TransLinked Vancouver's unofficial transit community

[Cross-posted from my personal blog]

The other day, Paul Hillsdon tantalized us combination transit geeks and web geeks with a graphic showing Google Transit and TransLink together, implying that Vancouver's transportation authority was going to have their routes and time schedule included in Google's maps. TransLink sent me an invitation (to an email address that I don't even use), and I posted an event listing on Urban Vancouver for the official launch, which happens tomorrow (Thursday, November 1st) at 10:30 AM at SFU's Harbour Centre Fletcher Challenge Theatre. I'll be there along with my citizen journalism and transit fan buddies documenting the event.

Dane Nicholson describes Translink's positioning on some of the issues surrounding transit and SFU students in an article in this week's The Peak.

Meanwhile, today was the SFU Sustainability Festival, where a representative from Translink's OnBoard program (also a former SFU student active in the sustainability organization here) listened patiently while I ranted about Toronto TransitCamp, Web 2.0, and the difference between public consultation and participation. I'm hoping to keep in touch with him, he seemed like a good guy. It was very interesting to hear that the OnBoard program, which promotes "transportation management," I believe he called it - basically programs to get people out of their cars - gets no funding for its work getting companies to purchase discounted transit passes or working with companies to provide incentives for switching to more sustainable modes of transportation. This is to be contrasted the US, where it is a federally-funded program. Though it was interesting, I personally think it just means that they need to make better use of the low-cost, word of mouth, less glitzy ways of getting a message and an experience out to people. I also pointed out to him that there are a great many number of people who work as contractors, consultants or as employees of small or medium businesses who are not at a company who can get a discounted pass (the company needs a minimum order of 25 to be eligible). Since their program is run on a shoestring, he pointed out that it was unlikely that these sorts of options would be explored. Well, boo.

...but the best part: paper Millenium Skytrains and Nova Buses for all!

The Simon Fraser Student Society's fall newsletter contains two transit-related items: Along with TransLink and SFU, your Student Society is working hard to bring increased bus service to campus. We need to hear your stories so that we can know what aspects of the transit system are working well, and which ones need improvement. Email transit@sfss.ca and tell us your transit story.

I'll be sure to give all the gory details about the circus that is getting to SFU from my house. Another item is about a pending vote on an increase to the price of the U-pass:

The U-Pass continues to be an incredible success at SFU. Thousands of students are leaving their cars at home and taking afford- able public transit to SFU and around the Lower Mainland. Your Student Society has negotiated a contract with Translink which will secure the lowest cost transit in the region into the next decade. We’ve also negotiated increased bus service that will be rolled out in stages over the coming years. On November 5 and 6, all SFU students will be able to vote on a proposed $2 per month fare increase to the U-Pass. If successful, the U-Pass will be secured for all SFU students until 2011 when another round of negotiations will take place. Be sure to come out and vote at the Surrey, Vancouver and Burnaby campuses on November 5 and 6. For a list of polling places, check www.sfss.ca/upass later in October. Want to know more? Email transit@sfss.ca.

Undoubtedly these two items are related. SFU's not going to stop growing; nor, I suspect, will the number of students using the U-pass. My question is, will the SFSS be able to hold Translink and whoever's giving them their money accountable for making sure the improvements actually happen and stick around, so that we won't get another RAV line sideswiping our services?

Transit and university students fascinates me, as a university student who's gotten very involved in transit issues. When you have that many smart (but not necessarily politically engaged) people putting up with a system that is clearly not working, can we leverage that collective frustration into something constructive? I look forward to seeing what comes out of the SFSS on this issue.

As some people know, I've been interested in the new fleet of Nova Buses purchased by TransLink, which have an unusual single seat behind the driver and seats in the back that face backwards. I like the wide entrance at the front, but most drivers seem to only open one of the doors, negating the advantage. I've read somewhere that drivers prefer how the Nova Bus handles compared to New Flyers (and I read in that same piece that it's especially true of icy conditions, but they've only recently come into service, and cold weather doesn't start for a few months). Today comes news that one of the wheels came loose and almost came off while near Broadway and Kensington in Burnaby. This was likely during the 134 route between Brentwood and Lougheed malls, as that's the only route that takes those streets. From the article: "Only one bolt remained on the wheel, he said. Had the bus been allowed to continue running, [Canadian Auto Workers Local 111 vice-president Jim] Houlihan added, the wheel would have certainly come off." Good work by the driver to stay alert and order his passengers off, and good work by Coast Mountain Bus company to inspect each of the new buses.

Remember Roland's idea for better communication between transfer points? Quite a few weeks ago, he called me to inform me that between Main Street-Science World SkyTrain Station and Broadway Station, the female voice announcing stops had started saying something different as it approached the latter. Instead of just announcing the station, she made note of the fact that it was also a transfer point to the Millennium Line SkyTrain at Commercial Drive Station. I think this only happens on newer trains, and possibly just trains going from Waterfront Station to VCC-Clark.

[Cross-posted from my personal blog]

Last night, heading home, I decided but didn't commit to hopping on SkyTrain going in the wrong direction. That is, at Waterfront Station, many people go Westbound past the station to the switch, where the train "turns around" and heads Eastbound. People (smartly) do this to get a good seat before trains fill up with commuters, often by Stadium-Chinatown Station. As the SkyTrain pulled in, however, so did a West Coast Express train, taking people living in the Tri-Cities then on to Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge, and beyond, all the way to Mission. In all my 10+ years living here, I had never taken the train, mostly because my final destination is pretty much halfway between the longest stretch, from Waterfront Station to Port Moody Station. And I call myself a train aficionado.

Last night I felt my shit was fairly together, so I paid my 6 bucks and boarded the train that wouldn't leave for another half an hour. Since the train was empty, I took some photos of the interior, and recorded 20 minutes of video from Waterfront to Port Moody (70 MB, BitTorrent link). The conversation in the background of the video was a group of teens discussing how awesome they were. I also took mundane video of the train leaving the station (BitTorrent link). People who do it day in and day out must think it's terribly boring by now, but the rail activity and mountain and water views, not to mention my first ever in-person viewing of an oil spill's aftermath made me almost forget I had a camera in my had documenting the trip. My impressions of the train ride were that inside it feels slower than it looks when a train goes by (as it does near my office in Gastown), and that the air conditioning gave me the same slight sickness that it does in airplanes.

Almost everybody on the train that got off at Port Moody Station either drove or took one of the many community shuttles, almost all of which were headed East. Myself, I walked back up to St. John St. and took the 160 home, not looking up from my book the whole trip back. I had taken that bus ride a thousand times while working for the library in Port Moody, so nothing new there. The train ride, however, made me feel like a kid again.

Cross-posted from my blog.

Over at Stephen Rees' blog, a comment from Vancouver City Councillor Peter Ladner started up a bit of discussion about Translink's revised fare policies. All I have to contribute to the discussion are my recent experiences with the new Fare Paid Zone, which says, good luck to getting a straight answer on that from anyone, Translink or any Coast Mountain Bus drivers.

1. Initially, when the fare paid zone came into effect, I thought, "Sweet! I don't have to show my pass anymore, because bus drivers aren't supposed to do it anyway." I have a U-pass, also known as a 4 month transit all-access pass, so I figured I could load onto buses much faster instead of fumbling for my purse every time and save the drivers some time.
2. 3 days into the experiment, a driver on the 135 told me I still had to show the pass. This is where the confusion starts. Didn't that CBC article say that bus drivers aren't responsible for checking anymore...? I figured that since Transit Police are the only ones writing fines, then drivers don't need to check. The driver was quite adamant that I still had to show my pass.
3. An incident occurred that confused me even more, so I sent an e-mail to Translink's Customer Relations e-mail.

   I would like to inquire about what Translink's actual policy is on what bus drivers do and do not have the right to do as a result of the new Fare Paid Zone on buses policy.

   Yesterday (July 24), on bus B8043 (135 SFU passing Kootenay Loop at 12:20pm), a driver asked to see everyone's passes to ensure they had paid the appropriate fare for entering zone 2, stopping the bus and walking through to the back of the articulated bus. He drove for a block and a half, then stopped at a spot that had no bus stop, and asked a gentleman to get off the bus, presumably for being unable or refusing to pay the Add Fare.

   According to reports such as the one from the CBC in June (http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2007/06/25/bc-bus-fares.html), drivers no longer have the responsibility to enforce fare payment and fines can only be handed down for Transit Authority Police, not drivers.

   I have received inconsistent information from all the drivers I have spoken to, and the activities of the driver I encountered yesterday only further confounds my ability to understand what the rules are. Clarification would be most appreciated.

4. The response from Customer Relations only baffled me even more:

   Good afternoon,

   Operators should still see valid fare, they may also check fares, what they do have is the ability to phone T-Comm (control) to have our police to board buses which have the authority to write fines and can also remove unpaid customers from the bus. With having Fare Paid Zones we have tried to take responsibility from our drivers and have consquences for our unpaying customers.

   Customer Relations
   Coast Mountain Bus Company
   604 953 3040

   Thus addressing approximately zero of the actual experiences I had. Maybe I should have been more pointed with my questions, like whether this driver was within his rights in kicking the dude off the bus.

5. Meanwhile, I have seen a variety of ways that drivers deal with non-paying passengers. Some of them are let on anyway with a stern warning (especially on the suburban route I take home). Some are told to get off the bus (typically on the 135 heading out of the downtown east side).

From a customer experience perspective, this is absolutely awful. I have a U-pass, I know my ability to use transit will never be in question unless I leave my wallet at home, and I'm grateful every day that the vote passed at SFU. I'm interested in visitors' perspectives on this, in comparison from other transit systems. My only other transit experiences have been in Toronto, New York and Hong Kong - all places with elaborate and extensive turnstile systems to curb farejumping. What other places use the honour system and hire police rather than using technological and physical methods to prevent access to trains? Discounting buses, which are an entirely different venue, and where interactions will now be CCTV'd - I'm interested to see whether there are stats from other places that might indicate whether this is actually effective in fare enforcement.

I'm not big on griping. There's been a lot of excellent virtual ink spilled on this topic and I really don't have much to add to it, except hope that there surely must exist some alternative whereby the honour system doesn't involve armed guards and inconsistency on the enforcement and communication of the rules, as well as some, oh, I don't know, participation into deciding whether these rules help create the communities that we really want? Maybe next time I'm on the bus, I'll sit at the seat closest to the driver and read that huge panel of rules already. (The last time I did that I was in Hong Kong, where I found out that buses must have their windows open on the upper level during a typhoon.)

Jeffery at Metroblogging Vancouver has documented a SkyTrain service disruption yesterday (July 28th, 2007) as the result of an apparent medical emergency at 29th Avenue Station. He's got video, which contains audio of the announcement on the SkyTrain PA system and photographs of the aftermath. This was during a very high traffic day for a Saturday for the automated light rail system, as the Celebration of Light was taking several suburban travelers downtown to see the fireworks.

I'll let others tackle the question of whether this counts as journalism at more length (I think it absolutely does), but this and another disruption, apparently near New Westminster and Columbia stations got Karen and I thinking about two things: service disruption alerts to not-yet-SkyTrain-passengers (that is, those who are en route to SkyTrain after having left their point of origin) and how service disruptions could be incorporated into the TransLink Trip Planner. The first part is fairly easy: many transit system offer service disruption information via email of mobile devices. A quick search around the Web reveals that quite a few transportation authorities and services have it where you can only get notifications during a certain time (for instance, if you don't need a notification after 1 AM). The second part would be much more difficult, introducing another degree of variability into the system. Conceivably it would be possible, feasible even, to program in the planner a method to note that track between such and such stations are inoperative, but the system would have to make clear that it's a one-time, temporary suggestion.

As you can see from the video below, the new recording that says "change here for Millenium" line that Paul's friend and I heard Friday was either an experiment or hasn't been installed on all cars

It looks like Translink finally changed their recording (at least Paul's friend and I heard it) to indicate that Broadway is a transfer point for the Millenium line as I and others have suggested for a while.