Metro Vancouver Transit Discussion

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Reecemartin deleted all his posts and effectively left the site a while ago. Doubt he'll be back.

Oh, that's too bad, why was that? I don't agree with him on everything but he has a refreshing perspective.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Reecemartin deleted all his posts and effectively left the site a while ago. Doubt he'll be back.

He left the Vancouver section - he seems to sometimes post on the The Great Canadian Transit Thread.

[scottN]

IMO Private automobile travel is so heavily subsidized (via taxpayer funded infrastructure and externalized pollution and congestion costs) that transit also needs big subsidies to compete just enough to mitigate the impact of automobile travel. We would be much better off to bring in congestion pricing and reduce income taxes. That would result in less travel overall, less pollution, less urban sprawl, and less time spent stuck in traffic for everyone.

[cganuelas1995]

Originally Posted by scottN

IMO Private automobile travel is so heavily subsidized (via taxpayer funded infrastructure and externalized pollution and congestion costs) that transit also needs big subsidies to compete just enough to mitigate the impact of automobile travel. We would be much better off to bring in congestion pricing and reduce income taxes. That would result in less travel overall, less pollution, less urban sprawl, and less time spent stuck in traffic for everyone.

As well as incentivizing offices to keep remote work a thing, or disincentivize making their office workers commute back to the office.

[officedweller]

Transit is a public service - I would not expect it to break even or make money.
Do public health care or education pay their own way?

[logicbomb]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Transit is a public service - I would not expect it to break even or make money.
Do public health care or education pay their own way?

Unfortunately many seem to think so. I'm a vehicle driver that appreciates seeing full Skytrains and buses because each person is 1 less automobile on the road and it better allows us to plan around core spaces without building massive parking structures.

North America is screwed up. I know people that would start up a revolution if their vehicle were to ever get taken away but are ok with diminishing returns in every other aspect of their lives.

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by logicbomb

North America is screwed up. I know people that would start up a revolution if their vehicle were to ever get taken away but are ok with diminishing returns in every other aspect of their lives.

Look at how mad people were at the Port Mann toll and how "good the NDP ended up being" for removing it.

It's hard to take away the candy once you've spoiled the child. We're getting there little by little though, so I have hope. Most habitual drivers I know are highly in favour of transit expansion and funding, but the mindset in these parts will continue to be "we should improve transit so we can get other drivers off the road, not me!" for a while until societal norms start to change.

[Migrant_Coconut]

In that regard, it's easier to let people discover transit than have it forced on them. Most of the comments I heard on the Canada Line when it opened were basically "hey, this is so much easier than driving!"

So I think the plan should be to get rapid transit built out to all four corners of the metro, and then the province and cities can charge whatever price for roads/bridges they want without major pushback.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by logicbomb

Unfortunately many seem to think so. I'm a vehicle driver that appreciates seeing full Skytrains and buses because each person is 1 less automobile on the road and it better allows us to plan around core spaces without building massive parking structures.

North America is screwed up. I know people that would start up a revolution if their vehicle were to ever get taken away but are ok with diminishing returns in every other aspect of their lives.

It's a bean counter mentality.
People have the option to incurr a more expensive means of transport - or any other activity for that matter, whether eating at restaurants, entertainment, vacation travel, kids' education, buying homes, renovating kitchens, etc. but that shouldn't negatively impact the public offerings.

[Lexus]

2023, Apr 25

Operation Control Centre at its Operations & Maintenance Centre 2 (OMC2) facility in Burnaby’s Edmonds area

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/translink-new-skytrain-control-centre

Untitled by Lexus LX600, on Flickr

Untitled by Lexus LX600, on Flickr

[madog222]

Excavators are working the OMC4 (North Road) site removing the existing concrete slab.

[madog222]

Translink has released their 2022 Service Performance Review.

2022 annual journeys at 70% of 2019 numbers, fall 2022 at 79% of 2019.

By service type largest recoveries are bus & Expo + Millennium line (80% & 79%), lowest is WCE (39%).
By region largest recovery is in Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows at 98% (mainly due to the start of R3 service) followed by Surrey & Langley at 93%; lowest in Vancouver at 73%.

Skytrain station with highest level of weekday recovery is Brentwood with 91% (and over 135% on the weekend) followed by the three Surrey stations with 88-89% (and almost 100% weekend).
Skytrain station with the lowest level of weekday recovery is Olympic Village with 62% followed by Waterfront at 63% (still the busiest station).

99 at 62% weekday recovery while still being the busiest bus route.
319 (future R6 route) at 100% weekday recovery.
16% of bus routes (33) at 95% weekday recovery or higher.
31% of bus routes (63) at 70% weekday recovery or lower.

Recovery % is based on fall numbers.

Summary: https://www.translink.ca/-/media/transli...2_transit_service_performance_review.pdf

Route by route data:
Bus and Seabus: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/translink/viz/2022TSPR-BusSeaBusSummaries/TheWorkbook
Skytrain and WCE: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/translink/viz/2022TSPR-RailSummaries/TableofContents

[Tvisforme]

Originally Posted by madog222

Summary: https://www.translink.ca/-/media/transli...2_transit_service_performance_review.pdf

Route by route data:
Bus and Seabus: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/translink/viz/2022TSPR-BusSeaBusSummaries/TheWorkbook
Skytrain and WCE: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/translink/viz/2022TSPR-RailSummaries/TableofContents

Thanks for this, it's quite interesting to have access to a route-by-route breakdown.

[Express691]

Note how a bunch of the top 15 or so routes are trolley routes, among which are some of which experienced large cuts during the pandemic. The 8 used to have peak frequencies of up to every 6 minutes; it ranked 19th while running every 15 minutes Monday thru Sunday. The 20 used to run 8 buses/hour peak and still ranked 8th running 4 buses/hour in 2022.

And while it would be nice to be able to see ridership at exact points along the route divided per time of day, think about how many resources that would be needed for 234 routes. That makes me glad there’s a seasonality analysis (Fall vs Summer) available on all the different routes.

Need to double check; route data for the 900 Bike bus isn’t available (until at least May 5).

[nname]

Look at the huge growth from Brentwood Station, especially on the weekends with 143% "COVID recovery"

The last time I posted the graph of station boarding count, most of the Millennium Line stations are at the bottom. Seems like it would be looking a lot better this time with Brentwood, Coquitlam Central, and Burquitlam jumping ahead of several Expo and Canada Line stations. Maybe I'll update the graph once TransLink release the CSV, as I don't want to retype all the numbers from their read-only dashboard...

[Spr0ckets]

Originally Posted by madog222

Translink has released their 2022 Service Performance Review.

2022 annual journeys at 70% of 2019 numbers, fall 2022 at 79% of 2019.

By service type largest recoveries are bus & Expo + Millennium line (80% & 79%), lowest is WCE (39%).
By region largest recovery is in Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows at 98% (mainly due to the start of R3 service) followed by Surrey & Langley at 93%; lowest in Vancouver at 73%.

Skytrain station with highest level of weekday recovery is Brentwood with 91% (and over 135% on the weekend) followed by the three Surrey stations with 88-89% (and almost 100% weekend).
Skytrain station with the lowest level of weekday recovery is Olympic Village with 62% followed by Waterfront at 63% (still the busiest station).

99 at 62% weekday recovery while still being the busiest bus route.
319 (future R6 route) at 100% weekday recovery.
16% of bus routes (33) at 95% weekday recovery or higher.
31% of bus routes (63) at 70% weekday recovery or lower.

Recovery % is based on fall numbers.

Summary: https://www.translink.ca/-/media/transli...2_transit_service_performance_review.pdf

Route by route data:
Bus and Seabus: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/translink/viz/2022TSPR-BusSeaBusSummaries/TheWorkbook
Skytrain and WCE: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/translink/viz/2022TSPR-RailSummaries/TableofContents

Fascinating.

Looking at that, I particularly found it interesting that in this post-COVID era, Metrotown is now the second highest foot-trafficked Skytrain station (in terms of boardings) after Waterfront Station - surpassing the previous number 2 in Commercial-Broadway Station, that now sees 1.3 million fewer boardings than Metrotown Station.

I'd be curious to know what the explanation for that would be, especially given the fact that Commercial-Broadway remains the only station outside Downtown Vancouver that serves as the junction for two Skytrain lines in addition to having a bus and rapidbus hub.
Granted, Metrotown has a bigger bus loop with more bus lines dropping off (and picking up) commuters to and from the Skytrain there.
And it's ostensibly a bigger commercial hub with the presence of the mall and the office towers.

But these were always true even before the pandemic when Commerical-Broadway routinely had more foot-traffic and boarding numbers.

I wonder if the change in a lot of people's work and commuting habits post-pandemic (vis-a-vis, work--from-home) might be the more straightfoward explanation since the downtown stations have likewise also seen big drops from the pre-pandemic era and haven't recovered as fast as the suburb stations.

[madog222]

Originally Posted by Spr0ckets

-snip-

Metrotown and Commercial-Broadway were already very close in weekday numbers while weekend numbers were far greater for Metrotown in 2019. For 2022 Metrotown was only slightly behind Waterfront in weekend numbers.
Metrotown is a far bigger origin/destination while Commercial-Broadway's numbers mostly come from bus transfers, mainy the 99. Besides the 49, bus routes at the Metrotown loop don't come close to the numbers on the busy Vancouver routes.

The 9, 20, and 99 combined are down 53,000 average weekday boardings (full year average) while Commercial-Broadway is only down 9000 weekday boardings. Of course, we can't see bus boarding location so this is all relative.

[Spr0ckets]

Originally Posted by madog222

Metrotown and Commercial-Broadway were already very close in weekday numbers while weekend numbers were far greater for Metrotown in 2019. For 2022 Metrotown was only slightly behind Waterfront in weekend numbers.
Metrotown is a far bigger origin/destination while Commercial-Broadway's numbers mostly come from bus transfers, mainy the 99. Besides the 49, bus routes at the Metrotown loop don't come close to the numbers on the busy Vancouver routes.

The 9, 20, and 99 combined are down 53,000 average weekday boardings (full year average) while Commercial-Broadway is only down 9000 weekday boardings. Of course, we can't see bus boarding location so this is all relative.

Intersting.

If I'm understanding your reading correctly, it might be down to the fact that Metrotown is more of a destination/origin while Commercial-Broadway is more purely a transfer transit hub - with not as much foot traffic either purely originating from there, or going to there (...that's not doing so for the express purpose of transfer to and from the buses).

That might make sense.

I guess it would be another argument in favour of increasing the densification around the Commercial-Broadway area - both in residential and office/retail.

The fact that's its one of the top three busiest and most trafficked transit hubs in the GVA region and looks the way it does in the immediate surrounding area (in terms of density) must be one of the biggest jokes this side of the Fraser river.

There's quite a bit of construction activity going on around Metrotown right now for new highrises and housing, as well as retail, so that local traffic to and from the station is only going to increase in the coming years - and probably even more so when they introduce the Metrotown-Brentwood Rapidbus or skytrain extension (Whichever route they end up deciding to go a couple of decades from now).

[dpogue]

Originally Posted by Spr0ckets

Fascinating.

Looking at that, I particularly found it interesting that in this post-COVID era, Metrotown is now the second highest foot-trafficked Skytrain station (in terms of boardings) after Waterfront Station - surpassing the previous number 2 in Commercial-Broadway Station, that now sees 1.3 million fewer boardings than Metrotown Station.

I'd be curious to know what the explanation for that would be, especially given the fact that Commercial-Broadway remains the only station outside Downtown Vancouver that serves as the junction for two Skytrain lines in addition to having a bus and rapidbus hub.
Granted, Metrotown has a bigger bus loop with more bus lines dropping off (and picking up) commuters to and from the Skytrain there.
And it's ostensibly a bigger commercial hub with the presence of the mall and the office towers.

But these were always true even before the pandemic when Commerical-Broadway routinely had more foot-traffic and boarding numbers.

I wonder if the change in a lot of people's work and commuting habits post-pandemic (vis-a-vis, work--from-home) might be the more straightfoward explanation since the downtown stations have likewise also seen big drops from the pre-pandemic era and haven't recovered as fast as the suburb stations.

It sounds like the report data comes from Compass taps, and transfers at Commercial-Broadway between the Expo and Millennium Lines happen within the fare-paid zone, so there is no Compass tapping to track there.

[twoNeurons]

Speaking of Compass, I saw a note on their Instagram feed that they have a team looking into Digital versions of the card. I was impressed by the ease of use of the Clipper system in San Francisco recently. As someone who doesn't use transit daily, I can't count how many compass cards I've misplaced somewhere... and now that I don't carry my wallet everywhere, compass on Apple Pay would be fantastic.

Of course... "looking into it" could just be lip service... as I notice LOTS of people are making comments on their IG feed whenever tapping comes up that they'd love to have a digital Compass card.

Any insiders here hear any rumblings of progress on actually implementing a digital wallet Compass card? I bet Seattle gets one for their ORCA before we do!