even going all the way round Bonsor and hitting 4 traffic lights along the way.
The entrance/exit to the bus loop is located across from the new central stationhouse. If buses want to turn around, then, they will have to be located to the west of this stationhouse so that they can transfer to the left-turn lane after leaving the bay.
Assuming 19 (and maybe 106) is fine departing without turning around, we will need 3-4 bays west of the central stationhouse so that 130, 430, 49, and maybe 106 can turn around before beginning their routes. In the renderings there looks to be enough space for this, although it will leave the station looking asymmetrical. Actually, yay, this doesn't look like too much of an issue, although waiting for the light to change twice before/after going around the bus loop will be annoying for departing passengers.
All this is, of course, assuming that Translink is really serious when they say that all major/FTN routes will both board/unload on the station side of Central. Perhaps 19 and 106 could unload in some of the station-side bays west of the central stationhouse, turn around in the bus loop, and then pick up passengers in a west-facing bay in front of Station Square/Future Shop. But that would be more confusing and sometimes inconvenient for passengers, since these are major routes.
And this is, as I said, assuming the bus loop will always be retained. If the bus loop disappears, the setup of the bays on Central will really be screwed.
So with that figured out, how might some of the minor routes fit into the bays on the north side of Central? All of the major routes arrive from the west, which was convenient since it is better to do the turnaround in the bus loop at the beginning of a route rather than the end. In this case it would be more convenient if the majority of minor routes arrives on Central from the east, since the northern bays are facing west. On the other hand, like the major buses, the bays for the minor buses will have to be before the entrance to the bus loop, in this case east of the entrance, so that they are kitty-corner to the bays for the major buses west of the central stationhouse. Let's see how this works out.
110: Most of the time this route arrives from the east, so it would make sense to have its bay on Central east of the entrance to the bus loop. However, if the 110 "Metrotown Special" westbound (from City Hall) routing is retained, it would sometimes arrive from the west, in which case it might as well have one consolidated bay inside the bus loop so that there are not 2 separate drop off points and 2 separate pick up bays.
112: Arrives from the west, so its bay should be inside the bus loop.
116, C6, C7: I would actually argue, despite my dislike of having too many buses on Beresford, that the 116 bus should go right up Sussex to Beresford and have its bay there, east of Metroplace. Most of its passengers are employees from the Market Crossing area south of Marine, and don't really care about being dropped off at Bonsor or Target--they just want to go right to Metrotown Station. On off-peak hours it functions more as a community shuttle and employs smaller vehicles corresponding to this function. So along with C6 and C7, I think it should have a bay on Beresford.
129: Arriving from and departing to the west, this bus should have a bay in the bus loop, since it can't drop off and also pick up passengers on Central anyway.
144: Aside from 116 (which I argue should be on Beresford), this is the only bus arriving from and departing to the east, so it is really the only bus we can give a north-side bay on Central itself without any ambiguities.
Of course, any of the minor buses arriving from the west and departing to the west
could be given a spot on the station-side of Central along with the major buses, but very soon this would overload the bus bays west of the central stationhouse, which would still have to be used since minor buses would also have to turn around in the bus loop (meaning the bays couldn't be east of the bus loop entrance) or else be rerouted, with similar bad consequences most of the time.
With the 112 and 129, it is conceivable that we might want to give these buses the station-side bays east of the central stationhouse, since these would be unused anyway by most of the major route buses. But the problem here is still turning around to go back westbound, since the bays would be past the bus loop entrance. We would therefore have to reroute the 129 to go around Imperial/Willingdon before resuming its trajectory to north Burnaby--not ideal--and we would have to reroute 112 up Bonsor/Nelson to Kingsway, screwing people north of Station Square/Metropolis in the same way as with the 106 (which is basically the same route in this part of town). So we end up admitting that we might as well keep these buses in the bus loop too.
Our final picture, then, because of the turnaround, is the majority of "major" buses having their bays west of the central stationhouse, and the majority of "minor" buses still stuck having their bays in the bus loop. And even the major buses would have to turn around in the bus loop before beginning their routes, losing them time. I'm beginning to see why some were arguing for putting buses on Beresford, even though that would bring its own problems in terms of how the buses are to arrive there (presumably from Imperial), not to mention clashing with the walkable street character they want to develop there (which I'm all for).
Do these projections sound right to you guys? Do you have any proposed solutions or commentary on this picture?
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) however but that could end up being anything.
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