The Official Transit Thread

[inane]

http://regardingplace.com/?p=9311

Look at Vancouver---build more rail!!!!

[ronthecivil]

Sure. Where do you want it?

I suggest a business plan that's voter friendly to boot. Right now were still short on at least one rail extension.

As for conventional surface rail by all means I support putting back the interurban up to a connection with skytrain but we would have to widen the train tracks (aka build another track) from cloverdale to chilliwack.

And for the love of god can we just click on your massive image on a different screen? Yer worse than Nitro on this one.

Edited July 22, 2010 by ronthecivil

[ronthecivil]

I was on the 403 earlier today and it was terrible. I am talking about the passengers. It wasn't very full since there were only around two people standing who were going just a few stops. I counted six people who sat in the aisle seat even though there was no one in the window seat or anything placed in the window seat for that matter. There was even one ahole who had his hand out placed on the aisle seat and when I tried to sit down, he moved over to show that both seats were his. I moved to the back and asked someone if I could sit in the window seat or if he could move over and the guy shot me a dirty look and moved over. The rest of the ride was awkward.

I have never encountered so many rude people on the bus before.

You need to learn to counter the "this is mine" with the "I am taking it anways" look of death.

[inane]

Where to put it? There's no shortage of locations, just the will to do it.

Edited July 22, 2010 by inane

[ronthecivil]

Where to put it? There's no shortage of locations, just the will to do it.

It makes me money I got lots of will. Still haven't found a funding source yet though.

And yer image is still way too damn huge. Can't you just use a link!

Edited July 22, 2010 by ronthecivil

[nitronuts]

Some ridership rates are in for the Canada Line...I expected Bridgeport to be a bit higher.

http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/7357/clboarding.png

Edited July 27, 2010 by nitronuts

[inane]

source for the graphic??

[nitronuts]

The Sun.

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/More+than+crimes+plagued+Metro+transit+system+2009+data+shows/3322224/story.html#ixzz0upTTcQIM

[Buzzinator]

Is it just me, or do trains to Bridgeport slow down a bit earlier than they used to? Usually they slowed down right before the Oak St. Bridge IIRC, but now they slow down as soon as they clear the North Arm.

[TRR]

Backpacking Europe right now I don't think people in Vancouver realize how cheap transit is, not to mention how you'd be comparing apples and oranges when you compare our transit scheme to one in europe or in a metropolis. a one way ticket here for anything (london) is anywhere from £3 to $5 at least.

not to mention when you have a suburbian area in vancouver as it is, you cannot exactly attach greater vancouver the same way you can london or new york, nor even citie's half that size as it would simply be a massive job. i dont think people realize this when analyzing the sky train system. If we were to establish the Evergreen line though, i think we'd be in a decent position considering our geography.

[The Situation]

Are they still planning on building a station on 33rd avenue, 57th avenue and Capstan Way? Another three more stations would make it inefficient.

[inane]

yes but it's long term...who knows when they'll have the funding for it.

[Buggernut]

Some ridership rates are in for the Canada Line...I expected Bridgeport to be a bit higher.

http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/7357/clboarding.png

People use Templeton???

[The Situation]

People use Templeton???

My thoughts exactly, I thought Templeton and Sea Island are useless and a waste of money.

[Buggernut]

Why not commute by water in Metro Vancouver?

There are obvious benefits, but also serious challenges, to expanding marine transit

By Don Cayo, Vancouver Sun columnistAugust 13, 2010

VANCOUVER — The inlets and rivers slicing through our city create a traffic nightmare on land — a series of more or less chronic bottlenecks that lengthen commutes and shorten tempers.

Our communities and our neighbourhoods are, indeed, divided by our waterways.

But what if Metro Vancouver began using water to unify, not amplify, its divisions? Could we go beyond the SeaBus and take a page from places like Sydney, Australia, or Hong Kong, where ferries play a much greater role in moving citizens around?

The possibilities for greatly expanded water transit here seem almost endless. The experts — at least those TransLink has consulted — are wary (for some good, although not insurmountable, reasons). And the region’s track record of experiments to date is mixed.

The best success story, and it is dramatic, is the SeaBus. Since 1977, it has built a customer volume of nearly six million a year. Revenue from its 543 passengers per hour substantially exceeds its operating cost of about $900 an hour. And, I would argue, it was the driving force behind development of the charming high-density residential and commercial area around North Van’s Lonsdale Quay, as well as a big contributor to the growth and character of downtown Vancouver.

Not bad for two small boats, recently bolstered to three.

On a lesser scale — although not as small as I’d have guessed — the little False Creek ferry fleet, run by two competing companies, have carved out a worthwhile niche. They move about a million people a year, roughly one-sixth the SeaBus volume.

Rounding out the Metro water links is BC Ferries’ Bowen Island run, a handful of on-again, off-again private water taxis that quietly sprang up and then folded over the years, and a 100-year history of other ferries, the last one crossing the Fraser River at Albion, that quit running one by one as road-bridge networks came to provide cheaper alternatives.

Potential routes

In 1995 and again in 2003, TransLink studied other possibilities for ferry routes, four of them seriously:

• Snug Cove on Bowen Island to Ambleside in West Vancouver to the West End to Jericho/Kitsilano, with UBC bus links.

• Lonsdale Quay to Ambleside to the West End to Jericho/Kits, with UBC bus links.

• Deep Cove in North Vancouver to (possibly) Belcarra to Waterfront Station downtown.

• Port Moody/Ioco to Maplewood in North Vancouver to Lonsdale Quay.

The Bowen Island run was seen as the strongest contender. But, although a private operator started and has subsequently stopped a similar service, this hasn’t been pursued.

Of course, TransLink’s favoured options are by no means the only ones. Our surrounding waterways include Boundary Bay, Burrard Inlet, False Creek, Fraser River, Howe Sound, Indian Arm, Pitt River and the Strait of Georgia. Most of these, maybe all, offer potential transit routes.

Not all have equal potential, of course. It’s hard to see how Boundary Bay would fit any time soon into an economical transit scheme, for example.

But it’s worth noting that good transit can play a huge role in developing an area — for example, Lonsdale Quay.

And other places have taken their water transit well beyond Vancouver’s. Sydney, Australia — a metropolis roughly twice our size — has 31 passenger ferries that move 18 million people a year. In Hong Kong, roughly the size of Vancouver and Sydney combined, a network of 27 ferry services carry 150,000 passengers a day — 10 times the SeaBus total.

The benefits of water transit are obvious. You dodge congested roads through dense urban areas. The routes are often straight lines, much shorter than snaking through city streets to get to or from the nearest bridge. And there are no pricey roads or bridges to build and maintain.

Downsides

The thought of getting to work by water may sound alluring to commuters who’ve grown weary of crowded roads and the smell of exhaust. But, in fact, it’s not very “green” at all.

While it’s true that, depending on the route, the travel distance may be shorter, fuel consumption per passenger mile — and therefore greenhouse gas production — is much higher. This drives operating costs way higher than land-based travel.

And problems with both emissions and expenses are exacerbated because boats burn not just more fuel, but a lot more fuel, when they speed up.

Since the success of any transit venture depends on being able to make a given trip both faster and cheaper than other options, this creates a dilemma. Faster costs a lot more; slower turns off would-be customers.

Capital costs — even though no roads or rails are needed — are also daunting, although it helps that publicly owned land would likely be available for terminals to serve most routes.

And there’s weather. It affects everything to do with boats.

For one thing, it costs more to buck a headwind, and in more exposed waters it can be uncomfortable, unsafe, or both.

If sailings had to be periodically cancelled because of weather — and that’s easy to imagine in the case of a run from, say, West Van to Jericho — potential riders might balk at the unreliability.

Reliability would be improved on more exposed routes with bigger boats better able to weather a gale, but this would increase the capital costs of the vessels and their terminals, as well as the operating cost. And it would be more challenging to keep them full, or nearly so.

This raises a final issue that may tempt TransLink to drag its heels in pursuing more ferry routes. It’s the question of who would ride in the boats if new ones were put into service.

In some cases — say, if the Fraser River ever starts to carry passengers along with its working-boat traffic — it’s realistic to assume a lot of new passengers might be tempted on board. But other routes — say, West Van to Jericho, which might mainly appeal to UBC students and staff — would, if it were a sufficiently attractive option, probably just empty the express buses that make the run now.

dcayo@vancouversun.com

© Copyright © The Vancouver Sun

http://www.vancouversun.com/commute+water+Metro+Vancouver/3397178/story.html

[The Situation]

http://www.vancouver...7178/story.html

A good read, I was thinking about that for from Waterfront to UBC.

[nitronuts]

It's a good idea in theory, but it's going to require quite a bit more money for it to be truly a feasible way to travel - in that it needs to be quick and there needs to be frequent bus connections at every ferry terminal.

Modeling it after Sydney's ferry system would be most ideal.

[kesler#17]

Sea island Centre is useless .

[dragon]

lakecity and sperling stations have been built for a while, but they still do not realize that was a waste of money, so they decide to build a station at templeton

i still don't understand why wouldn't they build an express route from richmond to delta, then link to newwest

those are the major stations

people from past east burnaby have to travel all the way to waterfront to transfer to richmond....stupid!!!

if funding is the problem, they should do a better job making sure everyone pays the fare

i find it ridiculous how some people without enough money just throws a quarter and hoping the driver will let them ride...it should be fair that eveyone has to pay...if they don't have enough money, they shouldn't get to ride and they should've thought ahead before they tossed their coins into the slot

drivers should only let people ride for free when it's late, in a rural area, or disabled/old people...but then they should get a warning

transit police should be made more readily available and mobile to charge people with petty theft if they don't pay and continue to ride....bus drivers should have the authority to tell them whether they can or cannot get on the bus but it should be left to the transit police to deal with these stuff if it aggresses

im sure they will see a rise in funding if they make sure everyone pays the fare

[Common sense]

Happy 1 year to the Canada Line!