Bee line — Commercial to Alma — in the middle of the day is about 5 minutes faster than normal because of the temporary no parking policy — make that no parking policy permanent if we want to promote transit use …

I am wondering how much money were losing without having turnstiles along the Canada Line, or any of the skytrain for that matter.
I was talking to my mother, who like thousands of other, was riding the Canada line the other day. She has prepaid tickets but amidst the crowd had no idea where to validate them, and just didnt understand this system. She got the feeling that hundreds in the swarms of people heading through the stations had not bought tickets.
She said there were tons of the blue smirfs but no transit cops there to stop anyone.
I just think were losing significant ridership fare, not to mention the precise rider counting these turnstiles carry out and all these stats that would be incredibly helpful in planning a better system.

I mostly bicycle or walk, but take a round-trip bus ride every week or so either for work or pleasure. As I believe Frances commented before, the #8 Fraser downtown and back, with double length buses running every few minutes, is much better than usual. Very nice, I would say.

It would indeed be great to keep the bus lanes open, and the buses running so often.

As for fare gates, I always have the suspicion this would lead quickly to much tighter pricing by distance, as in Tokyo or Hong Kong. That is, you go one stop and you pay the current one zone fare. Two stops and pay a buck more. Three stops and you’re already paying the former two zone fare…. Ick. The best system I’ve seen was in Prague, where they have no door control system on subway, bus or tram, but there are fare checkers going around constantly (and I’m not talking armed transit police, travelling in pairs at probably $150k a year, but civilians with badges). In a week in Prague I got checked at least three times, while in two years here the uniform squad has checked me once.

“I am wondering how much money were losing without having turnstiles along the Canada Line, or any of the skytrain for that matter.”

I wonder why people ask rhetorical questions that can be answered with about 10 seconds of Googling. Roughly $7 million is the answer. The proposed cost for Smart Cards and turnstiles is around $100 million. It’s like hiring a private investigator to track down the kid who shoplifted a candy bar from a corner store.

“As for prague, I was there for 4 days last spring with not much to my name and decided I would’nt pay fare.”

Which is 26czk, or about $1.50 for a 75 min. ticket. Do as I say, not as I do?

The answer, as unpalatable as it is some people is straightforward. Make it free, make it fast, and move on to other, more challenging issues.

If you beleive the offical 3% fare evasion stat then you probably also beleive the Burrard St Bridge trial has had zero impact in traffic and has has significantly increased cycling.

Frances please delete the following, I coulsn’t send it to you via your contact me page, it appears down.

“The Children’s Farmyard in Stanley Park is home to over 100 animals, water fowl, and
poultry belonging to many different species. The present day Farmyard, built in 1982 and
extended in 1993 is built on the original footprint of the Children’s Zoo which was
established in 1962. Situated on just over one acre of land, two spacious heated barns,
outside corrals and yards, and a small stream and pond provide for the comfort of the
animals while giving children an opportunity to experience the sights, sounds, and smells
of a rural environment.

The Vancouver Park Board is soliciting EOI submissions from experienced and qualified
proponents interested in managing and operating this facility in a similar or new capacity.
Parties with new and innovative ideas/concepts for the facility’s use are encouraged to
respond to this RFEOI. This opportunity provides for the successful proponent to be a
private sector organization, a community-based group/association or a not-for-profit
organization working either independently or in collaboration/partnership with the Park
Board.”

“If you beleive the offical 3% fare evasion stat then you probably also beleive the Burrard St Bridge trial has had zero impact in traffic and has has significantly increased cycling.”

Does anyone believe the lane trial has had ‘zero’ impact or ‘significantly’ (whatever that means) increased cycling? Not sure anyone is making either claim as far as I know. One can always check out the webcams if you don’t trust the numbers.

http://vancouver.ca/engsvcs/streets/roadwork/BurrardPacific4.htm

“If you beleive the offical 3% fare evasion stat then you probably also beleive the Burrard St Bridge trial has had zero impact in traffic and has has significantly increased cycling.”

Do you have data indicating the 3% evasion rate is incorrect NRFM? Or are you simply suggesting that might be a possibility (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXbRTFnYiK8)?

The whole faregate argument seems to be a very convenient distraction whenever the debate about funding our transportation system comes up. It shifts the debate from focusing on what’s needed to make the system work to a focus on criminality and the need to prevent it. Great for tough on crime politicos or those not wanting their unfunded $14 billion transit plan/ photo-op to be brought up though but not so great for those of us watching another full bus not stop to pick us up.
Admittedly, $6-7 million in annual fare evasion is nothing to sneeze at. But, faregates at a cost of $90-120 million (http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=c41a20cd-6de4-4673-8cae-5f3e1a0cc35f) will take 13-20 years to recoup their capital cost, not including interest and maintenance costs. In an environment in which Translink recently approved $130 million simply to maintain existing service levels, transit police have increased their presence and demand for system capacity (e.g. Evergreen Line, B-Line, community shuttles) is increasing faregates don’t seem like the best use of $90-120 million.

When you hear Translink speak or listen to everyone in the media, all you hear about is Skytrain, Canada Line and the Seabus. There is another story that is not being told – downtown buses.

I live in the WE and the bus situation here is a mess. On Sunday the buses could not get through heading west on Robson, so there were plenty of people just standing at bus stops waiting for a bus that would never come. The Robson bus, Davie bus and the small C23 showup in bunches of 3 every 30 minutes or don’t show up at all.
I keep asking myself why Translink does not move these buses up to Georgia st instead of consistently fighting the crowds of Robson.
The way that the city has set up Robson is the majority of the problem. One lane closed one block, next block two lanes then the full street closed. No city people directing traffic so people are just walking wherever they want…even if cars are trying to get through.
I know Translink overall has done a good job, but it’s time to fix the downtown bus situation.

Sorry Keam I didnt mean to be so stupid. Where did you get these numbers? How do they know how much money we are losing. Its a completely indeterminate question I think. Also, I cannot think of anyone I know who pays for the b-line anymore, unless they have a monthly pass. Fare evasion is much higher than you suspect, I suspect.
I would say we are losing more than 7 million.

I normally check thousands of fares a week and can attest that evasion (at least in this line) is 5% or less. Also, we hot 250,000+ passengers yestetday, andwill likely hit over 300 this weekend.

Re the Bombardier tram linking the Canada line stop at the south end of the Cambie Bridge and Granville Island: My understanding is that the tram could be run at twice the speed safely on most of the route but Transport Canada imposed over tight speed restrictions. For a posting on another blog re the tram with a good map: http://www.paulhillsdon.com/?tag=bombardier

The wording of Dan comment seems to indicate he doesn’t have ride the system lately….

Everyone, can witness long line-up at the Fare vending machine, and it is impressive to see people willingness to buy fare in despite of lengthy lane.

Regarding the gating system, If you go to smaller city that Tokyo, London, …you will see that numerous of them don’t have it.

If they have, like Toronto. Usually during overcrowding due to special event like Youth World Day in Toronto some years ago, the TTC staff was opening gate without control to keep the crowd moving…

TransLink does need an effective way of ensuring fines for fare evasion are paid — most tickets for fare evasion are ignored — see http://stephenrees.wordpress.com/2009/11/23/millions-of-dollars-in-transit-fines-go-unpaid/

But that said, I think too much emphasis is put on ensuring people pay fares on TransLink buses, rather than getting people quickly onto those buses.

The Bee line journeys have speeded up significantly since front door loading has been changed to all door loading. The big express bus to Horseshoe Bay, now restricted to one door loading might save 5 minutes a trip with 3 door loading and the monetary value of that saving should be guesstimated — say 60 people on the bus who value their time at ?? $12 an hour, that’s $60 a trip in transit user’s time at the cost of maybe two people on the bus who should have paid $3.75 each. (I wonder if TransLink does this kind of calculation.)

Why reference only Toronto? The Montreal transit system has 2.2 million riders per day.

Jimmy O., there’s another part of that story – the pedestrian volumes on the False Creek bridges appear to be 2.3 times higher than on a summer day…but the cycling numbers at 4,000 are only 80% of normal summer traffic. Is this really something to “woot” about given the changes to convenient pedestrian access on the Burrard Bridge?

Overlooking the glitches to see the big picture, the fact public transit in Metro Vancouver achieved the near side of 2 million trips a day is nothing short of phenomenal. This in a metropolis of 2.3 million people.

The clear message is that we can accomplish much, much more with respect to building a city around transit in all forms. Let’s hope the politicians from senior governments are watching and listening. Transit riders are their constituents as much as the city’s.

The same applies to creating a few pedestrian-only streets in our densest centres.

The Olympics may have done more for urban design and transit planning than anything else so far. Moving the private car has had its day, now it’s time to move people and build neighbourhoods around them.

BC Ferries carried 1100 walk-on passengers on one Nanaimo-mainland trip the other day per a Blue Bus supervisor. Day passes for TransLink are now being sold on the ferries, an amazing high tech innovation (sarcasm here –day transit passes for the Victoria region have been available for over a year from the gift shops on the Swartz Bay run — but are unadvertised while the expensive private coach service to Victoria and the availability of tickets is, on every trip, announced on the ferry’s loudspeaker system.) A curious lack of coverage in the BC press on ferries and walk- ons during the Olympics. For a non BC source
http://www.globaltvedmonton.com/beyondthepodium/Ferries+swamped+Olympic+Games+crush/2602160/story.html