You Just Got to Be Kidding!
I am speechless! Is this the best that TransLink can do?
SkyTrain delays good time to support the economy:
TransLink Spokesperson says grab a coffee or a bite to eat while waiting
Ai??Anita Bathe
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) ai??i?? TransLink is trying to turn a negative into a positive.
It says lengthy SkyTrain shutdowns are a good way for passengers to spend money throughout the Lower Mainland.
ai???Maybe itai??i??s a good opportunity to stop and have a coffee or a bite to eat, support the local economy until trains resume again,ai??? says TransLinkai??i??s Cheryl Ziola.
When News1130 asked if customers should expect long delays Ziola said absolutely. ai???Delays are very common place on any major transit system.ai???
On Tuesday, passengers were delayed for hours because of a modem problem and thatai??i??s the fourth shutdown in just three months. Many have raised questions about contingency planning.
ai???People very commonly throw out the notion of a backup system but when you look at thatai??i??are we talking about a completely redundant train system? If weai??i??re talking about that youai??i??re looking at billions of dollars in infrastructure costs.ai???
Ziola says 95 per cent of the time the system is reliable and she understands that people are frustrated but they canai??i??t control some things.
Nathan Woods with the Bus Driverai??i??s Union feels that was ai???not a well thought-out statement.ai???
He says if you look at the overall picture, the fourth SkyTrain breakdown of the year is a major inconvenience to people.
ai???Having a cavalier attitude toward it isnai??i??t creating a favourable impression toward TransLink,ai??? Woods says.
Response to Ziolaai??i??s comments on Twitter has been explosive with most people in shock.
Cheryl Ziola and all the other deadbeats at TransLink are the reasons to shut down the Mickey Mouse bureaucracy of “planners” at TransLink. Sure, if you’re a government “worker” at TransLink with nothing but time to kill, go have a coffee and enjoy the three hour delay.
If I had my way, municipalities would be funded directly from the provincial and federal governments to run transit, how they want, and TransLink would be history. Minions working as planners at TransLink merely implement the same policy established by the Ministry of Transportation over and over again like mindless automatons – more s-trains,BRT and subways to create future over densified slums along trunk lines and routes which only concentrate transit users and do nothing to reduce road congestion.
More s-trains,BRT and subways do not reduce the number of cars on the roads (U of T, research and countless other observations in every city in Canada). More s-trains,BRT and subways reduce the number of “people in the cars” on the roads. They reduce the amount of carpooling, UBC and TransLink data.
Aside from the few individuals who are content to live in micro-dwellings along s-train, BRT and subways to do their thing, most people who have families to raise are fleeing “transit oriented” communities in Vancouver and choosing to live in suburban homes in Surrey, Delta… Richmond – to drive. Transit is reducing road congestion here?
Transit here is eating up farmland in Surrey and Delta as the s-train and subways force families out of Vancouver and out to the suburbs. If we had balanced transit with trams in Vancouver and affordable development in Vancouver, I don’t believe that this would be happening.
But hey, I’m not the transit planner. I’m not the “expert” – the imbeciles at TransLink are. I’m sick of TransLink and the lies about transit by TransLink reducing road congestion, carbon emissions and air pollution.
“”Going to rant to a greater extent than usual for a moment”
Before I ruffle some more feathers – let me emphasize, that I’m not against transit and would like to see more transit in compliance with the Motor Vehicle Act, to improve the lives of anyone who chooses not to drive or cycle. Transit here is an abomination, and transit by TransLink is exempt from all the rules pertaining to noise and pollution. This is wrong and perverse, in my mind.
First, the theory that transit reduces road congestion does not reflect reality and is flawed, competently, for middle class Canada. Transit will not reduce road congestion until the middle class in Vancouver and in the rest of Canada disappears. Whatever gains in transit use here are due to the lack of affordability in housing. Anyone living here and not making about $100,000 can’t afford a car. End of story.
Anyone who can afford to avoid transit, isn’t interested in taking transit – to endure the hassles and dangers of transit. Whenever an incident occurs on transit, it is covered up and not talked about here: Surrey teen stalked on transit bus (oddly no one seems to be making an issue of this) and murdered after getting off bus. It might spook vulnerable people from taking transit if we talk about it to warn people that transit is full of rapists, murderers and creeps. We can’t have that:
https://www.google.ca/?gws_rd=cr&ei=BXSlUtvpIsz3oATl5oDoBQ#q=surrey+teen+last+seen+alive+on+bus&tbm=nws
What the heck is this politically correct world coming to here? Is it too much to warn teens not to take transit alone at night? It doesn’t matter whether TransLink warns or doesn’t warn people, however, to stay off its stinking crime riddled transit system – most people do anyhow and know the score, especially women.
Transit in Canada will never replace the car and there is one thing wrong with public transit in the minds of the 86% of the population shunning transit in Metro Vancouver – it’s public. Transit is fraught with diseased individuals (Ebola) as well as creeps and criminals.
“Planners” thinking that all they have to do is make transits fast (s-trains, subways and BRT) to lure drivers out of their cars are deluded. They are wasting billions of dollars of our money and are primarily motivated with having a job at TransLink at the detriment of society. Subways, BRT and s-trains “managed by TransLink” are essentially about “planning jobs” at the transit bureaucracy called TransLink. Everyone at TransLink is a dead weight around the necks of taxpayers in Metro Vancouver – they have be to be wiped off the face of the earth and any talk of more funding for TransLink is stupid and irresponsible.
“Henry Ford”
Ever since Henry Ford made the car affordable for the middle class, there has been no going back to public transit for the middle class. This isn’t understood by the “planners” in Vancouver and at TransLink, in particular. Fixing transit in Vancouver hinges on two things: voting in another mayor who isn’t going to waste more time on planning s-train and subway lines to fill the pockets of the developers building towers along s-train and subway lines and on replacing the incompetent and corrupt transportation engineers at the City of Vancouver.
Anyhow to end things on a more positive note, here’s a great train ride which would be fantastic to emulate from Chilliwack to Vancouver:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29379678
@ Eric Chris
It’s not the transportation engineers’ faults, they’re just doing what the Translink bureaucrats order them to do. They are just people under the corrupt hands of the government. If we put them under control of a well-organized transit organization that actually builds and operates efficient transit, than the engineers will do their jobs well.