Thoughts on transit in Vancouver at the back of the room during TransitCamp
Saturday, December 8th, 2007 | 6 Comments »There are a lot of great things being discussed and talked about here at Vancouver TransitCamp. I know this only because I’m over hearing some of the conversation. There’s so much being talked about that it makes me have a lot of various thoughts about the mass transit system that exists in and around Vancouver, the “Metro Vancouver” area for those not hip to the lingo(because it’s no longer, officially, known as the GVRD), I thought I’d hit a few topics that stick out to my mind.
First, the Gateway Project. Long story short, they want to twin the Port Mann bridge and allow a higher volume of automobile traffic flow through that area. I don’t like the plan, and there were people here this morning, SPEC, who are doing everything they can to help stop it.
Gateway is a real waste of money and the wrong thing to do environmentally. More care should be given to resist the notion of where more lanes of road will lead to less traffic congestion. Instead, the money going into that project should be given to massively expand SkyTrain service through Surrey and Langley. That expansion should loop around and come back across at the Port Mann bridge. That would help to reduce the amount of commuters coming across the bridge, from the east, if they had an accessible, reliable method like the SkyTrain.
And the SkyTrain… It needs continued expansion, and I really hesitate to say that. However, the reality is the necessity that a growing city like Vancouver needs something to handle the amount of people that are arriving in the lower mainland every day, week, and month. Could you imagine what it would be like if you could not only train from YVR but the ferry ports or even North Vancouver? Madness would precede it before it happened, but imagine what it would be like after.
The bus system… more should be done to increase its reliability. GPS tracking on the buses would certainly influence this, no matter how big brother it sounds. With my recent pains of commuting through the Canada Line construction, I would love to know if I have to wait five minutes or a half hour for the next bus to arrive. I’m not afraid of walking. What I’m afraid of is being a block away when the bus comes and makes me committed to walking the rest of the way, ending up being late for work.
I might add to this post or make more posts about other topics, but these are the issues at the top of my head.
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