SkyTrain Station Renovations

[Bdawe]

[removed premature post]

[Bdawe]

Originally Posted by finalcoolman

Yes it is true. If you look at both Expo and Millennium Line stations, the yellow Lego style platform edge tiles are actually on an overhang.

The overhang would be removed, and the yellow Lego tiles set back to be flush with the actual edge of the platform.

IMO the best time to have done this was with the opening of the Millennium line back in 2002 with a fresh fleet of new wider MK II's to retire ALL the MK I's.

Logistically, the bigger the network gets, the more difficult this becomes. In addition, if we made the switch back then, we 'only' would have had to throw away 114 MK I cars.

Now that number will be what, about 350?

The NDP really should have made the switch to wider cars as part of the Millennium Line project. Also with the huge difference between a MKI and MKII cars (air conditioning etc...), it would have been much easier back then to justify to the public why we have to throw out 114 MKI cars.

Good luck selling throwing out MKII and MKIII cars to the public though.

I would hazard that you could actually get away with a partial rebuild after Evergreen opens

When the Evergreen Line is in operation, you can isolate narrow-loading gauge trains over there, since you (I hypothesize) can widen the clearance at Lougheed's Third track for wide trains, and leave the rest of the line narrow. Running Expo trains to Production Way is not in the long run sustainable, especially after Broadway opens. Evergreen has it's own small yard, and narrow trains could still make non-revenue moves to the Edmunds Yard for storage and maintenance.

Expo has the most demand and needs the biggest, newest trains, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. At some point, after we hit the hard capacity barrier at 26-30,000 people per hour per direction on the Expo Line, you could junk the Mark Is, move the Mark II and III trains over to Millenium, and order wide bodied Mark IV trains after knocking out the platform extenders, if such a thing really is possible. Since wide bodied 5 car articulated trains are going to be overkill on the Millenium Line for a long time, you can let the Mark II and Mark III live out their days over there and avoid having the throw out perfectly good trains.

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by Bdawe

Expo has the most demand and needs the biggest, newest trains, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. At some point, after we hit the hard capacity barrier at 26-30,000 people per hour per direction on the Expo Line, you could junk the Mark Is, move the Mark II and III trains over to Millenium, and order wide bodied Mark IV trains after knocking out the platform extenders, if such a thing really is possible. Since wide bodied 5 car articulated trains are going to be overkill on the Millenium Line for a long time, you can let the Mark II and Mark III live out their days over there and avoid having the throw out perfectly good trains.

IMO... the platforms could just be modified to support both trains. Put the overhangs on a hinge, and flip them up when a narrow train stops at the station, flip them back down once the doors close. It would likely need to be combined with Platform Edge Doors so people aren't standing on the edge when it flips down. This again would require retiring the MK I's.

[logan5]

I suppose if another separate line is built you could switch all the narrow expo line trains to the new line, then buy all new wider trains for the expo line. Would it be worth it though? How much capacity would you gain?

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by Kisai

IMO... the platforms could just be modified to support both trains. Put the overhangs on a hinge, and flip them up when a narrow train stops at the station, flip them back down once the doors close. It would likely need to be combined with Platform Edge Doors so people aren't standing on the edge when it flips down. This again would require retiring the MK I's.

or do what NYC does. moving platforms

source wikipedia

though with all the cars in the current width it would be a pain to change now. as mentioned earlier, back when Millennium was built would have been the best time to do it. i wonder if it will ever be done in the future, or if they will just go with continuing to lengthen the platforms.

[Bdawe]

Originally Posted by Kisai

IMO... the platforms could just be modified to support both trains. Put the overhangs on a hinge, and flip them up when a narrow train stops at the station, flip them back down once the doors close. It would likely need to be combined with Platform Edge Doors so people aren't standing on the edge when it flips down. This again would require retiring the MK I's.

That sounds like an awful lot of engineering, maintenance, malfunction opportunity

[Mac Write]

Or add the "edge" to the train instead of the platform.

[nname]

Originally Posted by finalcoolman

Logistically, the bigger the network gets, the more difficult this becomes. In addition, if we made the switch back then, we 'only' would have had to throw away 114 MK I cars.

150 cars. And replacing them would've cost about 500 millions back then (the MkIIs were more expensive back then), about half of the Millennium Line budget. If they had those money to waste back then, they would've completed Evergreen Line, which was only 700 millions.

Originally Posted by Bdawe

Expo has the most demand and needs the biggest, newest trains, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. At some point, after we hit the hard capacity barrier at 26-30,000 people per hour per direction on the Expo Line, you could junk the Mark Is, move the Mark II and III trains over to Millenium, and order wide bodied Mark IV trains after knocking out the platform extenders, if such a thing really is possible.

We don't need to worry about Expo Line going past the 30,000 pphpd barrier for a long time.

Base on the trip diary and Expo Line upgrade document:

Current demand for all modes: 21,500 pphpd
Current trips on filled by Expo Line: 16,000 pphpd

Estimated year when:
Total demand past 25,000 pphpd: 2036
Total demand past 30,000 pphpd: ~2066 (extrapolated from graph)

Estimated year when:
Ridership on Expo past 20,000 pphpd: 2027
Ridership on Expo past 22,500 pphpd: 2038
Ridership on Expo past 25,000 pphpd: ~2049 (extrapolated from graph)
Ridership on Expo past 30,000 pphpd: ~2071 (extrapolated from graph)

If that's the case, the current train width will be fine for the next 50 years or so.

Originally Posted by logan5

Would it be worth it though? How much capacity would you gain?

Well, the cars are 13% wider, so I assume it holds 13% more people?

Extending the Millennium Line to connect Expo and Canada Line is projected to reduce the demand for Expo downtown segment by 22% (down from 23,000 to 19,000 pphpd in 2041), so perhaps its a better place to spend the money?

[BCPhil]

Yeah , if most of the ridership problem is close to downtown, I think building relief lines and connections would be the best way to spend money.

When you look at how much they want to spend to extend all platforms on the Expo line, that would be enough instead to buy wider cars (to replace them all at once) and achieve similar results. But it would be impossible to sell to the public, and a logistical nightmare to perform the changeover in a manageable amount of time.

But if you are going to spend $2 billion to increase capacity into downtown (mainly between Commercial drive and Waterfront) I would rather see another line built.

Skytrain is perfect as our intercity (town center to town center) rapid transit solution. It moves a lot of people, a long distance, really quickly and efficiently. But it is not the best at making all of the downtown core area feel easily accessible like the subways in many major cities.

Extending the Millennium line to meet up with the Canada line will help spread capacity issues out. But if the Canada line struggles with the ridership, then I would love to see a new line built.

You could extend the Expo line from Waterfront to meet up with the expo line somewhere else (which would also introduce service to Gastown, DTES, and East Van). Or you could extend the future Millennium line extension from Broadway and Arbutus to under downtown (imagine going from Kits to Waterfront in under 10 minutes).

There are a lot of great ways to spend $2 billion rather than extend every single station platform to solve a problem between 6 of them.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by BCPhil

There are a lot of great ways to spend $2 billion rather than extend every single station platform to solve a problem between 6 of them.

Yes, I would say that if capacity is an issue at our current Expo Line stations, that's a bigger indication of a single point of failure (as we saw a few times recently), and other relief lines and routes are warranted instead of putting more eggs into the Expo line basket.

[Sheba]

New Westminster Station has a narrow stairway from the ticket level (where most of the stores are) down to 8th St open. Up on the train level it's got narrow platforms on both sides so it's still a bit of a pain to move around.

[Jebby]

Originally Posted by BCPhil

There are a lot of great ways to spend $2 billion rather than extend every single station platform to solve a problem between 6 of them.

Hastings Line from Waterfront down Hastings, past the PNE, then down Willingdon to Brentwood and ending at Metrotown.

[Bdawe]

Originally Posted by Jebby

Hastings Line from Waterfront down Hastings, past the PNE, then down Willingdon to Brentwood and ending at Metrotown.

If you're going to go all the way to Metrotown, prep for the line to keep going down 41st Avenue to one of Cambie, Kerrisdale, or UBC. This would support a heavily used transit corridor, and facilitate peripheral trips between Richmond and Burnaby, New Westminster, and such, while scooping up passengers for Expo and Canada Lines from the thickly inhabited reaches of South Vancouver

And if you could, you could extend your line from Waterfront to the West End to serve a rather difficult to transit neighborhood.

[finalcoolman]

I should point out, it's not only the overhangs that were built to facilitate future wider trains, but even the tiles were preplanned. In fact you can see exactly how much the setback would be if that was ever done. Along the yellow 'Lego' platform edge, there is a 'temporary' strip of tiles that I pointed out to in the below pictures. If the move to wider trains was ever done, they would just have to remove these temporary tiles and pull back the yellow Lego edge. The strip of temporary tiles was done to ensure that it could be done as fast as possible, as just having to remove these temporary tiles would make the job go a lot faster instead of having to cut or replace the permanent tiles.

You know, if you look at the temporary tiles, it shows exactly how much further back the platform would be. Even with the current narrow body trains, the gap really isn't THAT big. There are many train systems in the world with a gap that big. In almost any other part of the world, we would be able to move the platform edge back that distance, AND keep the narrow body trains running in a mix with the new wide body trains, and people would be smart enough to 'mind the gap' with the older narrow body trains until they were retired. But not in this city, where safety obsessed Vancouverites need so much hand holding and baby sitting it's pathetic.

[Mac Write]

That "gap" is the difference between people being killed or seriously injured by the train. The disabled need to be considered during construction and where with our "Modern" system. except there aren't enough down escalators and many people are killed directly or in directly from falling down stairs?

[finalcoolman]

Originally Posted by Mac Write

That "gap" is the difference between people being killed or seriously injured by the train. The disabled need to be considered during construction and where with our "Modern" system. except there aren't enough down escalators and many people are killed directly or in directly from falling down stairs?

Yes, that was my whole point. If this was Japan, not a single person would get killed or injured by that gap, and we would be able to have wide bodied and narrow bodied trains running in a mix until all the narrow bodied trains were retired. In Japan, the disabled on wheelchairs or scooters would wait for a wide bodied train with no protest, which honestly would be better suited for them anyways due to the extra room.

[GeeCee]

Originally Posted by finalcoolman

But not in this city, where safety obsessed Vancouverites need so much hand holding and baby sitting it's pathetic

The pathetic thing is thinking that it's OK to risk lives in order to save a few bucks. But hey, I guess that's part and parcel with the modern hyper-capitalist hellhole that is western society in 2015.

Wait a few years and see how you like being treated as a second class citizen when you're less able to get around on foot or see from as far away.

[finalcoolman]

Originally Posted by GeeCee

The pathetic thing is thinking that it's OK to risk lives in order to save a few bucks. But hey, I guess that's part and parcel with the modern hyper-capitalist hellhole that is western society in 2015.

Wait a few years and see how you like being treated as a second class citizen when you're less able to get around on foot or see from as far away.

Once again, I've ridden other transit systems in the world with gaps that big, and no one is dying or getting injured by it. What's the alternative, throwing away all our existing trains? How would you ever sell that to the public?

Maybe the only solution is to install door sill extensions on the narrow bodied trains? Maybe that was the plan all along, as the people who originally designed the system to be widened in the future, how could they not have thought about the ramifications to trash a whole fleet of trains at once?

I am also in the position where I do not depend on transit nor ever will. Thus I could never be that second class citizen you refer to. I drive because our transit system is not good enough. Really, I want Vancouver to have a world class transit system, so I can actually start using it sometimes.

[Bdawe]

This is absolutely absurdist thinking. Vancouver's transit 'world classiness' has nothing to do the fact that we don't accommodate wrong-size trains.

Please tell us of this high volume, high frequency system where they're crossing a 15-18 inch gap to get onto the train.

[GeeCee]

The 'temporary' tiles that you refer to are an accessibility feature, not something to permit the ability to quickly switch to wider cars. Besides, the width of the Dunsmuir tunnel prohibits wider cars (or substantially longer train sets due to turning radius limitations) anyways.

Originally Posted by finalcoolman

I am also in the position where I do not depend on transit nor ever will.

If that's the case, then your opinion is virtually useless. Plenty of people, especially those with disabilities, don't have a choice in the matter.