janschot
New Member
Vancouver Transit
I just got back to my home in New York from a four day visit to Vancouver.
After spending several days in Portland and Seattle, it was pretty depressing to realize that they had a Canadian city beat on several transit quality metrics. The most serious drawback to Vancouver's system, especially for a visitor, is that there are no route maps or schedules at any of the bus stations. I would arrive at a bus stop and have no idea when the next bus would arrive or where it was going. In fact, complete system maps only seem to be posted at a few SkyTrain stations. Because there are no fare-takers at the SkyTrain stations, I only found one place in the city to get a fold-out system map - at the downtown tourist information kiosk. The most hilarious part was that I had to pay for the map! It was $1.99 printed on the map, $2.17 with tax. Hilarious.
Luckily I wasn't in a rush to get anywhere so I could wait the completely unknown amount of time it would take for the next bus to show up, so I approached these serious drawbacks with a laugh.
On the other side, Translink provides a quality trip planning system online, as does Google Maps, so if you have access to a computer with internet when you are planning your transit trips for the day, you can plan adequately. There are also five-digit (I believe) numbers posted on the bus stops which you can enter into the Translink automated phone system. I assume these will tell you the time of the next bus (although not the map). Unfortunately this is not helpful to those, like me, who do not have mobile phones. There were rarely payphones close to the bus stops.
Sorry that this wasn't planning-related.
I just got back to my home in New York from a four day visit to Vancouver.
After spending several days in Portland and Seattle, it was pretty depressing to realize that they had a Canadian city beat on several transit quality metrics. The most serious drawback to Vancouver's system, especially for a visitor, is that there are no route maps or schedules at any of the bus stations. I would arrive at a bus stop and have no idea when the next bus would arrive or where it was going. In fact, complete system maps only seem to be posted at a few SkyTrain stations. Because there are no fare-takers at the SkyTrain stations, I only found one place in the city to get a fold-out system map - at the downtown tourist information kiosk. The most hilarious part was that I had to pay for the map! It was $1.99 printed on the map, $2.17 with tax. Hilarious.
Luckily I wasn't in a rush to get anywhere so I could wait the completely unknown amount of time it would take for the next bus to show up, so I approached these serious drawbacks with a laugh.
On the other side, Translink provides a quality trip planning system online, as does Google Maps, so if you have access to a computer with internet when you are planning your transit trips for the day, you can plan adequately. There are also five-digit (I believe) numbers posted on the bus stops which you can enter into the Translink automated phone system. I assume these will tell you the time of the next bus (although not the map). Unfortunately this is not helpful to those, like me, who do not have mobile phones. There were rarely payphones close to the bus stops.
Sorry that this wasn't planning-related.