Jun 20 2008
No Park & Ride Here
I have an issue with Translink. I went to an event last night that was in downtown Vancouver. Instead of driving from Maple Ridge into downtown, I decided to take transit.
It’s been years since I’ve taken the bus or SkyTrain, but I thought that I’d give it a shot. The venue that I was going to has limited parking and I didn’t want to fight for a parking spot. I decided to drive into Burnaby, park near Lougheed Mall and take the Skytrain into downtown.
What’s the deal with all the signs clearly stating “No Park & Ride”? I understand that Lougheed Mall doesn’t want a full parking lot of people who aren’t shopping there, but you would think that Translink would try and make some provisions for this.
In a time when people are generally more aware about being “environmentally friendly” and are trying to find alternative ways to commute, there should be measures taken so that this could be accomplished.
Why doesn’t Translink provide parking facilities for commuters? This seems to be a big problem. I did eventually find street parking a few blocks away, but I shouldn’t have needed to do this.
If Translink truly wants to promote transit as a viable alternative, they really should consider some changes.
First, more park and ride lots.
Second, work on improving the West Coast Express. I’ve heard that there are issues with CP Rail not wanting to give up “track time” for this because it would open the gate across the country for other municipalities to want the same treatment, but something needs to happen. When the Greater Toronto Area has a great system like GO Transit with trains running all day, surely the GVRD could do the same.
Third, expand your rapid transit plans. Once the future UBC, Evergreen and Canada Lines are done, these further ideas should be looked at. Skytrain should run into Maple Ridge (not just the projected line to Coquitlam. The Surrey line should be run right into Langley. That’s when you start to have a rapid transit system that is usable for the majority of people living in the Lower Mainland.
So.. my message to Translink.. Get with the program! Start creating COMPLETE and VIABLE solutions to transit, or you’ll never get us out of our cars.
I think we’re all on the same page here (I work for TransLink)… The issues you raise aren’t very easy to resolve:
1) Park & Rides — The municipalities through which the Millennium Line travels do not want park & ride facilities…they made that clear when the line was designed back in the late 90’s, so even if land and the money to buy it was available (and that’s a big ‘if’), TransLink would not, at least according to existing policy, get the zoning from Burnaby for a park & ride facility.
2) Transit expansion — Rail lines, buses and the road improvements and other facilities necessary to make buses work better are not cheap. “Getting with the program” (and there is a program), will cost a cool $300 million more a year to cover the capital and, especially the operating costs. That’s about double what people pay now in annual property taxes to TransLink….or about 48 cents per litre of gas or diesel, or a doubling in transit fares. What you will see in the months to come is a very serious discussion about what kinds of things might be done to raise that amount of money.
Of course, we anticipate people will tell us to be ‘more efficient’ — to which I would note that we have been…that’s one reason why transit fares have not gone up nearly as much as the cost of labour and, especially, diesel. We also anticipate people will challenge us to put in turnstiles to cut out fare evasion on SkyTrain, but every audit done on evasion…both by ourselves or by independent firms…show that fare evasion is far lower than people like to believe, and the cost of turnstiles would be order of magnitude five times more than the fares they would recover.
If you have time, I invite you to come to the Firefighters Hall on Bonsar next to Metro Town next Tuesday at 9:30 am for TransLink’s Annual Meeting…we can chat!
Ken Hardie
PS:
I mis-calculated the fuel taxes needed to raise $300 million a year. One cent of tax is worth $25 million, so the lift needed to raise $300 million would be 12 cents per litre. Not a very attractive option with gas the price that it is now….
K