Metro Vancouver Transit Discussion

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by Reecemartin

One question I have that directly links to Skytrain and local service is how is Vancouver going to every improve local service? This issue came up on Urban Toronto than the GTHA and Metro Vancouver have basically reverse issues. Let me explain~

Toronto while maybe the news would say otherwise, has a pretty fantastic intra city transit system - the subway stops abput every 600 meters, the southern parts of the city have an extensive high capcity streetcar network (thats getting more and more traffic priority thankfully), and a fantastic bus grid network (buses on almost every street and very high frequencies on any arterial) as well as great integration between these modes. That said Toronto's regional transit isn't the best (lack of fare integration, GO being infrequent, etc.) however with the projects currently planned (100's of kms of BRT, LRT , frequent electric go service AD2W, big station improvements and fare integrations) things are really looking up in a BIG way.

Vancouver on the other hand is the opposite. We have basically total fare integration across the region, and a very good regional rail service (basically what Skytrain is). However within any city the options can be lacking, especially in the Sof cities. As an example most routes in Surrey/Langley operate every 30 mins and coverage isn't the best (especially in area that have gained tons of development in the past 10-15 years). The frequencies and total shape of the Network while a good utilization of resources means that it can take a ridiculous amount of time to go small distances within cities because for many journeys you have to 1) get to a frequent route, 2) transfer at a hub 3) take a frequent route to the nearest connecting local service. The problem is the time it takes to transfer can be utterly insuferable.

As an example I recently had to go across part of Toronto and even though the route required 4 buses the experience was more or less painless as every time I got off the next bus was usually only a few minutes away (time seemed nearly competitiv with just driving).

So the question is, how will Metro Vancouver improve it's local transit within cities?

Infill Skytrain Stations? or new lines as to not jeorpardize the current service speed?

Less of a focus on B-Lines and more of one on adding frequency to all routes?

Consider bringing in more LRT/BRT to solve the transit wasteland sof?

What are ppls Ideas?

It's really not that complicated, just need to provide more frequency on the existing routes. That's really the only difference between somewhere like Surrey and somewhere like Vancouver for example. Getting around on local transit is easy in Vancouver because transfers aren't a big deal. So it's just a matter of having the resources to invest in that sort of stuff.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Reecemartin

So the question is, how will Metro Vancouver improve it's local transit within cities?

Infill Skytrain Stations? or new lines as to not jeorpardize the current service speed?

Less of a focus on B-Lines and more of one on adding frequency to all routes?

Consider bringing in more LRT/BRT to solve the transit wasteland sof?

What are ppls Ideas?

Good question. Well, infill SkyTrain stations more or less defeat the purpose of rapid transit, so that's out. And there aren't that many good LRT routes save for the old rail/interurban corridors, and we don't want trains competing with traffic.

That leaves better bus service, which is probably going to happen anyway. I don't think it has to be a competition between more B-Lines and higher trolley frequency, though - we need both.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Arbutus is probably going to be light rail (if only to fulfill the deal with CP), so maybe terminate that line at the River District, then instead bring the 41st line down Rupert or Boundary and east along Marine to link up with the branch.

Plus with the existing (and in use) rail lines it's not possible to extend light rail east of the River District.

Originally Posted by GlassCity

It's really not that complicated, just need to provide more frequency on the existing routes. That's really the only difference between somewhere like Surrey and somewhere like Vancouver for example. Getting around on local transit is easy in Vancouver because transfers aren't a big deal. So it's just a matter of having the resources to invest in that sort of stuff.

Partly. One problem is that the CoV has a nice grid layout of routes that is lacking in a lot of other areas of the region - that will need to be addressed too.

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Good question. Well, infill SkyTrain stations more or less defeat the purpose of rapid transit, so that's out. And there aren't that many good LRT routes save for the old rail/interurban corridors, and we don't want trains competing with traffic.

That leaves better bus service, which is probably going to happen anyway. I don't think it has to be a competition between more B-Lines and higher trolley frequency, though - we need both.

[Vantage]

Originally Posted by Mac Write

I have been putting allot of thought into our current+14 Mark III trains ordered and how best to use them. Once they are online this is how things will look.
•25 Mark I trains 6-car trains
•21 Mark III Series 1 4-car trains
•12 Mark II Series 2 4-car trains
•18 Mark II Series 1 2-car trains
•6 Mark II series 1 4-car trains
What I would like to see, is all series 1 Mark I trains goto Millennium line (until UBC line opens) providing 30 2-car trains and then that will leave 12 Series 2 trains on the Expo line along with 21 Series 3 and 25 Series 1.

They could (if the computer allows it) assign Mark II/III to King George and Mark I to VCC Clark.

Any other ideas on how to divide up the rolling stock to keep the varies series of trains constant?

The Millennium Line is already crowded enough at peak hours and well into the evening with the two car Mark II trains. Switching them to two car Mark I trains with lower capacity is just silly, even with the increased frequency.

[red-paladin]

Plus, the new facility at Falcon is currently set up for Mark IIs.
I think we should leave things the way they are, just move any new Mark IIIs to Expo, and any freed up Mark IIs on to Millennium.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by Sheba

Plus with the existing (and in use) rail lines it's not possible to extend light rail east of the River District.




Partly. One problem is that the CoV has a nice grid layout of routes that is lacking in a lot of other areas of the region - that will need to be addressed too.

True, but with Surrey as an example specifically, it's built in a grid, and so is Richmond. Some other areas may be more difficult, but still, increasing frequency would probably be the most important way to help them out. Some new routes may be introduced too, but really I'm just saying we have the tools, it's just a matter of funding them.

[dpogue]

Originally Posted by red-paladin

Plus, the new facility at Falcon is currently set up for Mark IIs.
I think we should leave things the way they are, just move any new Mark IIIs to Expo, and any freed up Mark IIs on to Millennium.

There's an RFI posted on translink.ca right now for an expansion of the Falcon yard.

[Reecemartin]

Originally Posted by dpogue

There's an RFI posted on translink.ca right now for an expansion of the Falcon yard.

:0 How big are we looking? Isn't the expectation that this will eventually serve the whole M-Line with all extensions...

[Reecemartin]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

It's really not that complicated, just need to provide more frequency on the existing routes. That's really the only difference between somewhere like Surrey and somewhere like Vancouver for example. Getting around on local transit is easy in Vancouver because transfers aren't a big deal. So it's just a matter of having the resources to invest in that sort of stuff.

Well that depends, to offer 15 minute service that is standard in Metro Vancouver you need x amount of buses, to offer 10 minute service on all key routes like toronto you need WAY more buses.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by Reecemartin

Well that depends, to offer 15 minute service that is standard in Metro Vancouver you need x amount of buses, to offer 10 minute service on all key routes like toronto you need WAY more buses.

Well sure, the resources and the relative effectiveness changes, but adding more service hours is really the way to get the most noticeable transit improvements. A key SkyTrain line here and there would help too, but for the most part, increasing frequency on existing bus routes and introducing new bus routes that are currently underserved (east-west in places like Richmond and Surrey for example) would be huge.

[Reecemartin]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

Well sure, the resources and the relative effectiveness changes, but adding more service hours is really the way to get the most noticeable transit improvements. A key SkyTrain line here and there would help too, but for the most part, increasing frequency on existing bus routes and introducing new bus routes that are currently underserved (east-west in places like Richmond and Surrey for example) would be huge.

South Surrey and most of Langley are hugely underserved especially with all the growth.

[Mac Write]

Typo I meant Mark II series 1 2-car trains. Having all 60 Mark II series 1 as 30 2-car trains on the millennium line, would create consistent branding.

[invisibleairwaves]

Originally Posted by Reecemartin

One question I have that directly links to Skytrain and local service is how is Vancouver going to every improve local service? This issue came up on Urban Toronto than the GTHA and Metro Vancouver have basically reverse issues. Let me explain~

Toronto while maybe the news would say otherwise, has a pretty fantastic intra city transit system - the subway stops abput every 600 meters, the southern parts of the city have an extensive high capcity streetcar network (thats getting more and more traffic priority thankfully), and a fantastic bus grid network (buses on almost every street and very high frequencies on any arterial) as well as great integration between these modes. That said Toronto's regional transit isn't the best (lack of fare integration, GO being infrequent, etc.) however with the projects currently planned (100's of kms of BRT, LRT , frequent electric go service AD2W, big station improvements and fare integrations) things are really looking up in a BIG way.

Vancouver on the other hand is the opposite. We have basically total fare integration across the region, and a very good regional rail service (basically what Skytrain is). However within any city the options can be lacking, especially in the Sof cities. As an example most routes in Surrey/Langley operate every 30 mins and coverage isn't the best (especially in area that have gained tons of development in the past 10-15 years). The frequencies and total shape of the Network while a good utilization of resources means that it can take a ridiculous amount of time to go small distances within cities because for many journeys you have to 1) get to a frequent route, 2) transfer at a hub 3) take a frequent route to the nearest connecting local service. The problem is the time it takes to transfer can be utterly insuferable.

As an example I recently had to go across part of Toronto and even though the route required 4 buses the experience was more or less painless as every time I got off the next bus was usually only a few minutes away (time seemed nearly competitiv with just driving).

So the question is, how will Metro Vancouver improve it's local transit within cities?

Infill Skytrain Stations? or new lines as to not jeorpardize the current service speed?

Less of a focus on B-Lines and more of one on adding frequency to all routes?

Consider bringing in more LRT/BRT to solve the transit wasteland sof?

What are ppls Ideas?

Ultimately it's an issue of density. The areas of Toronto that have good local transit are generally much, much denser than most of Surrey or Langley or Maple Ridge; they're often prewar or early postwar neighbourhoods, laid out in an era when walking and transit were considered the default modes of transportation. More density, walkable to bus and streetcar routes = much more usage. While the infrequency of connections sucks, Translink has no desire to run empty buses every 5 minutes down 64th Avenue, and it's totally understandable. The only way to really resolve this is to fight for better, denser, more pedestrian-friendly planning on the part of the suburban city governments; the transit service will follow. Progress is absolutely being made here but it's going to take a long time to undo over a half-century of auto-centric planning.

[Migrant_Coconut]

^ Yup. Just Google Maps the respective cities and townships.

<generalization> Places like central Vancouver and Toronto were planned for old-school trams, so they've got more or less a square grid. By contrast, places Surrey and Coquitlam follow a car-oriented layout, so the former is full of cul-de-sacs and arterials that stop/start almost at random, and the latter resembles spaghetti as painted by Picasso. </generalization> Much harder for TransLink to set up a comprehensive bus network.

[flipper316]

Originally Posted by Reecemartin

South Surrey and most of Langley are hugely underserved especially with all the growth.

Probably one of the good reasons is the unmitigated sprawl. How can you plan transit when you build communities that way.

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

It's really not that complicated, just need to provide more frequency on the existing routes. That's really the only difference between somewhere like Surrey and somewhere like Vancouver for example. Getting around on local transit is easy in Vancouver because transfers aren't a big deal. So it's just a matter of having the resources to invest in that sort of stuff.

The larger problem is that Surrey is not laid out in an efficient matter for ANY transit.

The most efficient city layout, requires that houses face the street, not a cul-de-sac. Cul-de-sac's are car-only, and buses can not get into them. Thus only paratransit and taxis can access them. People are not going to walk 200 meters to a bus stop for a bus that they won't see for a half hour.

The problem with the Surrey LRT in this case is that it doesn't solve this problem, at all. It's being built at the demand of developers to make their tiny rubbish luxury condos look more attractive to foreigners by rubber-stamping "near rail transit" on their developments.

Look at who is lobbying for the LRT, developers, not riders.

We would not keep having these kinds of arguments about South of Fraser if the problems Surrey has weren't self-inflicted.

- Bad roads and transit, due to bad city layouts and subdivisions setup as cul-de-sacs to only support cars

- Poor school capacity, due to schools not being built before approving developments

- Poor police response, due to rapid increases in density in wrong places

The LRT is just another bad idea. It's going to get built, and instead contribute more to the congestion and crime problems. If they built the Skytrain as a Subway, like how Vancouver did, they would be able to add density to corridors without having to destroy more greenspace.

But nope, Surrey's mayor and city council have their heads so far up their butt that they don't see how they are destroying the quality of life in Surrey on purpose.

[Mac Write]

Any tricks to stocking the double decker bus? I want to find it so I can ride it for a few hours or so.

[CanSpice]

Originally Posted by Kisai

The larger problem is that Surrey is not laid out in an efficient matter for ANY transit.

I disagree. Surrey's road network is largely laid out in a grid, with avenues running east-west and streets running north-south. They also laid things out so "major" roads are eight blocks apart, or about 800m apart. TransLink considers "walking distance" to the Frequent Transit Network to be 400 metres, which means if you put an FTN route on every one of Surrey's major roads, you'd get nearly the entire city within walking distance of an FTN route. Couple it with SkyTrain running diagonally down the northern half of Surrey down Fraser Highway and you've got an efficient way of feeding a lot of the population to SkyTrain via the FTN.

Now clearly they're not going to do this (not every major road actually goes all the way through, or not every major road goes through dense enough population districts) but this notion that Surrey isn't laid out in an efficient manner for ANY transit is a fallacy.

[xd_1771]

Just want to point out by the way that if we're going to compare Metro Van with Greater Toronto, then taking Surrey & Langley and saying that there isn't a good local transit here unlike in Toronto itself is a bit disingenious. Surrey & Langley need to at least be compared to their equivalent GTA cities - so I'm talking Mississauga, Brampton, York and Durham, etc.

If we go with apples to apples and pit Toronto itself against Vancouver itself, I'd say neither really wins or loses. Vancouver's frequent grid network, underpinned by its great integration with the regional rail network, is at least on the same level as Toronto's grid of frequent local transit routes.

Also, by land area, Toronto is huge. Commute from end to end, west-to-east, just within the city of Toronto and you are traversing the equivalent of going between UBC and Lafarge Lake-Douglas on the Millennium Line. Conversely, north-south (from Union Station to Steeles Avenue) is a distance that, if you commuted North-South from downtown Vancouver, you would be passing farms in Richmond and Delta before you reach your finish point somewhere near Ladner. This is all before you account for the huge and far-reaching Toronto suburbs, which sprawled out long before transit had any means of catching up, fueled by the reach of Ontario's 400-series highways.

From what I see it's not like TTC has much of a choice but to ensure the local service within Toronto is very frequent, in order to keep transit useful and competitive. In our metro, our commuters may have to do more planning - especially in some cities like South of the Fraser - but generally I don't think they're crossing the kinds of distances/travel times you might have to in Toronto on a local bus service. If you had a long crosstown trip in Toronto requiring 2-3 transfers and routes run at 30 min frequency with any potential difficulties in transferring, I can imagine it would be extremely hard to get around as a transit rider. Here in our metro, chances are if you had a crosstown trip to make, either some part of it would be on SkyTrain or a rapid bus line, or it would not nearly be as long in distance/time as one you might have to make in Greater Toronto.

[nname]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

I disagree. Surrey's road network is largely laid out in a grid, with avenues running east-west and streets running north-south. They also laid things out so "major" roads are eight blocks apart, or about 800m apart. TransLink considers "walking distance" to the Frequent Transit Network to be 400 metres, which means if you put an FTN route on every one of Surrey's major roads, you'd get nearly the entire city within walking distance of an FTN route. Couple it with SkyTrain running diagonally down the northern half of Surrey down Fraser Highway and you've got an efficient way of feeding a lot of the population to SkyTrain via the FTN.

I don't think TransLink is doing that bad in term of grid service given the density and road network in the region. Let's see for each route:

North-South:
112th: #312 is running it's entire length
116th: #316 is running most of it's length
120th/Scott: #319 is FTN north of 72nd, less frequent service with another route(s) south, but there is service for most of it's length. Extending #319 south is probably a waste as there are already multiple routes that uses there
124th: Limited service with #329, road disconnected in center
128th: #323 running northern half, peak-only #393 running almost entire length
132th: #324 running almost entire length, with #C75 servicing lower-density area in the south
136th/KGB: #96 and #321 providing FTN for entire length
140th: #325 running almost entire length
144th: #341 and #342 providing service in southern half, road disconnected in north
148th: #341 providing service in northern half, road disconnected in center
152th/Johnson: #375 running almost entire length, #320 providing FTN in north, future FTN corridor
156th/Finlay: #326 servicing north; road not connected in center
160th/Stayte: #335 servicing north; #363 servicing south; road disconnected in center
168th/Coast Meridian: #320 providing service in a short section, but there's almost nothing outside Cloverdale
176th/Pacific: Serviced by E-W routes; there's almost nothing outside Cloverdale
184th: Serviced by E-W routes; there's almost nothing outside Cloverdale
192th: Serviced by E-W routes; there's almost nothing outside Cloverdale
200th: #501 providing service in north; #531 providing service in south, future FTN corridor
208th: #595 providing service in north, road disconnected in center
Anything east of that is just pretty much just farmlands, except for maybe 264th and 272th way east, and there's no service on those two roads.

Basically, there's at least some sort of transit service every 4 blocks in central Surrey, and every 8 blocks (green) there's service that's at least every 15min in peak and run past midnight most days. FTN (or planned) is every 16 blocks (red: 120, 136, 152 ... 200).

East-West:
108th: #335 providing service, road disconnected in center
104th: #96 and #320 providing FTN service, #337 and #501 service almost entire length
100th: No service except for short sections, but road disconnected in center
96th: #312/#314/#316 running in west, #388 and #501 running in east, no service in center. This is one road I see service can really be improved, though TL had been planning to add a route that run the entire length here (see 88th below)
92th: No service, road is very disconnected
88th: #388 is running the western part. TL was planning to move #388 to run it's entire length once the 96th cross-town is implemented. But the ridership just isn't there, with peak-only service running nearly empty for years before downsizing to shuttle. This is a future FTN corridor (if they can get the ridership going)
84th: Road almost doesn't exist
80th: No service, but road disconnected in center
76th: Road almost doesn't exist
72th: #319 providing FTN for a short section, while multiple routes providing service in the western portion; #372 providing service in east, but road disconnected in center. This is another FTN corridor for the entire length, but unless there's a road, no bus can be run...
68th: Road almost doesn't exist
64th: #364 providing service for almost entire length
60th: #320 providing service in east, road disconnect in center
56th/Hwy10: #342 providing service for almost entire length, not sure if it will ever become FTN due to low population, but at least a major corridor
48th: There's nothing there, not even the road
40th: There's almost nothing there
32th: Small section where there is population is serviced by #363, otherwise there's almost nothing there
24th: #531 providing service in east; a route servicing western portion is planned, not sure if it will ever become FTN due to low population, but at least a major corridor
20th: #360 providing service where there is population
16th/N Bluff: #351 providing service in west; there's pretty much nothing in east
12th/Buena Vista: #363 providing service
8th/Marine: #361, #362 providing service in west; there's pretty much nothing in east
0th: Do we really need service there?

Again, there's some sort of service every 4 blocks where there is population, 8 blocks (green) for frequent peak and service running past midnight, and 16 for FTN (red: 104, 88, 72). At least that's the plan. But until the roads are actually connect and there's more ridership to support it's implementation, how much more can we ask for?