GORDOOM

At what point does it make sense either to merge the new #350 with the #352 or to give the #352 the same treatment, in order to provide all-day service to more of south Surrey?

Just stop accepting cash fares on board buses, and put a few more CVMs at suburban bus loops and community centres. Problem solved.

Except that the workers deemed “essential” during this crisis — health care, retail food, construction labour — are disproportionately transit-dependent. Overcrowding on transit directly jeopardizes our safety.

What’s the timeline for restoring normal SkyTrain service? Maintaining distancing on the Expo Line is nearly impossible.

State of emergency, remember? Dr. Henry has the authority to order TransLink and its operating agencies to restore service, and to order the laid-off workers to accept recall.

And this on the same day that Dix and Henry announce the beginning of the re-opening. Truly the left hand has no clue what the right hand is doing.

“We understand these suspensions will have an impact on customers, but they are a necessary measure to maintain service on critical corridors.“ This is an incomplete sentence, the missing part being, “because senior levels of government refuse to provide replacement funding until September.” But I suppose TransLink can’t say that part out loud. In the meantime, I’m now having to leave for work an extra two hours early in case I get caught in line-ups.

I still don’t understand why they didn’t move the mobile validator (on buses that only have one) to the back door, and then announce the permanent discontinuation of cash fare payment on the buses. They’ve been trying to figure out a replacement for the fareboxes for a while now — just bite the bullet!

Not exactly surprising. Between the disruption to bus procurements and the extra sanitation requirements, CMBC have got to be fully in “throw whatever we got out there!” mode by now. What are the long-term effects of this going to be, though? How long of a disruption to vehicle procurements will this cause, and how will that affect CMBC and BCRTC’s ability to maintain service once the movement and public assembly restrictions start lifting?

In looking at the map showing the #35x changes, I’m struck by how little of the South Surrey/White Rock area has any sort of transit service, and especially how little of it has more than peak-period, peak-direction service. I wonder if the #350 should turn east instead of west on Crescent Rd? Though that still leaves an awfully big gap around 24 Av....

Or we could just, you know, put in-motion charging infrastructure along some of the busier bus routes...

Spoiler alert: we won’t have enough artics, at least not once September sheet hits.

TransLink plans overhaul of Columbia Station (and also Edmonds and Stadium) Anyone have more concrete information? Primary documents?

AFAIK it’s not so much that there are concrete plans to do so, as that TransLink presumed (read: guessed) when defining the spec for the RFPs that a series-hybrid coach would be significantly easier to retrofit for full-electric operation than a parallel-hybrid coach. I guess we’ll find out in about six or seven years…

Very modest. The range is only a couple km — or rather, was when the batteries were new — and the air compressors don’t run from the EPU, so you’re limited to whatever braking air was in the system when you lost power. It’s enough to navigate a brief section of de-energized overhead or get clear of an intersection after blowing your poles, but not much else.

“Fit for service”? Given how hard they’ve been run and for how long, is any D40LF really fit for service at this point?

One of Gillig’s traditional strengths has been their willingness to go the extra mile to get orders from small- and medium-sized systems. It doesn’t shock me that they’d be willing to do an IMC battery-electric custom vehicle for Dayton’s tiny little trolleybus network. As for NFI and TransLink... we’re still at least three to four years off from even starting the procurement process for the ExxLFR replacements. That said, though, I do think thought should be given to making Burnaby TC a trolleybus rather than a battery-only depot, using something like IMC to support a massive trolleybus fleet expansion with minimal overhead requirements.

If they’re dealing with a coach shortage - which they might well be, given the delays in delivery of the Enviro500s - this might be necessary as a stop-gap.

What I’d love to see is a trolleybus loop at Main Street station. Next question: with the Mark III fleet now up to 18 trains on the property, at what point will we see the M-Line switch, say, to 4-car consists of Mark Is?

469–472 sitting on flatbeds at OMC2.

Cheaper to build the infrastructure as part of the Joyce Station upgrades than add it back in later. Also, the loop can be useful as a short-turn for the #19 if there’s problems between Joyce and Willingdon. Given that Vancouver TC is on Marine, it wouldn’t even be a particularly round-about way of getting in and out of service.

The R3 is new and shiny. Also, the RapidBus routes are probably given absolute first priority for artics, given how much they’re trying to build and maintain the new brand. I raised on another thread the question of an artic shortage. I raise it again, especially with the R2 coming in April.

With the retirement of the D60LFs, do we have an artic shortage now? Maybe TL should be replacing more 40-footers with artics?

What’s Vancouver TC’s maximum trolley capacity? And can that be expanded at all with the new Marpole TC coming online? (For that matter, does the new Burnaby mayor mean we might be able to electrify Burnaby TC?) (Also, I can’t believe I’m actually posting to this!)

Is the switch problem an “again” or a “still”?