Better Transit

As regular readers will know, I am a big booster for Vancouver’s transit system.  I use it almost every day at least once, and have done now for more than twenty years since I last owned a car.

But it is certainly not perfect and could stand some improvements.

For example, under the current governance structures (i.e. government run), Translink should make all transit fare-free.  If the government is going to monopolize a business using our tax money, then we should at least get the service free.  Besides, in today’s world, freedom of movement must be a human right.

But I am sure there are smaller changes we could make while the transition to free is agreed.  And COPE councilman nominee Tim Louis has some interesting ideas that help ignite the conversation — if only for the length of the municipal campaign.

“[Louis] said the transportation company could make “small” changes that would improve ridership, such as freezing fares and putting even bigger buses on crowded routes along the Broadway line.

“A COPE increase on council will do everything possible to democratize TransLink, to see that the TransLink board is accountable to the taxpayer,” he said. “The TransLink board is currently accountable to only one person and that is the transportation minister in Victoria. A new TransLink board would begin working in the best interests of passengers, taxpayers and workers …”

TransLink should equip all its buses with special transponders that he said would keep “stale green” lights green when a bus approaches, essentially speeding up service. “The ideas we’re putting forth today are very cost-effective with very small capital costs which would make enormous improvements for you and I when we [ride] the bus,” he said. “No more red lights.”Louis also believes TransLink should buy special “bi-articulated buses” or essentially larger versions of the current articulated buses with an extra coach. “It would cost about 30 per cent more, but would carry 50 per cent more people, making it much more efficient,” he said.

On an even more quotidian level, Translink better do a better job of clarifying their rules about baby carriages on buses. I have written about this before but I witnessed a perfect example from the weekend: seniors being forced to move out of the front seats to make way for baby carriages.  This is simply nonesense and must stop!

 

Yes To Transit Improvements

Bravo to the Lower Mainland mayors who today voted for a 2 cents gas tax increase to pay for the Evergreen Line and other transit improvements!  Approving a tax increase just weeks before each of them faces the voters was the right thing to do, but brave nonetheless.

For Richmond’s Brodie and Burnaby’s Corrigan — both representing municipalties particularly well served by transit already — to vote against improvements elsewhere showed no class at all.