Metro Vancouver Transit Discussion

[red-paladin]

From the Liberal Party's platform page:

We will invest in public transit to shorten commute times, cut air pollution, strengthen our communities, and grow our economy.

Canadian cities have been growing at a rapid rate, but investment in public transit has not kept pace.

......

Over the next decade, we will quadruple federal investment in public transit, investing almost $20 billion more in transit infrastructure.

In communities all across Canada, transit projects are ready to go.In British Columbia’s Lower Mainland, for example, plans are in place to:

* Increase SeaBus service to every ten minutes during morning and afternoon rushes
* Extend rapid transit service along Broadway, currently the busiest bus corridor in North America; and
* Bring light rail transit to Surrey, one of the fastest growing parts of the region.We will work with provinces and municipalities across the country to get projects like these done.

From https://www.liberal.ca/realchange/public-transit%E2%80%A8/

Of course as jlousa has said, for the Broadway and Surrey projects this probably means confirming 1/3 funding from the federal government, but it may be more than that, we'll have to see.
For the Seabus, that must be extra funding though, which will be great as it's been hoped to have 3 Sea buses running for years. Running them for part of the schedule makes sense, that's what we do for Skytrain and Buses of course.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Do the C cars have motors and/or brakes?

Yes. If they didn't then the performance of the train would suffer.

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Do the C cars have motors and/or brakes?

C cars are the same as A or B cars, except the C car doesn't have a windshield, and doesn't have a 'drivers compartment' with manual controls to operate the train.

Which makes sense, since the C cars are in between the A and B cars in the train, so there can't be a front (or back) end windshield or manual controls on the C cars.

Just to clarify, once a 4-car train is assembled as A+C+C+B, the four cars that make up the train are rarely disconnected from each other - even for routine maintenance.

[Express691]

Just a thought, If these will be numbered in the 400 series then we might have a skytrain numbered 420.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Express691

Just a thought, If these will be numbered in the 400 series then we might have a skytrain numbered 420.

JT can hold his "weed is legal" press conference on it.

[jsbertram]

I saw the first set of four MkIII cars were being trucked west last week.

Is there an ETA for them to arrive here?
I would think they'd be on the property by this weekend.

[Express691]

Spotted a C car just outside OMC2 on a flatbed along the road yesterday evening.

Also check out this article by 24 hours.
http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/2015/10/22/ghost-routes-cost-translink-big-bucks

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by Express691

Also check out this article by 24 hours.
http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/2015/10/22/ghost-routes-cost-translink-big-bucks

I'm glad they pointed out that eliminating some routes wouldn't recoup much money but would have a devastating impact on the people who depend on them.

Allocating scarce transit dollars is always a balance between ridership and coverage. Jarret Walker has an excellent discussion of this compromise here. Whenever you hear someone complaining about dollars being spent on buses with low ridership, you should stop a moment to remember that public transit is at least as much a service as it is a business.

I'm not saying that there isn't justification to cut some low-performing routes. But there's often a different kind of justification to keep some of those routes.

[xd_1771]

The Mark IIIs should be at OMC2 right now. Will be passing by later today and sure to take pics.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

I'm glad they pointed out that eliminating some routes wouldn't recoup much money but would have a devastating impact on the people who depend on them.

Allocating scarce transit dollars is always a balance between ridership and coverage. Jarret Walker has an excellent discussion of this compromise here. Whenever you hear someone complaining about dollars being spent on buses with low ridership, you should stop a moment to remember that public transit is at least as much a service as it is a business.

I'm not saying that there isn't justification to cut some low-performing routes. But there's often a different kind of justification to keep some of those routes.

CoV has a nice grid system - meanwhile the further you get away from the city, the less that exists. There are areas with horrible route overlap and I've been advocating for moving a bunch of those routes to increase coverage without increasing operating cost. Thankfully some of the route changes I've seen this time are all about that.

[red-paladin]

Grids are very important, but even more important are destinations.
A lot of cities have lackluster transit usage the further you get away from the core because there are just suburbs around the circumference of the city.
Here we have transit destinations on the North Shore, in the West we have UBC, YVR, Downtown Richmond. In the South we have Tsawassan ferry terminal, White Rock. In the East we have Langley city, Haney in Maple Ridge. Every skytrain/seabus service we have starts and ends in a legitimate destination, except for VCC-Clark, which will eventually go to UBC.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by red-paladin

Grids are very important, but even more important are destinations.
A lot of cities have lackluster transit usage the further you get away from the core because there are just suburbs around the circumference of the city.
Here we have transit destinations on the North Shore, in the West we have UBC, YVR, Downtown Richmond. In the South we have Tsawassan ferry terminal, White Rock. In the East we have Langley city, Haney in Maple Ridge. Every skytrain/seabus service we have starts and ends in a legitimate destination, except for VCC-Clark, which will eventually go to UBC.

Oh I know grids aren't the be all and end all - then I look at the route overlap in some areas and get a migraine. Between Metrotown and Sperling stations, the 110 and 144 share a lot of the exact same route, only splitting to travel around Deer Lake. Or take a look at the C6, C7 and 116 south of Metrotown (basically between Boundary and Nelson, and down to Marine Dr) and tell me how it makes sense. There are a lot of routes like that.

[red-paladin]

Originally Posted by Sheba

Oh I know grids aren't the be all and end all - then I look at the route overlap in some areas and get a migraine. Between Metrotown and Sperling stations, the 110 and 144 share a lot of the exact same route, only splitting to travel around Deer Lake. Or take a look at the C6, C7 and 116 south of Metrotown (basically between Boundary and Nelson, and down to Marine Dr) and tell me how it makes sense. There are a lot of routes like that.

The only parts of the grid that are justifiably like that are due to geography and the location of stations / exchanges. I do agree with you that some of the routs don't make sense, though at the end of the day the routes have to be based on destinations and demand not geometry. That's all I was trying to say, but I do agree with you that there are circuitous routes that are inefficient to plan and irritating to ride. The Tricities routes have always been terrible to ride, though hopefully with the Evergreen stations opening up that will be fixed.

[Meraki]

Originally Posted by xd_1771

The Mark IIIs should be at OMC2 right now. Will be passing by later today and sure to take pics.

Yeah, they are. This morning I passed the pieces sitting on flatbeds in front of OMC2.

[Express691]

Originally Posted by Meraki

Yeah, they are. This morning I passed the pieces sitting on flatbeds in front of OMC2.

Some from IG:

https://instagram.com/p/9LI5L3rgaa/ (not my photo)
Https://instagram.com/p/9L2T40kF2g/ (my photo)

As of 7:20pm the set has moved inside for installation of the bending section.

[officedweller]

https://instagram.com/mimischap/

Looking at this old Bombardier MKII diagram (downloaded a while back from the Bombardier website)
you can tell which end of the "C" car would have had the cab (the end with the bigger window).

[xd_1771]

Here's a compile of my own shots passing OMC2 earlier today:

[TransitJack]

The paint scheme on the C cars will make the 4 cars train look very similar to a 4car MK II train.

They should have painted the C cars with just the think blue/yellow stripes and now blue "wave" and skytrain Logo, and kept that just for the end cars (A-B)

[Mac Write]

Again that front end proves my point about the wall behind the drivers area.

[Millennium2002]

There is no wall that I can see...

If you are talking about the white panel at the windshield area, that covers the manual train controls.

I do notice that said panel is deeper than before, but that in no way appears to be a wall.