Where should mass transit be?
 

Maybe an overdone topic but I find that skytrain going out to the far out suburbs to be the most inefficient thing our city is doing. We shouldn't be spending billions so that someone who chose to live 40 mins away can get to downtown in 30 mins. Most of these people are still driving to the skytrain station. Mean while someone who lives in the city who decides to take public transportation doubles or triples their travel time. And so a lot of them drive.

No one finds it ridiculous that someone that lives say in the west end of downtown wants to go to a canucks game has to take a bus and probably still take a half hour while someone who lives in surrey by a skytrain station can get there in the same time?

My conclusion is that it's easier to get people in the city, where everywhere they want to go is close together, than to get people in the suburbs, where everything around them is far apart, to take transit. Am I crazy to think this? We can't make a train to every suburb but we can make trains that reach most people in the city.
Instead we increase taxes on gas which most inner city people still need to get around the city, to supplement people who live 1000 times away

Pornmaster, Lomac and DsZ24 are you saying you agree with building more infrastructure to the burbs instead of in the city where most of the people live?

Mass transit should be where people choose to live even if it is in the "boonies"... .if you have money to buy house in the city good for you...some people don't...
If you like living in a 500sq ft box, do it by all means...and I'd some people like to live in a bigger place then that's their choice but don't think that because now the city has more poeople that all our tax money should just go to one area

it takes you 30mins from the west end of downtown to get to the stadium? :crazy2: wut

takes me 30mins to drive from the boonies to the stadium :P

It doesn't make sense to you to have areas with the densest population out of their cars but rather build a skytrain to a sparsely populated area where people who are going to use the train will probably have to drive to it anyways?
I'm talking walking or taking public transportation. There's more people living downtown. so there will be more of them going to a game. Would we rather they to all drive and park or do we want the fewer people who live in coquitlam to drive?

Last time I was in downtown, it took me only 30 minutes to WALK from stanley park to BC Place.

No it doesn't make sense to place rapid transit where the city is densest. It makes sense to place transit along the corridor where RIDERSHIP will be the greatest, which happens to be to/from the suburbs.

^^^^ lol agreed ;)


Minoru are you referring to the evergreen line?

coquitlam isn't exactly sparsely populated.. and it serves as a transportation hub for cities further out

so the evergreen line services coq/poco/pitt/ridge/mission which equals roughly 300,000 people (half of vancouvers population)

What I fear is that with the ever green line, our currently skytrain system will be overload.

Even now taking the skytrain during rush hour you have to wait 3 trains or more. Think aobut when all these ppl from the ever green line? Is going to add so much stree to the current system.

Having more skytrains running will not solve this issue simply becasue ppl near the end station (Surrey centeral, Coq center, lougheed mall) will just get on and by the time it reaches some of the stations in BBY, Vancouver the trains will be full and ppl won't be able to get on.

I am against this ever green line project till they figure out to move ppl smoothly again having more skytrains will not solve this issue.

Coquitlam isn't the boonies.

If you live downtown, it takes no time to get anywhere downtown. Doesn't matter if you're at Stanley Park, and want to get to Yaletown. It's not going to take 30 min unless you walk slow.

Here's where you lose me:
What point are you trying to make with this thread? From the first post, it looks like you want more Skytrain in downtown vs "the boonies". And then you close off with an argument for more mass transit in Coquitlam.

Stylin, does it make sense to try to get the 600k people who live in the city to get out of their cars instead? Out of towners could drive around the city with way less congestion.

Your examples isn't really accurate. It doesn't take 30 mins from Surrey to go to a Canucks game. Surrey is large, larger then Vancouver. It could take as long as 20-30 minutes just to drive to the skytrain then you have to park, walk to the train get on ect... More like an hour to an hour and a half being realistic. It's faster for me to drive to a game which is what I do, I wouldn't waste my time on the train. If you think the transit in the burbs is great you've clearly never used it.

I could make the same argument. I never use transit because it's so useless and it's actually me living in the burbs subsidizing transit users all over the LM, just sayin.

That's the amount of time I said. Buses are right there when you show up either.

Great68 seems to disagree with you on the walking time.

anyways downtown residents aside, how about just the people on the west side?

I realize I shouldn't have used the word boonies cause it offends people. Editing it out of the OP

Seems like you agree with me that a skytrain to Surrey is uselss cause you'd rather drive anyways.

the people who live downtown and only need to travel downtown are less likely to drive within the area to begin with. your traffic congestion comes from the large number of people who have to travel there from other suburbs/cities but do not have access to convenient transit. improving or adding transit to downtown from the outskirts would improve traffic flow for the whole of downtown, since less people would have to drive from further away.

if you already live in the city, and you're still driving even though you're travelling within the city, then you (not YOU you) are the problem. is it going to take building a skytrain station outside your front door before you're willing to take transit?

saving you the 5 or 10 minutes of travel within the city is nothing compared to saving somebody else 30 to 45 minutes of travel coming from the outskirts.

Then why would you take the fucking Bus?

Well there's no public transportation for my working hours. I don't live downtown but it's a 7 minute drive for me to get there with no traffic but it could be a 15 min wait for a bus and a 20 min ride with all the stops. But the nearest station is a 20 min walk but I doubt it's anywhere near as close to most people who live in Vancouver.

I know everybody wants to have a car. We're trying to have less cars on the road and having more pub transportation in the city where there's more poepel will get more cars off the road. If you live far away from everything, should you expect to not have to drive?

Sorry I meant they aren't there. I see you saw what I meant. Thank you. If you already took the trouble and spent the money to live near the central business district, should have to make a 30 mins commute to go to a hockey game?
Yes major problem. More tracks in the city would mean less people taking the same routes as the people from the burbs. eg Someone in Southeast Van could take a differnt route instead of heading east with the Surrey people.

I agree it's useless as is but I don't agree that it takes someone in the West end the same amount of time to get to GM Place as it does someone in the burbs. I just thought your example was bunk but I have no problem with them improving transit to get people out of cars.

A line from commercial to UBC with stop at cambie and Alma (where most riders are heading) would be a God send. Or one going out to Aldergrove through Langley.

Taking up to two hours to get to boundary from UBC or even four hours on a bad day to get into Vancouver from Abbotsford is what should really be looked at when considering where to go with translink.

Inner city (downtown Vancouver) transit shouldn't a major concern considering all the space being dedicated to bike lanes, bus lanes, hov lanes, and parkades.

Yes.

Alright, my example aside, do you think improving transit within the city is more effective than improving transportation for people outside of the city? I'm thinking there would be less traffic once you're in the city, more parking available and once you have paid for parking you'd be more easily able to hope on a train or bus if you wanted to go to another part of the city instead of driving there finding and paying for another parking spot
But that's the point of moving there, if not of course I dont want to live where it's cramped. What happened to you get what you pay for?

you just proved my point. You dont live downtown. you dont live along a convenient transit path (and when i say convenient, i mean having a station outside your front door). Hence, you drive into the city. just like every other person who does not have convenient access to transit, regardless of how far they are.

your idea that adding more transit locations closer to downtown would get a greater number of people out of their cars is flawed. you are assuming that there are a greater number of people that need to head downtown from (let's say) your area, because you are closer, than compared to coquitlam. if this was truly the case, the ever green line would not be considered. there is a very large demand for transit from that side and the west coast express is not enough to meet that demand.

instead of someone from coquitlam driving 30 minutes+, they can just take transit now. that's someone else's 30 minutes of time and gas VS your 7 minutes.

your wait time for transit is irrelevant. anyone else who needs to take transit also have to account for wait time, regardless of how far they're travelling.

taking transit vs driving is about weighing your pros and cons, which depend on what you value. Time vs Cost. driving will be the most expensive, but take the least time. transit will take the most time, but cost the least. You desire the best of both worlds.

Time to learn to compromise and wait the 15 minutes for your bus or walk to the skytrain station.

there would be less traffic once you're in the city, regardless of where you're improving the transportation of people from outside the city. unless you know for a fact the number of people travelling from coquitlam to downtown is significantly less than the number of people travelling to downtown from another location, we can only speculate as to what the difference would be if improvements were made elsewhere.

Not everyone chooses to live somewhere. Most people move to where they have the best balance of house prices and travel distance. Companies relocate, people get fired/laid off/quit and have to apply for a job that's in a different city. Many people travel to different cities every day for their job. If I buy a house in White Rock, expecting I'll be at my job for the next 25 years which is also in White Rock, but then one day get laid off... Well, I'm not going to sell my house and relocate my entire family to a tiny condo in Vancouver because the "transit is better."

I'm lucky in that I currently only have a 5 minute drive to work and back, though that wasn't always the case. I grew up in South Langley, in an area that's right on the knife's edge between suburbs and farmland. My first real job was working in an office on Venables, right down the street from the old Ferrari dealership. To drive to work via 99, it took me over an hours. Yes, it took much much longer to take transit - 2.5 hours, to be exact - but at least I could catch up on some sleep or do homework while I waited. It was also much, much cheaper to take transit, especially as a new driver.

As already mentioned, it doesn't take 30 minutes to walk from West End to the stadium. During rush hour when all the lights are changing every ten seconds, maybe, but at 6:30 at night it doesn't. And while I do prefer to drive to Vancouver whenever I go to a Canucks game, it's because I don't particularly want to leave my car parked at the King George skytrain station, regardless of if it's in a transition stage or not. From my house in Langley to Vancouver, it still takes me an hour to get to the stadium. Keeping in mind that for every kilometre of fuel that I burn, I'm spending that much more on taxes than someone who can walk to the stadium and back.

As stated, I think I pay more in taxes to drive from Langley to Vancouver (and back) than someone living and travelling there.

I feel like I'm starting to lose the focus of my original point but I'll try to say it here.

While I agree that a strong transit is one of the backbones of a well oiled city, it's not practical to assume that it's the only location where one should focus transit. If I had the ability to hop onto a bus headed to Langley Central where I could then hop onto the Skytrain, I would absolutely not hesitate to do it. Not only does this mean one less car on the road, it means I have less time to stress while driving in rush hour, and it's less stress on my car. Ultimately I'm saving money, which is always a good thing.

A good point was brought up about the current trains being overloaded by the time they hit Vancouver. That's the problem Translink will eventually face, especially with expansion further East. What they really need is a parallel route that mimics the current setup, but runs a few miles away. This way while you're still essentially capturing the same group of people that are already taking the train, you're (at least, temporarily) having less people per car, allowing more passengers from the various offshots (ie: Evergreen) to get on.

The current system is not perfect by any means. It's a good start for a system that was introduced relatively late in the game, especially when compared to a city like Montreal or New York, but I don't believe that there are any true solutions to the problem we have. The introduction of Light Rail would be a great start, especially if it's expanded to the outlaying areas of Vancouver, not just the core, but that's really it.

I'm tired from work, so if this post doesn't make sense... meh.

:concentrate:

I agree with a line to UBC. A city should have rapid transit to it's universities.

As for the long commute to Abbotsford, it a long distance. It'd be better if it took less time.

Bike lanes dont make sense in this city, you cant bike in the rain to the office and then sit there for 8 hours soaking. By HOV lanes downtown they look pretty empty like the bike lanes.

For Fuck's Sake. METRO VANCOUVER includes:

Anmore
Belcarra
Bowen Island
Burnaby
Coquitlam
Delta
Langley
Lions Bay
Maple Ridge
New West
North Vancouver
Pitt Meadows
Port Coquitlam
Port Moody
Richmond
Surrey
Vancouver
West Vancouver
White Rock

Improving transit anywhere in these areas IS IMPROVING TRANSIT IN THE CITY.

Vancouver's density is not high enough to warrant a mass transit system within dense areas. Check out the regional plan, Translink is trying to heavily densify areas around skytrain lines, which is ideal for those that work in the commercial core. But for the lower mainland where its industrial zone is being forced to the butt fuck of no where, its a very bad system of growth.

Best method for abbostford/langley would be Trains/LRT, but then we would need Park and Rides to satisfy the current density out there.

x2

Take Langley, for example. The bus system is much improved compared to a few years ago when I took it every day. And with the new Park and Ride near Hwy 1, it should be even better soon. There's lots of new buses along the new developments going up. However, if you work in Pork Kells, an industrial area, you've got maaaaaybe one bus running that route every half hour. I used to work down there, both at a warehouse and at Colossus, and transit was shit into that area. Everyone drove because they couldn't bus, even though many of my coworkers would rather have bused (mainly so they could swing by Jimmy Mac's after work and get shittered... but even so... :lol)