Has TransLink Given Up?

Forget the hype and hoopla from politcans about transit; forget the well timed media releases; forget the staged photo-ops for the local papers, if any local papers have survived. The big question facing the region is; has TransLink given up?

The big news is that fares are going up, yet the service provided seems unattractive to potential customers. Actual ridership numbers are increasing somewhat, but the overall percentage of mode share for transit is dropping. it seems increasing ridership numbers are coming from population increase and not modal shift from car to transit.

In my wee part of the world in South Delta, the express buses are operating with a large number of empty seats and even the local buses are bereft of customers except for students and those working at Tsawwassen Mills.

Of course the 620 bus to the Tsawwassen Ferry terminal is full, but the rest of the services are grossly underused.

Venturing to SFU last week, where the traffic was almost in perpetual gridlock, what few buses I saw were half full at best. Even passing by SkyTrain at 22nd Ave Station, there was no indication of over crowding ( lots of space between the standees) and this was at 5PM on a Friday!

This not to say all the buses were operating half empty but it wasn’t the transit chaos espoused by many in the many public forums on social media blogs.

At present, TransLink provides an adequate service for the region, with a few select bus routes purposely under-served by buses to give the impression that the system is full to the brim with customers.

The “TransLink Listen’s program is a failure simply because the first question asked is “do you use transit” and if you answer “No”, end of survey. Should not TransLink investigate the reasons why people do not use transit, rather than “should bicycles use transit” sort of question.

It seems the mandarins in their ivory towers do not want to know why people do not take the transit provided.

TransLink is out in full force, with spin-doctors galore for all SkyTrain or BRT announcement, but that’s about it. It seems TransLink has given up and just does what its told to do by the premier’s office and that is to give transit a “happy face” at election time.

So this begs the question:

Has TransLink given up?