Canada Line Hype and Hoopla
One wonders why all the hype and hoopla is about with the new cars for the Canada Line?
The recently delivered cars are standard ROTEM electrical multiple units, used by several transit systems, unlike the proprietary Movia Automatic Light Metro cars, used on the Expo and Millennium Lines.
Also, very explicit is that there are no plans to extend the Canada Line, which will quieten the armchair specialists wanting it extended south of the Fraser River.
It is also clear, TransLink CEO, Kevin Desmond, is woefully uninformed about rail transit, which is probably why he was hired.
The claims of high ridership comes from the vast majority of bus customers, who used to enjoy a direct bus service to Vancouver , that are now forced to transfer from bus to metro, by signed agreement with SNC Lavalin, thus much of the ridership is from customers that have no choice but to take the metro.
Not mentioned is that the Canada Line caused a collapse of bus ridership in South Delta/Ladner, where transit customers, especially the elderly, refused to play TransLink’s game of forced transfers and want their direct buses to downtown Vancouver back. The current bus schedule is worse than the bus scheduled offered before the Canada line opened.
In the end, the Canada Line, will remain a politically inspired faux P-3, forced on TransLink by the extremely dishonest Gordon Campbell Liberal government, costing the taxpayer’s over $100 million annually to subsidize the SNC Lavalin lead consortium operating the line. The Canada Line remains woefully under built and grossly over engineered for what it does and as built, even with 12 new cars, still has less capacity than a simple tramway, at a cost up to ten times more to build than light rail.
Despite TransLink’s hype and hoopla, the mainstream media’s Goebbels Gambit of repeating TransLink’s “porkies” ad nauseaum, the Canada line is still considered a classic white elephant by transit planners outside the metro Vancouver bubble; no one has copied it.
New trains, more space on Canada Line
Posted Jan 21, 2020
TransLink says four new trains go online Tuesday, increasing capacity by 15 per cent during peak hours
The trains are the first group of 12 new trains that will eventually be running this year
RICHMOND (NEWS 1130) — Your commute on the Canada Line may be less cramped from now on.
TransLink says four new trains go online Tuesday, increasing capacity by 15 per cent during peak hours.
The transit authority says the trains are the first group of 12 new trains that will eventually be running as part of the Mayors’ 10-year transit expansion plan.
The additions scheduled for later this year will boost capacity by about 35 per cent compared to last year’s service.
Extra escalators will also be installed to keep up with an increase in service.
In 2019, an average of more than 150,000 trips were taken on the Canada Line daily.
Zwei,
So before the RAV line opened you said it would be lucky to get the 40,000 boardings the Express buses had…Then after it opened as the Canada Line you said it was only getting 100,000 boardings because Translink had lied about ridership on the old bus routes to make RAV look better. Now it has 150,000 boardings, any thoughts on how that is happening since you insist it does not attract new riders?
PS all the data sources show ridership in Ladner and Tswassen is up since the Canada Line opened. Please feel free to compare the 2018 performance review to earlier versions or the 2016 census versus pre Canada line censuses.
Zwei replies: Rico, first of all about 48,000 to 50,000 actual people use the damn thing. Now the Canada line replaced all downtown Vancouver buses from Richmond, South Delta and south Surrey, as well it replaced the Airporter bus which gave a 15 minute/24 hour service to the airport, as well the Cambie St. buses were downgraded, forcing more people onto the train.
Also, a fair number of boarding’s come from airport workers, who park and ride the Canada line extension in to the main terminal. With the U-Pass, serving several post secondary institutions along the route also accounts for multiple boarding’s by single users. The over $100 million annual subsidy also points to the fact not as many people use the metro as TransLink would have us believe.
If you read between the lines the maximum capacity of the Canada line was about 6.000 pphpd and now will rise to just over 7,000 pphpd.
The problem is Rico, you don’t know very much about transit and u rely on Translink’s questionable data to join the chorus singing hosannas to the light metro. What appalled more than anything is that Desmond really hasn’t a clue about rail transit in Vancouver and has media events to repeat the same schtick from cue cards.