tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28703928968760194962024-09-26T21:44:51.019-07:00I've been wanting to share, document, discuss and just plain rant about the bus service (public transit) in Vancouver for a while now. And now it's a new year and if I'm ever going to do it I need to do it now. I'm going to report on the problems, failures and things that drive me crazy on the bus (I'll try to remember the good things too). Comment if you like but I will delete both spam and abuse. And who knows, maybe the Translink gods will notice (not likely but...).Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2870392896876019496.post-73584649043328496482008-03-16T19:59:00.000-07:002008-03-16T20:13:56.081-07:00

March 16th St/ Patrick's day parade blocks off Granville, Howe and all cross streets between somewhere downtown and Pacific, causing a complete reroute of all buses passing through the city centre. Now would you expect that the Translink website would mention that, or that the Trip Planner would advise that trying to leave from West End to go to Broadway and Willow might take some extra time?

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2870392896876019496.post-70303197391001427712008-02-17T09:18:00.000-08:002008-02-17T09:31:02.044-08:00

Now here is an improvement that we could use. It would not stop the alien abduction of our buses, or make the the $1 million+ new buses work any better but it would mean that we would know that they're not coming!The end of the bus timetable | MetaFilter:"Is this the end of the bus timetable? It can be bloody cold in Helsinki in January. The last thing you want to do is hang around too long for

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2870392896876019496.post-62259132130996959612008-01-03T08:25:00.001-08:002008-01-03T09:40:17.033-08:00

And not at the point of a gun either.The question, it seems to me is why do we prefer cars over buses? Well that's fairly simple.Cars are:private - no smelly, crazy, unpleasant or rude people (or if there are they're your problem).easy - walk out the door and there is your car, get in and go to where ever you are going , park and you're there.cost - somewhat high but then you've got something

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2870392896876019496.post-89942344717280810482008-01-01T06:01:00.000-08:002008-01-01T06:24:50.746-08:00

Happy New Year. And a fare increase to celebrate it with. 25 cents for a local ride and an extra $4.00 for month's worth.Now does this mean that there will be no alien abductions of buses in the coming year (you know, where the bus doesn't come for half an hour on a route that claims service every 6 minutes and the driver of the one that finally turns up claims to be on time and has no idea

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2870392896876019496.post-37490926244395715842007-06-23T13:35:00.000-07:002007-06-23T14:05:02.995-07:00

As you are probably aware I am not the greatest fan of TransLink I do sometimes find their attempts to improve the service at least semi-useful.The latest in that back-handed complimented area is their new service to provide the time of the next bus at the stop you are standing at via your cellphone and the stop number printed on the bus stop sign. Simple to use, call their transit information

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2870392896876019496.post-36330568062052853002007-06-04T12:31:00.000-07:002007-06-04T13:28:24.967-07:00

I'm trying to figure out if Translink is getting worse at doing upkeep on the stations, trains and buses that make up our transit service. I see more scrapes and scratches in the elevators, graffiti on walls and dirty floors and litter everywhere in the past couple of months.Now I know that we as users and as mostly adults are at least partly responsible for the upkeep of the system. We need to

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2870392896876019496.post-18842962580716306652007-03-23T21:27:00.000-07:002007-03-23T23:18:06.807-07:00

Well thank god that's over with. This past week has seen me waiting for more vanished buses and broken skytrains then you could shake a fist at (and I have).There is something quite unsettling to take a look a system that costs millions of dollars, is depended upon by thousands of people and is mostly dirty, broken and ignored by those we have entrusted it to.I ride the buses alot and as such I

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2870392896876019496.post-83625870309496832722007-02-21T07:06:00.000-08:002007-02-21T07:24:37.119-08:00

Hey.I hear (on CBC morning radio) that the 1 million + new buses may be back on the streets next week if all goes well. Well I for one can hardly wait for another chance to swim through the spacious confines of our new sardine cans on wheels. Who decides that it is better to have few seats on a bus? The drivers, the passengers, or some translink guy who gets a leased car to drive because his

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2870392896876019496.post-34626600946042220572007-01-30T08:25:00.000-08:002007-01-30T16:28:46.299-08:00

On Sunday one of Translink's buses vanished. Swallowed by a pothole; abducted by aliens; beamed up by Scottie, I'm not sure but it never turned up at Nanaimo Station.The bus that did turn up did know that a bus had broken down and that there was supposed to be a bus coming to replace it but he couldn't, wouldn't, didn't move his bus out for 20 minutes because that was when he was to scheduled to

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2870392896876019496.post-91820670859472563962007-01-24T09:25:00.000-08:002007-01-24T09:32:48.286-08:00

This comes from Boing Boing: Cory Doctorow: Flick user Ludd takes beautiful photos of horrible public-transit upholstery all over the world. The Flickr set is glorious. Link (via Monochrom) Great photos and all I can say is "They got upholstery?!!"But the Flickr set is beautiful.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2870392896876019496.post-39443029840440402452007-01-23T20:02:00.000-08:002007-01-23T20:20:22.699-08:00

Today (and I think for the last couple of weeks) I noticed that the back door of the new buses - the ones without seats - almost always fail to open for passengers when the bus stops, requiring them to yell "Back door please!" in various intonations of irritation.Normally, when a bus stops at a requested stop, the back door unlocks and is ready for passengers to step down on the first step or

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2870392896876019496.post-6464120845785954672007-01-10T10:22:00.000-08:002007-01-24T14:35:33.950-08:00

We have new flashy looking buses here in Vancouver but they're not that easy to ride. Very few seats mean that most riders have to stand, but in their favour the also can accommodate wheelchairs, scooters, and baby carriages/strollers.The real problem that I see is that the handrails are often too far apart for many passengers to reach meaning they are often trying to move from one part of the

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2870392896876019496.post-43468706046565396352007-01-05T10:14:00.000-08:002007-01-05T18:47:40.520-08:00

Snow in Vancouver. Never a good idea.It is a little strange, Vancouver is a city of immigrants, not many of us born here and fewer still with ancestors from here. Lots of us from away who have never seen snow until they got here but there are just tons of people who have fled here from parts of Canada, the US and Europe because we only get one, maybe two significant snow falls in a year. So why

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2870392896876019496.post-68826683991457724942007-01-05T05:20:00.000-08:002007-01-05T05:46:47.992-08:00

Hello.I've been riding the buses here in Vancouver since I was nine and now I'm 54, so that gives me about 45 years of experience of our transit system. I've been a regular user of the system throughout the Greater Vancouver area, from Richmond (where I grew up in '60s and '70s) to Burnaby, North & West Vancouver, Surrey, Delta, Coquitlam and Vancouver (where I have lived and worked from the

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0