TransLinked Vancouver's unofficial transit community blog

[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.

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.

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.

The CBC today posted a story about TransLink proposing armed security police will check fares on the 99 B-Line. Setting aside how the cops are going to check fares in a shoulder-to-shoulder bus of mostly students, and whether the fare-checkers need to be armed, I found it funny that the CBC posted a photo of a "SkyTrain officer" inline.

Except the photo shows the Toronto subway, and the police officer is a Toronto Transit Commission special constable. The SkyTrain police are actually a lot more imposing looking, in all black uniforms with a big reflective "POLICE" on the back of their vests. freakychick, darkthirty, and cabbit have some good photos, and the CBC even have two articles from 2005 to choose photos from, one from May 2005 and aanother another from December 2005.

I'm sure it's an honest mistake, and that they'll correct the article soon.

Time passes and they've removed the photo from the article.