TransLink proposes tolls on all Metro bridges

[wouwou]

Originally Posted by Tapioca

The 99 B-Line runs every 2-3 minutes during rush hour when UBC is in session. Granville St, Main St., and Victoria/Commercial drive have buses running every 5 minutes during rush hour. You can only put so many buses on a road before they become an impediment as opposed to a convenience.

People say that transit should be run like a business. Fine, services would be cut, but people would complain anyway.

CEO pay is a drop in the bucket. What's a suitable salary - 50K/year? A bus costs 150-200K; if we were to halve the CEO's pay, we'd be able to buy one bus.

I don't think people are having problem with the high salary the CEO of translike is getting.

I think the problem is more towards someone getting a high salary but his company is DOING A CRAPPY JOB.

[Vansterdam]

translink = dosent make profit i beleive if anything with all their upcoming plans and projectors i beleive their already down a couple million from what i remember reading.

who the fuck gave translink the right to regulate/maintence all of our bridges?

[CP.AR]

but again... the turnstiles/ticketing upgrades will NOT work unless it is ENFORCED. Some people here lack the discipline required to function within the confines of the rules in our society - I can already imagine teenagers "jumping" gates or merely crawling under. I would hate for our skytrain turnstiles to become like Toronto's, where they have giant steel fences like a jail.

And yes, an octopus system would work here... and it would be really nice not having to wait for an entire line of people to put in their change, get a transfer; or put the transfer in and wait for it to come out again.


and Oh yeah - Canada Line opens August 17th. I wonder how long until I see vandalism in the stations/train cars *sigh*

[StylinRed]

i love how everbody who is able has their hand out asking/demanding more money saying how there isn't enough for them to operate... yet its been operating fine for decades and decades off of taxes

and taxes(and tax revenue) has gone up more than inflation

[Ax2-Y]

from what i have been told, translink would not be allowed to toll both north shore bridges as there must be atleast one way for people to travel to and from the city free of charge...

now, what this will do it just divert even more traffic to which ever bridge that is not tolled and make the morning commute even worse... i dont see how proposal will be allowed...

[!LittleDragon]

Originally Posted by azndude69

NY has one of the best systems in the world IMHO.

I agree, NYC's system works very well but I have noticed one thing. While it does a great job of getting people around, it separates the population. When I was there, I took the subway to Manhattan from JFK and there was nothing but poor to middle class folks along with a few students. Go above ground and it's all business folk who can afford the sky high parking.

[jimzilla]

time to move to alberta

[Hot Karl]

Originally Posted by CounterPuncher

He didn't build the metro in NYC though, the fucker just managed the system.

so if we were to steadily improve our transit system, to one day be as good as NYC, we'd have to start getting money and building stuff right? or did you think that one day we'd just wave a magic wand and have a train system like nyc or london or beijing?

it's always bitching and moaning but it needs to be done. like the sea to sky highway, the canada line and golden ears. i personally don't use any of those in my day to day. not even close. but i realize shit needs to get done. i got to benefit via the lougheed skytrain. just take what you can get. or move. deal with it.

i know folks who only find apartments based on skytrain accessibility. if they can do it, you can move closer to your job.

[ziggyx]

Originally Posted by Hot Karl

so if we were to steadily improve our transit system, to one day be as good as NYC, we'd have to start getting money and building stuff right? or did you think that one day we'd just wave a magic wand and have a train system like nyc or london or beijing?

it's always bitching and moaning but it needs to be done. like the sea to sky highway, the canada line and golden ears. i personally don't use any of those in my day to day. not even close. but i realize shit needs to get done. i got to benefit via the lougheed skytrain. just take what you can get. or move. deal with it.

i know folks who only find apartments based on skytrain accessibility. if they can do it, you can move closer to your job.

I think that most people here wouldn't mind giving translink a little bit more money. But most people are bitching about how stupid translink is with their money and the kind of service they give us. They lose revenue over stupid stuff such as not having turn pikes at skytrain stations. So in order to make up for this stupidity they choose to charge people to go over bridges?

But the revenue they lose from skytrain hoppers is no where near to the revenue they would gain from charging people to drive over bridges so I dont know...

Our public transportation system sucks shit but it's not the worst (at least i don't think so).

[Tapioca]

Originally Posted by ziggyx

I think that most people here wouldn't mind giving translink a little bit more money. But most people are bitching about how stupid translink is with their money and the kind of service they give us.

When people mention 'service', what does that actually mean? Public transportation can't be all things to all people - the system has to make compromises in order to provide an adequate level of service at a reasonable cost. For my needs, I find the service pretty darn good, but I happen to live in an area that is within a 5 minute walk of a Skytrain station. From my observations, the people who complain about 'service' often live in areas where it does not make economic sense to provide the same levels of service to those who live in denser communities (i.e. a bus running every 5 minutes).

Should BC Transit have installed turnstiles way back in 1986? In hindsight, yes, but they risk-managed and went with an honour system instead. At least they're going to do it right now and install a distance-SmartCard system.

[CounterPuncher]

Originally Posted by Hot Karl

so if we were to steadily improve our transit system, to one day be as good as NYC, we'd have to start getting money and building stuff right? or did you think that one day we'd just wave a magic wand and have a train system like nyc or london or beijing?

it's always bitching and moaning but it needs to be done. like the sea to sky highway, the canada line and golden ears. i personally don't use any of those in my day to day. not even close. but i realize shit needs to get done. i got to benefit via the lougheed skytrain. just take what you can get. or move. deal with it.

i know folks who only find apartments based on skytrain accessibility. if they can do it, you can move closer to your job.

Buddy, stfu.

Our infrastructure was built without future proofing it, we made no considerations for subways, population growth, or even busses.

Any attempt now that we make to update our transit systems will be two things, 1) really expensive 2) inadequate.

Speaking of that Sea to Sky Highway, how is adding 1 more lane going to help anyone? All it's going to do is add choke points, because honestly, where are two lanes of traffic going to go when they have to funnel into one?

My point isn't that it needs to be done, but that it needs to be done WELL. Which is something translink fails to grasp, at the same time they want us to pay an insane amount to ride on a system that is hopelessly inadequate.

[misteranswer]

Originally Posted by CounterPuncher

Any attempt now that we make to update our transit systems will be two things, 1) really expensive 2) inadequate.

Why do you think that?

[CounterPuncher]

Originally Posted by misteranswer

Why do you think that?

Because we didn't plan for any of this and the fact that vancouver is primarily settled on granite, one of the hardest substances to blow through, or drill through makes drilling underground tunnels one fucking expensive proposition.

As well, like I said, we had no foresight to plan for any of this stuff, and we have the complications of being surrounded by water which always makes things expensive.

In addition, unless we plan on being like China and just knocking people's houses down, we can't design an efficient transit system because we're limited to building under pre existing roads.

Not to mention the fact there is absolutely nothing we can do to make our roads larger.

To quote my girlfriends Vancouver Guide, Vancouver's infrastructure was 20 years out of date, 20 years ago.

[anti_rice]

did you know that the federal government also grants more money to provinces in the east for transit and infrastructure then they do here in the west. We get shafted by the federal government. Provinces back east gets almost double what we get.

[Tapioca]

Originally Posted by CounterPuncher

Buddy, stfu.
My point isn't that it needs to be done, but that it needs to be done WELL. Which is something translink fails to grasp, at the same time they want us to pay an insane amount to ride on a system that is hopelessly inadequate.

To be fair to Translink, they didn't build the Skytrain in the 80s - the provincial government, under BC Transit, did. I can understand the lack of foresight with the Skytrain because it was built mainly as showpiece for Expo86. But, heck, even the old system is more future-proof than the 'new' Canada Line. So much for public-private partnerships, eh?

But, honestly, up until the 1980s, Vancouver saw itself as a small town which explained the infrastructure, or lack thereof. It wasn't until Expo86 and the wave of immigration in the 1990s that made people realize that we needed to upgrade our infrastruture to accomodate all of the people (and cars.)

I don't think Hot Karl is too off the mark though. Given the constraints of our natural environment (as you rightly point out), the only way to make our system more 'efficient' is to increase density (which is what the Millenium Line and Surrey Central have done to a certain extent.) Not everyone works in a stationary office, but not every family of 4 needs 2500 square feet either.

did you know that the federal government also grants more money to provinces in the east for transit and infrastructure then they do here in the west. We get shafted by the federal government. Provinces back east gets almost double what we get.

Do you have proof of this? This made sense in the 60s and 70s because Toronto (and to a lesser extent Montreal) was where the bulk of the people and businesses were located.

The federal government funded part of the Canada Line and it's providing funding for the Evergreen Line. It has also provided funding for a number of Translink's smaller projects such as the Central Valley Greenway and the Main St. restoration.

[CounterPuncher]

Originally Posted by anti_rice

did you know that the federal government also grants more money to provinces in the east for transit and infrastructure then they do here in the west. We get shafted by the federal government. Provinces back east gets almost double what we get.

LOL, where did you hear this? Under the federal transfer payment system BC was a have not province for a very long time. Only recently have we started paying out more than we have been receiving.

The Easten provinces for the longest time were paying us money.

Not to mention a lot of their infrastructure is privatized and tolled.

Please do some research.

[CounterPuncher]

Originally Posted by Tapioca

To be fair to Translink, they didn't build the Skytrain in the 80s - the provincial government, under BC Transit, did. I can understand the lack of foresight with the Skytrain because it was built mainly as showpiece for Expo86. But, heck, even the old system is more future-proof than the 'new' Canada Line. So much for public-private partnerships, eh?

But, honestly, up until the 1980s, Vancouver saw itself as a small town which explained the infrastructure, or lack thereof. It wasn't until Expo86 and the wave of immigration in the 1990s that made people realize that we needed to upgrade our infrastruture to accomodate all of the people (and cars.)

I don't think Hot Karl is too off the mark though. Given the constraints of our natural environment (as you rightly point out), the only way to make our system more 'efficient' is to increase density (which is what the Millenium Line and Surrey Central have done to a certain extent.) Not everyone works in a stationary office, but not every family of 4 needs 2500 square feet either.



Do you have proof of this? This made sense in the 60s and 70s because Toronto (and to a lesser extent Montreal) was where the bulk of the people and businesses were located.

The federal government funded part of the Canada Line and it's providing funding for the Evergreen Line. It has also provided funding for a number of Translink's smaller projects such as the Central Valley Greenway and the Main St. restoration.

I agree with what your saying, except for the fact that if we're going to do it we need to do it well.

Independently I think the Canada Line isn't worth shit, but if we can get a few more lines running along broadway and alone 41st and stuff it would be a start.

The problem is it won't be cheap because we can't build in a straight line.