Metro Vancouver Transit Discussion

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Sheba

Construction to begin on Scott Road RapidBus line

Does anyone know where this concept art in the CTV article comes from?



The centre lane dedicated "station" is a much more aggressive and promising solution than I expected. Seems like this design is for the left turn from Scott Road (it's technically Scott Road on that side of the street right?) onto 72nd, but I'm curious if this design is going to be used elsewhere.

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by chowhou

Does anyone know where this concept art in the CTV article comes from?



The centre lane dedicated "station" is a much more aggressive and promising solution than I expected. Seems like this design is for the left turn from Scott Road (it's technically Scott Road on that side of the street right?) onto 72nd, but I'm curious if this design is going to be used elsewhere.

R6 Backgrounder page 12. Seems like it's only for that intersection.

9 / 12 kms of dedicated lanes is pretty good, IMO.

[madog222]

Originally Posted by chowhou

Does anyone know where this concept art in the CTV article comes from?



The centre lane dedicated "station" is a much more aggressive and promising solution than I expected. Seems like this design is for the left turn from Scott Road (it's technically Scott Road on that side of the street right?) onto 72nd, but I'm curious if this design is going to be used elsewhere.

Source: https://www.translink.ca/-/media/transli...us-projects/rapidbus/r6_backgrounder.pdf

The centre island platform is only for that location with the left turn.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

R6 Backgrounder page 12.

Thanks, guess it's just that one intersection then.

[Helvetia]

Originally Posted by chowhou

Thanks, guess it's just that one intersection then.

In fairness, that's the only intersection the R6 will turn left/right on

[FarmerHaight]

Originally Posted by Helvetia

In fairness, that's the only intersection the R6 will turn left/right on

Lots of BRT systems use centre-running lanes regardless of whether the bus makes a left-hand turn. This keeps buses from being snarled by cars turning right that have to wait for pedestrians (which is the one thing that consistently slows down buses on Georgia). As long as those turning cars don't slow down the bus too much I don't see an issue with curb lanes.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

Lots of BRT systems use centre-running lanes regardless of whether the bus makes a left-hand turn. This keeps buses from being snarled by cars turning right that have to wait for pedestrians (which is the one thing that consistently slows down buses on Georgia). As long as those turning cars don't slow down the bus too much I don't see an issue with curb lanes.

I don't use the Georgia buses much, but I don't really understand. You could make sure the traffic lights only allow pedestrians to go through when a bus is at the front of the queue, allowing all the right-turners to go through long before a bus even arrives.

And it's not much slower right now (~4 min) than the min theoretical travel time of (~2 minutes) from Denovian Harbour to Granville St.

Originally Posted by trofirhen

[I]The family of a 17-year-old boy fatally stabbed on a transit bus in Surrey Tuesday night have identified him as Ethan Bespflug.

Bespflug died following an altercation on a bus on 100th Avenue and King


Would closed-circuit cameras on the buses help? The images relayed (if technically possible) to a control centre from where police could be dispatched to the nearest location. And I'd be curious to know about the background of the assailant, too. Nobody should be afraid to ride public transit, let alone be murdered and leave behind grieving family and friends.

We need to give bus drivers tasers so that they can diffuse these situations before they go out of control, just like when we put barriers on bus drivers.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

Lots of BRT systems use centre-running lanes regardless of whether the bus makes a left-hand turn. This keeps buses from being snarled by cars turning right that have to wait for pedestrians (which is the one thing that consistently slows down buses on Georgia). As long as those turning cars don't slow down the bus too much I don't see an issue with curb lanes.

Creating a dedicated centre lane RoW also paves the way for RRT in the future if that's desired.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by fredinno

We need to give bus drivers tasers so that they can diffuse these situations before they go out of control, just like when we put barriers on bus drivers.

I thought of mentioning that but was afraid it would come across as too extreme. Thanks for posting the idea

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by fredinno

We need to give bus drivers tasers so that they can diffuse these situations before they go out of control, just like when we put barriers on bus drivers.

I don't think it's really fair to the bus drivers to expect them to be enforcers as well.

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by chowhou

Creating a dedicated centre lane RoW also paves the way for RRT in the future if that's desired.

Would it really help vs side lanes, though?

You would probably put the SkyTrain on the side lane rather than the middle lane.

[officedweller]

They had better paint a centre line guiding left turns from the side street to the correct lane or there'll be a lot of people driving into the bus lane.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by fredinno

Would it really help vs side lanes, though?

You would probably put the SkyTrain on the side lane rather than the middle lane.

Combining the RoW makes things a lot easier than having half as much RoW on each side of the road.

Originally Posted by officedweller

They had better paint a centre line guiding left turns from the side street to the correct lane or there'll be a lot of people driving into the bus lane.

We'll have to hope the giant red block of paint will be enough.

[NetMapel]

God you can see in that image how atrocious our land use is. Especially so when combined with our housing cost crisis. So much wasted parking lot space combined with basically 90% of that image are spaces dedicated to cars. I hope having a rapid bus line here helps develop the area more because this is just painful to see. Even with that bus lane, it looks unwalkable and got no bike lanes.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by NetMapel

God you can see in that image how atrocious our land use is. Especially so when combined with our housing cost crisis. So much wasted parking lot space combined with basically 90% of that image are spaces dedicated to cars. I hope having a rapid bus line here helps develop the area more because this is just painful to see. Even with that bus lane, it looks unwalkable and got no bike lanes.

But look at every large parking lot in the city that is getting redeveloped it's more of a matter of time and making it worthwhile for developers to redevelop than any land use problem.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by NetMapel

God you can see in that image how atrocious our land use is. Especially so when combined with our housing cost crisis. So much wasted parking lot space combined with basically 90% of that image are spaces dedicated to cars.

Surrey has the worst built environment for pedestrians and transit users, ever. Sidewalks and transit stops separated from anything of interest by acres and acres of parking lots. Just compare the difference between that photo and the commercial districts of streets in Vancouver like Main Street or Commercial Drive.

[NetMapel]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

But look at every large parking lot in the city that is getting redeveloped it's more of a matter of time and making it worthwhile for developers to redevelop than any land use problem.

Yeah hopefully because that image looks absolutely disgusting to me. This photo below looks completely unacceptable to me especially in this day and age of housing crisis, climate change and so on. We need to do better faster. There’s like 85% of that photo dedicated to car infrastructure.

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/r6-scott-road-rapidbus-translink-surrey-delta

[Migrant_Coconut]

It's not much better over on King George (or anywhere). Forget grand streetcar plans - anybody who's serious about fixing Surrey just needs to rezone each of these for mixed-use lowrises once the R6 is open.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by chowhou

We'll have to hope the giant red block of paint will be enough.

That'll be hard to see from a shallow angle and at night, and could be hidden by cars in the Scott Rd turning lane.
Driver will just aim for the other side of the big median (and ooops, there's another median!)

[fredinno]

Originally Posted by chowhou

Combining the RoW makes things a lot easier than having half as much RoW on each side of the road.



We'll have to hope the giant red block of paint will be enough.

Does it matter?
You're repainting and repaving the road anyways to build the SkyTrain, since you're not going to be plowing viaducts directly into asphalt pavement.