Category: Unconferences

I really haven’t paid as much attention during the first Vancouver TransitCamp as I probably should have, but there are some people here today that have some wholehearted thoughts and views about transit when it comes to Vancouver. Some sessions have been filled with a lot of great ideas being shared, stories of woe, and elements of tension. That’s what happens when you present arguments in any atmosphere. Disagreements can and will happen, just like buses not showing up when you want them to.

There was a small representation from TransLink here today, and I’m not sure how they took an event like this. It’s freeform and open end topics that allow people to speak freely about whatever topic, transit related, they want.

On the flip side, I also mentioned that there were people here on the other end of the spectrum, fighting against some things that TransLink and related entities are trying to do, such as the Gateway Project.

More importantly, I love the idea of the transit system in Vancouver creating identity. I would love nothing more than some of the t-shirts that I’ve seen here today. The buttons were very creative, but the shirt that DaveO made read, “I remember the days before SkyTrain” was the best, attendee submitted concept that I saw. Also, the guy falling on the track and getting electrocuted was pretty awesome.

In the end, there are a lot of people here with a lot of ideas. Some are crazy, some are not thought through with enough foresight or hindsight. That’s where things like these events, in a BarCamp[wiki] type structure, make sense. When you are allowed to enter an open forum with little to no restrictions as to what you can or can’t say or do, you never know what might develop in the end.

There are a bunch of things that I haven’t been writing about but have been meaning to for a long time now. So let’s take a moment to highlight some really cool things that have popped up in the world of the internets that make transit, at least in Vancouver, easier to deal with.

Google Transit – This is a really cool expansion to Google Maps, and it has only been in operation for the past month or so. I probably don’t use it as much as I should, but how great is it when you can pull up a Google Map with the location of the nearest bus stop? It’s still in development, but there are certainly good uses coming from it right now.

i-Move.ca – Take Google Maps and add real time traffic information. If you are traveling from one end of the city to the other, take a peak at what’s going on with the roads. If it looks bad, then maybe the SkyTrain is the better route to go. Not much different than listening to the radio for traffic updates, but there is a lot of information at your fingertips if you don’t want to wait for the next traffic update to cycle around on the radio.

MyBus – This is a Facebook application that I think I’ve mentioned before, but I had a chance to talk to one of the developers of this wonderful tool today. Add it to your Facebook profile, put in a list of common bus stops, i.e. the one closest to your house, and it updates with the time of the next five buses that will be coming to those stops. Also gives you a much better reason to log into Facebook before you leave for work in the morning, not to mention when you leave work in the late afternoon.

Still, with all these tools are your disposal, getting around Metro Vancouver can still be a pain. At least these things help make sense of it all. If you know of more, make a comment.

Post edit (Dec. 10, 2007)

Next Bus – Rebecca actually blogged about this awhile ago, but it’s something that I haven’t personally tried until this morning. Actually, Rebecca even tried it out in front of me the other morning, and it’s impressive. The way it works is if you are standing at a TransLink bus stop, you will see a numeric code on the sign. Send a SMS, or text message, to “33333” with the code on the sign in the body, and you will receive the next four or five buses that will be arriving at that location. Trying it out this morning, it took about ten seconds after sending the SMS to get a reply. Very useful when you fall out of your normal travel times or are in an unfamiliar location. (This is the only link I found on TransLink’s site about the service.)

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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