Metro Vancouver Transit Discussion

[Alpine]

I've been looking over phase one of Translink's 10 year plan. And from reading it, and seeing no Burnaby/New West improvements outside of the 106/123/130 (apart from 128/old route 154 peak hour headways increasing to 20 minutes), I've been asking myself what sort of solutions there are to fix the non-FTN Burnaby/New West bus network. 101, 112/C9, 116, 129, 134/136, 144, etc.

I live on of these forgotten routes, the 136, with a 144 stop a being about an extra 6-7 minutes' walk. When I first moved to Burnaby in 2009, the 136 ran every 15 minutes during peak hours. Ever since then, I've seen service being gradually whittled away; 20 minute peak hour service, hourly service after 10pm, shuttles on weekends/holidays, 30 minute peak hour service. Out of interest I was looking through some back numbers of the Buzzer, and it turned out that the 136 had 15 minute peak hour headways way back in the 90s, back when it started at Kootenay Loop and turned at Hastings and Holdom.

As for the 144, it switches to 30 minute headways after 6pm, resulting in not a few passups around Hastings/Duthie and coming down Burnaby Mountain. With all the evening classes and late-night studiers at SFU, I'm shocked that there isn't 15 or even 20 minute service until 9pm. Furthermore, the 144 is prone to getting stuck in traffic on Canada Way (as well as construction at Metrotown/City Hall in the past 12 months). It's bad luck that Canada Way between Burris and Sperling is pretty clogged during rush hour.

The 116 (the only bus serving Glenylon Business Park) has been reduced to skeleton service, the 101 (which is the only bus that is close to my MLA's constituency office) is hourly service 7 days a week. I can't help but be a little bit resentful that Burnaby/New West service has been cut over the last eight years while CoV service has been beefed up substantially.

Unfortunately, I think it's hard to justify increases in service for these routes. They service relatively affluent (the 144 goes up Burris near Buckingham Heights, the wealthiest neighbourhood in Burnaby), low-density, car-oriented areas, mainly consisting of detached residential housing, where you're not going to have a lot of bus riders anyway. At least, not like a route like the 319 or the 430, which would be far more deserving of service increases. Another problem is Burnaby's labyrinthe road network. Apart from the area south and east of Edmonds, the roads aren't in a clean grid like CoV's. This further complicates routing and optimizations.

What ideas do you have for a hypothetical Burnaby/New West bus restructure?

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by Alpine

I've been looking over phase one of Translink's 10 year plan. And from reading it, and seeing no Burnaby/New West improvements outside of the 106/123/130 (apart from 128/old route 154 peak hour headways increasing to 20 minutes), I've been asking myself what sort of solutions there are to fix the non-FTN Burnaby/New West bus network. 101, 112/C9, 116, 129, 134/136, 144, etc.

...

What ideas do you have for a hypothetical Burnaby/New West bus restructure?

That's one of the reasons some of the people at TransLink know my name - I routinely e-mail them 'before and after' maps of the transit network. I've done most of the region but Burnaby is one of the areas I pay more attention to as I live here.

The maps I send are all about routes, not frequency or vehicle size. My thing has been about reducing route overlap (there's a lot in Bby) and spacing out the routes in a more grid-like fashion. You want to see a mess, look at the overlap of the 116, C6 and C7 south of Metrotown - how does that make any logical sense (and it's almost entirely SFH).

You should try drawing out the current routes and see what you can make of it. It would be interesting to see how similar or not our versions turn out.

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by nname

Ticket expires 120 minutes after tap in in all scenario. If your tap in within the 90min transfer window, it let you in. If your ticket already expired before you tap in, it won't let you in. Once you get in, you get 120min no matter when the ticket was first used.

I just cannot imagine someone would have to spend more than 120min in the system. If you tap out to grab subway or A&W, you get another 120min again when you tap in.

This is from the Ferry to Royal Oak station:
Jan-04-2017 04:27 PM Tap out at Royal Oak Stn Stored Value $1.05
Jan-04-2017 04:01 PM Transfer at Waterfront Stn Stored Value -$1.05
Jan-04-2017 03:52 PM Tap out at Waterfront Stn Stored Value $1.05
Jan-04-2017 03:29 PM Transfer at Bridgeport Stn Stored Value -$2.10
Jan-04-2017 02:46 PM Tap in at Bus Stop 61767 Stored Value -$2.10

That's 1 hour and 41 minutes from the time the Bus was boarded to the time the Skytrain was exited. Note there was only 6 minutes between the initial tap-in and the tapout at Waterfront before that 90 minute transfer window would have been closed. It can take quite a while to load the bus at Tsawwassen

From the same station to the Ferry Terminal
Dec-12-2016 05:38 PM Transfer at Bus Stop 61324 Stored Value $0.00
Dec-12-2016 05:16 PM Tap out at Bridgeport Stn Stored Value $1.05
Dec-12-2016 04:52 PM Transfer at Waterfront Stn Stored Value -$1.05
Dec-12-2016 04:49 PM Tap out at Waterfront Stn Stored Value $1.05
Dec-12-2016 04:22 PM Tap in at Royal Oak Stn Stored Value -$4.20

That is 1 hour 16 minutes.

I will note that the person behind me on that day was told to buy another ticket because their transfer had expired, having arrived much earlier than I did.

You only get "another 120 min" if you pay for another fare, I'm not sure how you equate someone being able to spend all day on one bus fare if they constantly board a new transit mode every 90 minutes.

http://www.translink.ca/en/Fares-and-Passes/Compass-Card.aspx

You have 90-minutes on bus, SkyTrain, and SeaBus (and 120 minutes with a West Coast Express fare) to make your final transfer without being charged a new fare.

[ilikeredheads]

^You have 90min to make as many transfer, so you can tap in as many times during that period. However, you have 120min of in-system time starting from the last transfer before the fare expires. This in-system time is only relevant on skytrain/seabus because you don't tap out on buses. Basically if you hang around INSIDE the farezone for over 2 hours, your ticket will expire and you'll need a new fare to tap out. Using your first example, your last transfer was at 4:01pm at waterfront. That means if you tap out after 6:01pm, your ticket will expire. It's really just a measure to prevent people from loitering inside the system.

http://www.translink.ca/en/Fares-and-Passes/Single-Fares.aspx

In your examples, it's actually cheaper and probably faster to take 430 instead of taking the canada line to downtown.

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by ilikeredheads

^You have 90min to make as many transfer, so you can tap in as many times during that period. However, you have 120min of in-system time starting from the last transfer before the fare expires. This in-system time is only relevant on skytrain/seabus because you don't tap out on buses. Basically if you hang around INSIDE the farezone for over 2 hours, your ticket will expire and you'll need a new fare to tap out. Using your first example, your last transfer was at 4:01pm at waterfront. That means if you tap out after 6:01pm, your ticket will expire. It's really just a measure to prevent people from loitering inside the system.

http://www.translink.ca/en/Fares-and-Passes/Single-Fares.aspx

In your examples, it's actually cheaper and probably faster to take 430 instead of taking the canada line to downtown.

It's 22 minutes longer, and depends on the direction.

Expo->Canada->630 = 1 hour 22 minutes
630->Canada->Expo = 1 hour 31 minutes

Expo->430->630 = 1 hour 19 minutes, every 30 minutes
630->430>Expo = 1 hour 44 minutes

At any rate, that is not the understanding I get from any of the website information, the website information essentially says you have 120 minutes. Period, from where you start your trip, not the last time you tap the card.

If it was otherwise, then it would not be consistent with how the previous ticket system worked. Since you can't prevent people from leaving a bus with an expired fare, you also can't do much about it either, since the only point in the system that it could expire, thus requiring an exit ticket is while on the train.

[ilikeredheads]

Not many people know about this 120min in-system time because Translink doesn't talk about it much, if at all, and this was only implemented when the compass/faregates were added. People has known the about 90min transfer window because that's how it has always been, and it still is. My guess is that Translink chose not to talk about it to avoid potential confusion (like right now) and that 90min transfer window remains the same.

Also, do not confuse the 120min in-system time with the 120min transfer window that WCE passengers get. I think this is that's what happening here. They are NOT the same. WCE fares get a longer transfer window because a trip from Waterfront to Mission takes 1h15min, so a 90min transfer window doesn't benefit these passengers.

This is actually pretty straight forward. From your first tap-in, your transfer window begins. (90min for everything except WCE, 120min for WCE). During this transfer window, you can make as many transfer as you want (tap in). However, if you tap in after this time period has expired, it'll automatically count as a second fare.

For in-system time, it starts at your last transfer (last tap-in). You now have 120min to tap out. Buses do not apply because there's no tapping out on buses, and the driver will kick you out when he/she reaches the terminus anyways, so this in-system time is only relevant if your last segment of your trip is on skytrain or seabus. As I said previously, this 120min in-system time is to deter people from loitering within the skytrain/seabus.

And this brings me back to the article from the vancouversun. Those people needed an exit ticket because 1 of 3 things:
1) they lost their ticket during the trip.
2) they spent over 2 hours on the skytrain/seabus without tapping out.
3) they did not have sufficient fare (eg. paid for 1 zone ticket but trip was 2 zone), but their transfer window had expired, so they couldn't get addfare.

tldr: Transfer window is not in-system time. They are 2 different things. Your transfer window starts at your first tap in. In-system time starts at your last tap in and you have 120min to tap out.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by ilikeredheads

Not many people know about this 120min in-system time because Translink doesn't talk about it much, if at all

I don't know about that. I seem to remember it was talked about on both the Buzzer Blog and on their Ask Compass site.

[nname]

Originally Posted by ilikeredheads

And this brings me back to the article from the vancouversun. Those people needed an exit ticket because 1 of 3 things:
1) they lost their ticket during the trip.
2) they spent over 2 hours on the skytrain/seabus without tapping out.
3) they did not have sufficient fare (eg. paid for 1 zone ticket but trip was 2 zone), but their transfer window had expired, so they couldn't get addfare.

Being a regular rider on the 169 for quite some time, I can tell you that the majority is most likely #3. When bus was still 3-zones fare, there are just so many who tried to get on the 169 at Braid with one-zone zone 1 ticket. I've even seen a group of people trying to get away with only a zone 1->2 concession add-fare and claiming that they don't understand the fare system (and yet they know how to go through layers of menu and find the "add fare without magnetic strip" option to get the cheapest ticket that can be purchased from the machine)

[GlassCity]

So TransLink has announced that thanks to the Phase One funding they have increased SkyTrain frequencies to start, and that this happened Monday. Yet the Canada Line has stayed at its regular 3:20 headway. What am I missing or misunderstanding here?

[Kisai]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

So TransLink has announced that thanks to the Phase One funding they have increased SkyTrain frequencies to start, and that this happened Monday. Yet the Canada Line has stayed at its regular 3:20 headway. What am I missing or misunderstanding here?

They haven't bought more Trains for the Canada Line, so they can't change that short of using the spares they have. Or maybe they meant the Skytrain (eg Expo) and not the Canada Line.

[madog222]

Originally Posted by Kisai

They haven't bought more Trains for the Canada Line, so they can't change that short of using the spares they have. Or maybe they meant the Skytrain (eg Expo) and not the Canada Line.

As part of the service increase Canada Line will be running will all trains in service during peak hours, with no spares, until new trains are purchased and put in service.

[TransitJack]

Canada Line is at 3:08 with 18 trains during the AM/PM peaks Mon-Fri only.

Mid day its still 3:20, with 16 trains.

I wouldn't expect any change until the new trains arrive, maybe in 3-5 years.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by TransitJack

Canada Line is at 3:08 with 18 trains during the AM/PM peaks Mon-Fri only.

Mid day its still 3:20, with 16 trains.

I wouldn't expect any change until the new trains arrive, maybe in 3-5 years.

Oh, 3:08 eh, that explains it. Just not big enough to notice a difference. Thank you!

[WarrenC12]

Didn't the Canada Line change to more trains going to/from Brighouse during the rush? Is that still the case?

[Rico]

I didn't think they were running 'extra' trains at rush hour at all, I thought they were 'extending' the time they were running a rush hour schedule of trains...till they get the new trains....

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Rico

I didn't think they were running 'extra' trains at rush hour at all, I thought they were 'extending' the time they were running a rush hour schedule of trains...till they get the new trains....

That is what Skytrain is doing, Canada line may be doing something different.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

That is what Skytrain is doing, Canada line may be doing something different.

I guess I'm wrong, but didn't Canada Line purchase +/- 10 or so more trainsets? This allows for higher frequency any time of day. With 90-second headways, it would do the trick.

[idunno]

Canada Line is using all of its trains now at peak periods. Skytrain has no more trains to use, so yes, it is extending its peak period frequencies to a wider time frame.

I didn't know that Phase 1 included purchasing more Canada Line cars. I had thought that was under phase 2.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by idunno

Canada Line is using all of its trains now at peak periods. Skytrain has no more trains to use, so yes, it is extending its peak period frequencies to a wider time frame.

I didn't know that Phase 1 included purchasing more Canada Line cars. I had thought that was under phase 2.

Rail upgrades as a part of Phase 1:

Rail fleet
Purchase 28 new rail cars for the Expo Line and Millennium Line and purchase 22 new rail cars for the Canada Line to expand the SkyTrain fleet, as well as purchase replacement rail cars to maintain and modernize the SkyTrain fleet.

Purchase five new West Coast Express cars and one new locomotive to expand the West Coast Express fleet

If I look at the spending timeline, it appears the new cars will be ordered in 2017-2018 for Canada line and Expo, then there is more spending around 2023-2024, which I'm guessing is replacement of Mk1 Expo line cars.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Didn't the Canada Line change to more trains going to/from Brighouse during the rush? Is that still the case?

Last year they added one more train from Brighouse in rush hour - that's probably what you're thinking of.