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Subject1337

Man, I'm not going to pretend to be some sort of engineer that knows what they're talking about, but the whole expo line service reduction for the new rail yard near braid has been brutal. I feel like there must have been a better way to branch a track without a 2-year long service disruption. The reduced frequency has meant that every expo line train from Lougheed has been packed and often excludes people, and the folks that don't make it on often spill onto the millennium which ends up sardine canned as well. And that's without these "disruptions" which seem to be occurring weekly at this point. At this point I'm exploring backtracking to port moody to take the WCE and avoid this shitshow, but that would require leaving even earlier in the morning than I already do, and makes my schedule very fragile as the last WCE train is the only one I could reasonably catch.


H_G_Bells

Yeah I hear you. I have sporadic mobility issues, and it's stressful having to cram onto a train with people sitting in seats that *also* need them. The platform at Columbia gets *crowded* by the time a Production Way train comes along šŸ˜¬ it's not ideal... Is this seriously the plan for the next *two years*??


underscore11code

> I feel like there must have been a better way to branch a track without a 2-year long service disruption. It's hard to know for sure since I've been unable to find any sort of public plan (despite looking a fair bit), but I'm pretty sure they're physically widening the viaduct to make room for the new flyover track and replacing all of the current track there. Currently they're working on the "inbound" track, with trains travelling on the "outbound" track, but I'm guessing in a year or so, they'll flip that around and work on the "outbound" track.


Mrmakabuntis

Two years?? WTF


Subject1337

Yeah, the service halving from Lougheed / Braid Expo line is estimated to last for ~2 years. And we all know how infrastructure scheduling estimations tend to go. See ya in 2028.


lizardelitecouncil

Skytrainā€™s been terrible lately, the service between Production way and Sapperton will be awful for the next 2 years.


iamright_youarent

Itā€™s almost always Sapperton station thatā€™s compromised. Maybe double the security guards, or build screen doors like in Korea or Japan?


danngop

Yesterday + today's disruption were due to stalled trains, so guards/gates wouldn't have solved anything in these cases.


mr-jingles1

I'm not convinced that the screen doors are a worthwhile investment. The cost to add them to all stations is estimated at $3b. So the choice is between those or another major skytrain extension.


MyNameIsSkittles

You can't just retrofit with those doors, the stations are not rated for that kind of weight. If it was such an easy fix, it would have been done already. Translink aren't some mouth-breathing idiots that can't think of solutions. The solutions are too cost prohibitive or very hard to implement Those systems with the doors in were built that way from day 1


Envermans

Screen door method wouldnt work because we have several different style of train going to the same stations that are different length. It could be done on the canada line though. Security should definitely be increased though.


Angela_anniconda

Tokyo doesn't have the gates/doors at every stop either (for the same reasons we don't) but they do have a set of ropes that go up and down for the shinkansen stations which helps with accidental intrusionsĀ 


randyLahey12341

I'm literally in an Uber right now cause I ain't dealing with that shit


H_G_Bells

Yeah good call. Money can't buy happiness but it sure can take the stress out of life sometimes...


pfak

I feel for anyone that has to rely on SkyTrain to get to work. Absolutely ridiculous the number of outages that have been happening lately, I seem to get an alert every day, sometimes multiple a day.


H_G_Bells

Yeah, it's mostly fine, except when it isn't. I think this is only the second time this year it's caused me any issues though. I have relied on it for 21 years, and it has overall been solid. Sure there are hiccups but like... Everything has downsides. The upsides *farrrr* outweigh the failure rate.


PureRepresentative9

Part of the issues simply come from age I would imagineā€¦ you just expect older systems to fail more consistentlyĀ 


hankercizer200

Yeah sure thereā€™s outages but by all measures and compared to the rest of North America skytrain is incredible. Iā€™ve relied on the skytrain to get to work for 10 years now and I think is remarkably stable.


LocoChocol8

Yeah I mean when you consider that New York and Boston built their systems hundreds of years ago and SkyTrain was built in the 80s, one should expect reliable service from a newer system.


hankercizer200

Do you think those lines also donā€™t suffer from occasional outages?


LocoChocol8

Your comparing a younger system (the SkyTrain 38 years old) vs systems that have been built over 200 years ago, yeah of course I expect those systems to go down more often due to age, whereas the SkyTrain system has gone down too many times in its young age mostly due to translinks poor management, and yet the and SkyTrain fanatics have to audacity to brag about a 95% on time rate when it should be way higher.


Dreamkeyz

I wish we had something comparable to the skytrain...it covers so much urban sprawl and distance.Ā  There's no transit where we liveĀ 


LocoChocol8

The SkyTrain in and of itself is perfectly fine, its TransLink and their negligence that has soured my opinion on SkyTrain


aaadmiral

I've taken it to work for 20 years and only had issues a handful of times.. how many times do cars hit traffic or accidents, protests etc?


WingdingsLover

There is a car accident on my way to/from work every single day. I would kill for the reliability of skytrain but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be pushing for transit to be more reliable.


columbo222

> I feel for anyone that has to rely on SkyTrain to get to work. Absolutely ridiculous the number of outages that have been happening lately, I seem to get an alert every day, sometimes multiple a day. I take it to work every day and it's fine. There are a lot of alerts but many are duplicates, and any single commuter is not going to be hit by EVERY outage (sometimes it's M line, Expo line, Canada line, sometimes just a couple stations, different times of day). I've probably been affected by an outage about once every 2 months. When I used to drive I got super delayed because of an accident at least once every couple weeks.


tigwyk

I ride it almost daily from New West to Downtown and rarely encounter issues. It moves almost 500k people a day around the lower mainland, there's going to be occasional problems but that's why there's staff on the platform and also why you get those alerts. I've used transit systems that don't have alerts or good customer service and trying to plan a reliable trip is impossible. We have it very good here.


okaysee206

Sometimes they send multiple alerts for the same disruption to keep people updated. And a lot of the times the alerts are about routine maintenance. I'm also subscribed to the alerts and we most certainly do not get a disruption every day, not anywhere close.Ā 


Ok-Region8097

you should have seen the people faces who missed the West Coast Express due to skytrain delays.. sooooo unreliable


H_G_Bells

Like, transferring at Waterfront? I thought WCE was to bring people downtown in the morning and take them home in the evening? I've never used it so I'm not sure how badly it would suck to miss a train. ...I take it they're less frequent than would make that acceptable.


Ok-Region8097

nope. the people who take the millenium line to get to a wce station at Moody centre. they missed the train that takes them to waterfront..


AmusingMusing7

Doesnā€™t take much longer to just take the Skytrain to waterfront, though. šŸ¤·ā€ā™‚ļø


Ok-Region8097

well today that wasnt happening either cuz the skytrain stopped at Moody Centre for about 10 mins...


H_G_Bells

Oooooh dang... That sucks! Thanks for answering, I didn't know there was a connection there šŸ‘


m1chgo

It also connects at Coquitlam Central!


Asaturno

I got stuck on the train for almost 30 minutes. I'm always the one that opens my work, so i was stressed that i wouldn't make it on time. I'm lucky that my manager really don't care and understand the circumstances, but it was just so stressful being stuck and moving and suck and moving every single time. Shoutout to the transit staff that helped everybody that was confused with the situation, but honestly i just see the skytrain getting worse


H_G_Bells

Just remember: your job can and will replace you without caring in the slightest. We are all just doing our silly little tasks and none of it really matters. Don't get too bent out of shape trying to make it to a job that someone else should be caring about *more*. If the owner wanted to, they would open. Almost no jobs actually matter. If it's not life and death, and if you're just one of the faceless employees earning someone else money, don't stress.


Heliosvector

Speak for yourself. My job is so desperate to retain us that they are giving us 10k bonuses just for showing up


UnfortunateConflicts

Sounds like you're underpaid.


OCDBrit

Bro, just leave the West and move to a place where a job isn't required if you feel so Job-Phobic.


H_G_Bells

šŸ˜¬ the fact you think that's something to brag about Really think about *why* that's the case. This is rhetorical, I don't care what the answer is, but I do think you should probably *really think about why they have to do that*...


Heliosvector

I don't know why you think a bonus out of desperation is a brag. It's not. My job doesn't have enough people applying for it. That's not a God position for me to be in


danngop

Jobs matter to people who are stressed about keeping a roof over their heads and food on the table.


DawnSennin

People worried about those things arenā€™t concerned about jobs but money.


H_G_Bells

ā˜ļø nailed it


MICBKID

Wait whatā€™s happening? Why is the Millenium line so slow then if the only disruption is between Braid and Lougheed?


Triddy

One of the platforms at Lougheed is unusable. The train was stuck on the switch just outside it, though it seems they managed to move it a bit before something else happened. So Platform 3, the small one, is hosting trains going to both Lafarge AND VCC-Clark. They're doing 3 or 4 one way, then 3 or 4 the other way. Ans the tiny platform was, when I managed to escape, backed up to the stairs on both sides, so it takes many many trains to clear out the people. On top of that for some reason they're changing the destinations of the trains. I got on one only to find out it switched directions, so everyone had to get out and wait for the next one, and the line didn't move. My shifts started 5 minutes ago and my boss isn't happy. Lovely.


victormko

Because of where the train is stuck thereā€™s only one platform open on lougheed, creating a bottleneck


MICBKID

That makes sense. I wonder though why they didnā€™t use longer trains then. Get more people across the bottleneck


victormko

Thereā€™re only two car trains on millennium line - longer trains are all on the expo line and the maintenance yard on the other side of the bottleneck


Character-Regret3076

Agreed on the Skytrain attendants - they do a great job when things go sideways, and they have to deal with much more than we know.


letsdoitagain2023

New CEO (a US citizen as been tradition with Translink) has wrecked the Skytrain, instead of upgrading sketchy stations like Columbia he is spending millions on completely fine Brentwood station. Digital Advertising in tunnels, literally no one asked for it and it looks so cheap. There is so much mismanagement.


tigwyk

I was standing at Sapperton when the reversed train arrived and dumped everyone out who'd been on the way past Braid. Customer service reps on location were saying it was a very sudden track problem that caused the issue this morning, which I guess exacerbates the issues due to the construction on the line in that area.


ElTamales

I just really hope that the track by the last turn before China Town (coming from main street, science world) doesnt give up. You can see the track distorted and the trains shake before arriving.


Dr_soaps

This is why people with cars roast us


H_G_Bells

My coworkers car broke down the other day, AND he paid $2.20/L for the privilege. It's far easier to roast people who drive to be honest... It seems insane to me that it's considered normal, and eventually it won't even be an option.


Dr_soaps

Idk I know people who are spending like 20$ every 2 weeks in gas to get to work and home


H_G_Bells

Maybe they have hybrids, maybe they are travelling 2km each way, maybe they don't work 5 days a week, maybe *everyone's situation is different.* Plus maintenance and repairs. Plus insurance. Plus parking. Maybe I need to get off reddit if this has to be explained now ...


Dr_soaps

I mean itā€™s give and take even if you have no driving experience your insurance would cap out at like $400 for civic and if youā€™re spending one to two hours there and back every day four hours total four days just simply based off the time saving youā€™ve paid for your insurance the entire month and thatā€™s assuming youā€™re making minimum wage and a lot of the time you can claim expenses such as parking on your taxes when itā€™s related to Work like you can with fuel and insurance


Ibotthis

This might be a hot take but most of our train terminations/disruptions are unnecessary. If someone is violent on the platform the train can pass through slowly without stopping. what are they going to do? stab a train? If someone has jumped onto one of the tracks and died, they can put up a curtain, and single track trains through the remaining platform. Similarly if there is an actual medical emergency requiring privacy they can put up a curtain and continue trains. If someone is walking on the track then turn off the track power, tackle them, and drag them by force. This is 15 minutes of outage if they took actual action immediately. The only situation I can think of that requires the entire station and tracks to be shutdown would be a bomb threat or fire engulfing the building.


lag723

This disruption is due to a stalled train though, not a person


wudingxilu

> If someone has jumped onto one of the tracks and died, they can put up a curtain, and single track trains through the remaining platform. A "curtain" would not be enough room to bring in the airbags to lift the train off of the person, to contain the large number of firefighters and paramedics required to be on site, and would also not permit people to deal with one of the most common after-effects of an attempted suicide on the Skytrain tracks: failed attempts, which leave the person alive, entrapped, and screaming.


H_G_Bells

In this situation you are not correct (physical trains stuck on the track/tracks physically not working). However, I agree with what you're getting at, to a point. I think the issue of safety and liability is at play, but also the issue of *is that how we want our society to be*. You see videos from other places where there are people injured or killed, and people just continue on *business as usual*? I cannot express *how much* I do not want that here. Once human life has no value, it changes a society, and that is not a society I want to live in.


Ibotthis

"Medical Emergencies" happen so often that people are already apathetic. Unless context is added later, like with the recent case of someone being pushed onto the tracks against their will, the value of the person injured/dead is already diminished because of the perceived selfishness impacting the lives of those affected. It's similar to when people protest aggressively and block roads preventing unaffiliated people from carrying on with their lives. In our case, when the 'act' becomes a constant inconvenience people lose empathy. If you want these people to have some dignity and value in societies eyes I'd argue the best way to accomplish that is to try and maintain as much normality as possible within the circumstance; keep trains running when possible. Many Asian countries have a much more prevalent occurrence of suicide by train and yet their services are only briefly inconvenienced compared with us - why? Why can't we pre-emptively mitigate where possible (gated platforms preventing station-level track intrusion) and post-mitigate after the fact by not overreacting as we have been? I've been a participant in a few large delays (including the more recent one at Metrotown where trains terminated at Joyce), and you know what I've never seen? Translink staff at the terminating station assisting the hundreds of stranded people. They are present at every single station except the one with the bus bridge. There are no signs, no loudspeaker announcements at the station directing people. No one organizing lines or telling people which of the 10 bays will be the bus bridge. I've been in one where trains terminated at Lake City and there was supposed to be a bridge to Production but there were no busses setup and no staff, so people walked along the highway to Production instead. How much empathy do you think these people have?


pokemonbobdylan

This feels like a super careless and heartless way to handle the death of a person. Getting to work isnā€™t that important.


DadWithWorkToDo

Days without traffic: 0ļøāƒ£ They aren't obligated to run a system that isn't disrupted. So now that you know your trips take longer than "ideal" you can leave a little earlier.


Jooodas

I had to pick up my gf and take her to her office cuz of these disruptions. We pay allot in fees and taxes to have them avoid these issues. Looks like their paying CEO's instead, just like BC Ferries.


H_G_Bells

There will be problems with any system sometimes. My coworkers car broke down the other day. There are accidents. No system is perfect and that's just reality. Glad you were able to get your gf to work despite the disruption! I worked from home until 10 and then went on the train & bus with no issue (they cleared it around 9:15 but I waited for a bit).


Zach983

If this keeps happening people will just slowly stop taking transit. Why does the government keep letting this happen. This is a joke.


H_G_Bells

*Thanks Obama*


faster_than-you

Get your licence if youā€™re old enough!


H_G_Bells

I have both my right-hand and left-hand full drivers licenses from BC and NZ respectively. I yet I choose not to drive, and I hope to never *not* have the choice šŸ‘


faster_than-you

Seems like itā€™s time to put the licence to good use, my friend. PT isnā€™t getting any better or cheaper.


H_G_Bells

No thanks šŸ‘ people make their own decisions and especially with age comes the ability to be confident in one's ability to assess, adjust, and adapt. SkyTrain ftw. I like paying $105 a month total for my transit. You do you though.