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Park-and-ride system coming up for overhaul to reduce subsidized parking where bus options are good

June 20th, 2012 · 6 Comments

Transit, transit, transit. It’s the story every day, as the region tries to figure out how to keep its veins and arteries unclogged while continuing to add 40,000 people a year.

Today’s story: The tussle over park-and-rides, a part of the transit system that some of us don’t think about much. As Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart pointed out, they’re essential for suburbs like his where bus service isn’t that great and keeps getting cut through a series of “service optimization” decisions, i.e. putting more buses on the routes that generate lots of passengers and revenue and fewer in the suburbs.

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  • Bill Lee

    With all the incessant traffic reports on “car radios” don’t park-and-rides defeat themselves. Any troubles on the road or system and people won’t stop, but will continue to drive on beyond the 19 lots and thousands of parking stalls near rapid-transit stations and bus lines
    Many people are possessive about their cars and won’t usually park them out of their sight or ‘unguarded.’
    I am shocked by colleagues who have to travel home and wait in long lines, rather than stopping at a small cafe on this side of the bridge and waiting and hour or so for the traffic to settle out.

    And what’s the details on “It costs TransLink about $3,000 to create a stall and another $200 a year to maintain it.”
    This is some average, but really!?

  • Lewis N. Villegas

    Park & Ride is a component of a complete transit strategy.

    The tragedy in our suburbs is that they are still building out in the old paradigm.

    Thus, a new paradigm component in an old paradigm context appears to be out of place, and may well be demonized as “part of the problem”.

    All options, as much as possible, all the time make transit use fast and efficient.

  • Michael Kluckner

    I used the South Surrey park and ride when I lived in rural South Langley and needed to come into Vancouver. Between about 1995 and 2005, the lot was moved once, maybe twice, to smaller and harder-to-get-to places. It was packed full by the early 2000s, forcing people like me to find spots on White Rock’s crowded and restricted streets. If that failed, you had no option but to drive all the way into Vancouver. I can’t imagine what a mess it must be now.

  • Raingurl

    The park and ride in my ‘hood is only $3.00 p/day. I get to Vancouver and the cheapest parking in my (work) ‘hood is $18.00. Translink is worried people will drive to work. I doubt it. The price of gas alone will keep those cars in the driveway!

  • Guest

    Park & Rides are useful because they allow commuters to combine trips in their community.
    Commuters arrive back in their community from Vancouver and grab the car to:
    – pick up the kids from daycare or school
    – go grocery shopping
    – transport the kids to after-school activities

    Using transit for your entire commute may be fine if you are single and have single end-point to end-point trips – but for suburban families, the park & rides add flexibility that allows then to use transit for part of their daily travel.

  • Brian

    To me, park and rides indicate a transition between land use and transportation orientation. As Guest points out, areas with park and rides aren’t located in well-connected areas where multi-destination transit trips are feasible. There are larger issues behind this, such as why we have large areas of mostly single-use residential land that requires people to travel far distances to work/play/etc.

    Until our region’s land use patterns change radically, however, I think Translink should take the Canada-Line-Airport-Surcharge strategy of pricing- set the price just below the overall cost of the alternative. The cost of a cab to downtown for four people is just a little higher than skytrain fare for the same group from the airport. Similarly, the park-and ride price, plus 3-zone fare should be just below the cost of driving to Van and parking, minus a little extra to make up for convenience, minus a little more to make it the clear better option. I think this ought to be implemented in areas where transit service is good. In areas where there is poor connection to transit, park and ride should be seen as a temporary stopgap to give residents something until good transit service arrives.