VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) ai??i?? The man in charge of reviewing TransLinkai??i??s SkyTrain failures gives the transit authority a ai???Cai??i?? grade as it deals with the fallout from yet another shutdown.
Gary McNeil says improvements have been made since last year when the system was halted for about six hours.
Meantime, TransLink CEO Doug Allen has apologized, adding a part of the problem is the lack of staff on hand to deal with a transit failure.Ai?? As a result, TransLink is bringing in a total of 64 people by October to be at various stations to help get passengers from Point A to B.
Some passengers complained Tuesday that they werenai??i??t able to hear instructions over the PA system, adding there was a lot of confusion and to rectify that McNeil says an audio consultant will be brought in to fix that problem.
The issues on the system are being blamed on an induction motor problem which caused delays on 19 trains.
After this latest shutdown, a marketing expert believes it could be tough for TransLink to turn around its negative image.
ai???TransLink were right on there right away, making profuse apologies, saying they were going to try and get on it right away. Itai??i??s the right way to go about it but hereai??i??s the issue they, they have to deliver on this stuff.Ai?? They got to get to the point where youai??i??re not going to get these breakdowns,ai??? says Lindsey Meredith with SFUai??i??s marketing program.
He adds the shutdowns arenai??i??t the only issue ai??i?? he also believes the delayed Compass Card program and high executive salaries impact the public perception.
ai???Eventually all of this is collected in the publicai??i??s perception and its perception that is really the game of marketing and it eventually caught up to them.ai???
TransLink will not be issuing refunds for people affected by the delays.
After the many meltdowns of its s-train network over the years, and not just the summer failures (2014) which TransLink might have staged just like Enron staged rolling blackouts to drive up power costs, TransLink saw it as its golden opportunity to hire a stooge (Gary McNeil) for him to make a host of money grabbing recommendations for TransLink to go on a spending spree to replace its aging computer system and hire more employees. This is exactly what happened, and the stooge hired by TransLink made numerous recommendations costing $71 million without getting to the root of the problem with s-train. His recommendations are not addressing the inherent problem with s-train – it does not have a driver on board to safely guide the s-train back to the station when the computer system crashes.
Drivers on s-trains cost too much money, claim the accountants running TransLink! Actually, the bunglers at TransLink don’t want to admit that the driverless s-train network is putting people at risk, and the feckless “leaders” at TransLink would rather kill someone than tell everyone that s-train is not suited for public transit. This is responsible leadership?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-skytrain-track-cleared-after-two-hour-delay-1.2524856
After the latest mayhem on transit, TransLink is increasing its staffing levels by over 10% with 64 more attendants – to manage the next s-train disaster! Why solve the problem (TransLink) when you can spend more to increase the number of deadbeats at the TransLink bureaucracy and makes things worse?
Unbelievable? Believe it.
In fact, s-train and subway lines have resulted in too much capital spending on expensive infrastructure (concrete guideways and subways) and not enough spending on O&M (operations and maintenance). Accountants have deferred maintenance and have not hired enough engineers. Instead, they are paying themselves “performance bonuses” for keeping costs down by not spending on necessary maintenance and engineers who keep transit safe. Really, the crooks at TransLink are stealing from taxpayers and are increasing the risk of harm to transit users – by not allocating enough money to O&M – to instead, expand the s-train network in order to funnel money to SNC Lavalin and Bombardier. This will lead to the eventual demise of TransLink in my opinion.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/skytrain-on-expo-m-line-trains-stalled-for-2-5-hours-during-rush-hour-1.3107005