Modulator

The roundabout at Davie would be tight for a full-size bus, and Bidwell and Burnaby aren't exactly bus-friendly streets. If the Davie-Yaletown were a standalone trolley route, it should probably continue east to Stadium Station, and in the west it could continue up Denman to Stanley Park. Although useful, this wouldn't be terribly efficient, and it'd be hard to balance service with two full-size routes on Davie. My preferred solution is to extend both the Davie and the Robson to be a two-way loop via Denman, Robson, Cambie, Pacific, Davie, replacing the C23 and doing a much better job of connecting Downtown South/Yaletown to points beyond. (This also makes a stronger case for keeping Robson Square open to transit, but if it's closed the route would be Denman-Robson-Burrard-Pender-Cambie-Pacific-Davie, which wouldn't be as direct). BTW: the C21 and C23 WILL likely be split at some point next year. The C21 may also extend to Second Beach...

There was a temporary bus stop marked with wrapped cardboard around a tree near the totem poles in Stanley Park, a Poco D40LF parked at the totem poles, and a blue/white/yellow pole wrap (that usually marks an overhead problem) with a handwritten arrow pointing left at Pipeline Road. Not sure was what up.

Well, that's because the communications department rarely understands things. The alerts page sums it up: "Robson Square will remain closed to traffic until further notice. (could be made permanent; we don't know what will happen, it's The City of Vancouver's decision)." At the last minute (and without telling anyone), the City of Vancouver decided to extend the summer closure until sometime (they've since decided December). There are people within the City that really, really want the street closed. In the City's Transportation Plan there was supposed to be consultation sometime a few years from now (and there was supposed to be "consideration" for letting transit through, but you know...), but someone decided to act suddenly instead. The good news (for people who understand the basic geometry of transit) is that the CIty may have shot themselves in the foot by doing it this way, since now the Downtown Business Association is POed. So we'll see what happens...

Today, rode a 17 that dewired WB Smithe FS Hamilton. No points for figuring that one out.

If they were dieselizing they'd probably go up Clark instead of Commercial. Anyway, the 4/7 collectively require almost 30 buses in the afternoon rush hour, way more than are readily available.

An overpass will be built on Powell Street over the railway tracks next year, meaning detours to the 4 and 7 (and the 209/210/211/214). The City's website now gives a hint of what that'll mean: http://vancouver.ca/...ss/traffic.htm. Looks like transit will route via Hastings-Commercial-Powell in both directions, which will mean a new left turn switch from Hastings to Commercial and a right from Commercial to Powell for eastbound service. The interesting question is how the new left turn will interact with the Hastings express wire: turn from the local wire and cross the express, or switch to the express and then switch to the left turn (like at Nanaimo)? But, of course, the more important question for service reliability is whether the City will be smart enough to have full-time bus lanes on Hastings...

Road destruction on Dunbar and at Broadway and Cambie. And the 4 probably because of lazy booking. http://tripplanning.translink.ca/hiwire?.a=cCustomerComplaint

Link. Increase by 1 to change direction; increase by 10 for the next line. BTW a big one I missed: the 210 will run every 20 minutes on Saturday afternoons and early evenings. Easier to get to Lynn Headwaters (yay!) but since the 211 isn't changing it means uneven service and missed connections between Downtown and Phibbs. The 232 runs every 30 minutes in rush hour, with the short-turn trips between Lonsdale and Phibbs deleted.

Summer timetables are accessible in the usual way. Highlights seen so far: All-day closures of Granville Street on Saturdays and Sundays again this year. The 5 detours via Burrard and Pender yet again, as the City is also closing Robson Street between Howe and Hornby for July and August. The 14 runs every 10 minutes (instead of 12) on Saturdays and every 12 (instead of 15) on Sundays. The 16 runs every 10 minutes (instead of 12) on weekdays and Saturdays. The 19 runs every 12 minutes (instead of 10) during rush hours, and every 12 (instead of every 15) into the evening, with shuttles into Stanley Park for 6-minute service all day. The 26/27/29 run every 20 minutes (instead of 15) on weekdays and Saturdays. The 240 runs every 12 minutes (instead of 15) on Saturday afternoons.

There are no scheduled short-turns at Joyce. There are several scheduled trips returning to VTC that run in service from Metrotown to Joyce, and then along 41st to Oak. Likewise, pullout trips from VTC run NIS along Oak and 41st and go into service at Kingsway and Joyce toward Metrotown. There are lots of unscheduled short-turns at Joyce (or, once in a while, Slocan or Broadway) for southbound coaches. There are also lots of unscheduled short-turns Downtown for northbound coaches, which turn at Richards and skip Stanley Park to get back on time. Kingsway is not the most reliable street in the world... All regular 19 blocks are scheduled as trolleys on weekdays. All but two Satuday and Sunday blocks are scheduled as trolleys--the exceptions are the two morning trips that loop via Howe, Dunsmuir and Burrard. The turn from Howe to Dunsmuir can't be made safely, and scheduling hasn't figured out to route these trips via Granville, Robson and Burrard instead (and that section of Robson will be closed this summer. Maybe this fall). The shuttle blocks on the 19 that run from Stanley Park to Downtown only in the summer have been scheduled with diesels for the past few years, though there's no good reason for them not to be trolleys. Given that sunny days always overload everything going to Stanley Park, it would make way more sense for these runs to use artic trolleys. And, actually, it would make even more sense to run the 17 into Stanley Park instead of running shuttles, which would also give Oak Street more reliable and useful service, but you know...

The 19 hasn't been dieselized every weekend, or even every Sunday lately. When it has, it's either been for special events (e.g. the marathon last Sunday) or major road construction on Kingsway (which is supposed to go to the end of the month). Metrotown is a strong anchor, and there's no reason to extend the line. Rumours about STC or BTC are probably actually about converting the N19 to artics.

The report is a little bit imprecise about the spare trolleys. The 40-footers have a low spare ratio (~18%), but the artics have a very high one (~45%). This is not because of technology or maintenance, but because of service cuts on the 8 line: it was first converted to artics without changing the schedule (i.e. still running every 4 minutes in the morning peak) and the fleet was ordered for that size. There are lots of things that could be done to increase trolley utilization. A relatively cheap expansion through Yaletown (Davie-Cambie-Robson) could restructure the 5/6/C23 into a very high-frequency downtown service. If a 41st Ave B-Line ever happens, a dozen or so vehicles would be enough to run the 41st Ave local from Crown to Joyce. Plus there's the fact that just about every corridor in Vancouver could use more service... Which brings up the actually interesting part of the review: how much better performing urban routes are than suburban. Average cost per passenger is 50% higher at the Surrey Depot than Vancouver, and the Richmond Depot costs 2 and a half times more per passenger (long-distance highway routes are very, very expensive to run). It's funny to look at how the different municipalities perceive Translink, and also what expectations they all have...

Ambiguity resolved: http://www.translink.ca/en/Be-Part-of-the-Plan/Frequent-Transit-Network.aspx So, TL's definition is 15 minutes are better from 6AM-9PM weekdays, 7AM-9PM Saturdays and 8AM-9PM Saturdays. I'm not a fan of this definition, but it's a starting point. And they finally made a map!

Those "short-turn" trips are actually pullout trips, and most already exist. Not sure why they're now listed in the public timetable. As for the 14, the Sunday schedule seems the same as before.

http://www.planning.ubc.ca/database/rte/files/DP07017-2_Landscape.pdf The last page has a plan for the new UBC trolley loop, allegedly to be built this spring. This will probably mean 4s and 14s ending at Blanca for a month or two...

It's all offpeak service, except for the Surrey B-Line.

The routes listed in the news release are easy to increase to FTN levels: -The 19 already meets the guidelines, except that it runs every 20 minutes between 7 and 9 pm on weekends -The 97 runs every half hour in the early morning on weekends. -The 145 runs every half hour in the early morning on weekends. The biggest change will be for the 229/230. They'll need to increase in the evenings on all days and on weekend mornings. This will probably coincide with the expansion of 15-minute Seabus service.

So...has anyone else spotted the screwup in the latest version of the destination sign program? It can be seen on Hastings, Granville, Broadway, 10th Ave...

The 239 runs every 10 minutes on weekdays (plus one or two trippers). It's just never on time.

Minor schedule changes to the 15. The 16 is getting one extra bus in the afternoon rush hour to address always being late and bunched up. The 17 is getting some extra running time so that it will only be late most of the time instead of all of the time. More trippers on the 25 and 84. The 231 is just a renumbering of the Harbourside trips of the 236.

When the alert was originally sent out a week ago, Granville was only going to be closed north of Pender, so everything would stay on Granville and use Pender and Homer/Richards to get to/from Hastings and Cordova (with the 5, 6 and 10 turning around via Pender-Homer-Hastings-Richards). Not sure if the film crew moved or if the City and/or TL screwed up the original notification.

Actually, yesterday was one of the very rare occasions that a route did get dieselized in the middle of the day. Granville was blocked at King Ed, so 10s were rerouted down Oak from Broadway all the way to Marine Dr. Then they started running shuttles to fill in the gap, but I guess they realized that they were then "shuttling" almost the entire route, since they ended up using the shuttles to replace the 10s that were out. I would guess that the detour was what it was because they couldn't scrounge up pole-pullers to make the turns at Oak and 41st. The smarter reroute would probably have been Granville-Broadway-Arbutus/W Boulevard-41st-back to Granville. But with all the detours and weather-related craziness yesterday resources were probably stretched.

Some interesting detours coming up on Friday. Remembrance Day ceremonies close Hastings and Cambie downtown, with Pender bus-only. The 3 & 8 will route Pender-Richards-Robson-Granville-back to Cordova The 5, 6 & 10 will make a left from Granville onto Pender and then onto Burrard (5) or Howe (6 & 10) back to route. The 17 will stay on Robson, then left onto Howe and over the Granville Bridge following its former detour route via Hemlock and Broadway back to Oak. The 14, 16 & 20 (and 135/160) route east on Cordova and west on Pender. The 20 will definitely be dieselized (since Commercial is also closed for the ceremony near the Legion there) and my guess is that the 14 and 16 will be as well.

Lots of detours downtown today: -Watermain break on Pender Street, so westbound 4s, 7s, 19s, 22s, 209/210s, 211s and 214s are running down Hastings all day. -Another day of protest outside the Pickton inquiry shut down Granville, so everything went up Seymour or Howe from late morning until lunch -Accident on Robson at Homer, so the 17 was rerouted via Hamilton-Pender-Homer-Hastings-Cambie -The City is closing down Granville tonight (in anticipation of hooliganism?), so everything will be on Seymour or Howe after 9 like on Fridays

The TMAC sets the destination sign if it's running regular service, and there are no scheduled 40' trips on the 135/145. This would have been a special. A pileup on the Ironworkers Bridge meant everything on Hastings was severely backed up. The 135 was detoured via Broadway/Lougheed but still was running nowhere near on time. As a result, no 145s until CMBC scrounged up some buses to do shuttle service.