Wow:
TransLink could well be on track to its tenth annual ridership record in a row, exceeding 2010’s mark of 211.3 million passengers.
Preliminary statistics for the first six months of 2011 report 114.4 million transit trips, four per cent higher than in 2010, when there was a huge spike in passengers during the Olympic Games in February. While February 2011’s passenger count was 28 per cent lower than in 2010, totals have been higher in every other month so far this year, with second quarter ridership higher by over 13 per cent.
Ian Jarvis, TransLink’s CEO, calls the year-to-date figures ‘amazing.’ “We’re out-performing even our Olympics-year ridership, and it signals all that expansion TransLink delivered from 2005 to 2010 and the effective integration of the Canada Line into the system really hit the mark in terms of making our network a viable travel option for more people.”
Jarvis says the latest transit ridership results send a critical message to the region. “I’m very concerned that we’re seeing this substantial rise in demand by more people for more transit at a time when TransLink has no ability to meaningfully increase capacity.
“We’re on a solid financial footing to sustain the services we have now and we’re re-allocating under-used transit services to times of day and routes where they’ll serve more people. But this rate of growth is a clear signal that we need to start expanding the network again, and that’s what TransLink’s current ‘Moving Forward’ supplemental plan proposes to do.
“Otherwise, we’ll lose this momentum and that won’t be good news for anyone on transit, in cars or involved in moving goods or services in Metro Vancouver,” Jarvis says.
TransLink Chair Nancy Olewiler says there is solid public support for the improvements, but how to fund them remains ‘a sticking point.’ “At the request of the Mayors’ Council, TransLink will hold another series of public meetings in September, plus other sessions for city councillors across Metro Vancouver, to see if the support is there for an additional $70 million per year in revenue to fund the next round of expansion.
“The mayors have proposed a 2 cent per litre increase in gas tax and are working with the Province on a new revenue source, both of which will be needed if we’re going to move now on the improvements. If there’s no decision to start expansion now, TransLink will continue to drive as much performance as possible out of our current transit system. But like Ian (Jarvis), I’m really concerned about falling behind the curve as our region continues to grow,” Olewiler says.
– TransLink release.
Sun coverage here. News 1130. CTVBC. And The Province:
Gordon Price, director of the City Program at SFU and a former Vancouver city councillor, says misprojections on car use by traffic engineers, the recession, price of gas, and a generational change towards car dependence means B.C. made a “fundamental mistake.”
In 2003, it took on the massive Gateway Program, with its road and bridge improvements, and should have expanded its transit services into the Valley sooner.
“What we’re seeing is the end of car dependence,” said Price.
“Once people have some realistic, practical choices, they will start to use them.”
I’ve talked to people in translink’s planning department, translink is actually squeezed on budget. There aren’t any more 1% left, though there might be a few 0.0001% left. To add to that, Burnaby won’t cooperate with Translink; they don’t even want a small trolley wire on Boundary from hastings to Lougheed via BTC. Though translink badly needs more buses, they also need a place to store the buses, and places for them to operate. VTC is jam packed, BTC is very full, the RTC is far away; Kootenay loop is Full, Phibbs exchange is full, Metrotown loop is full, Like I said above, if translink eliminates it’s parties, and contests, and fires many people, that still wont account for less than 0.0001%. The only way for translink to save is to re organize service ex) take away the C98 service and replace it with one extra bus. People who are blaming translink, really need to study the transit system, and look at how they are being squeezed like apple juice.
“The only way for translink to save is to re organize service”
Good to recognize it: so why not act on it?
Service can be reorganize to deliver more service with the same bus operating hour envelope, as suggested here with the 411 route (or 410 express) example.
Even though it wasn’t an Olympic year it was still a very, very long Stanley Cup run and there were hundreds of thousands downtown for many evenings using transit.
Does anyone have the month over month increases in May and June?
it seems to me like the more important suburbs have hit the tipping point for transit use, which is obviously fantastic. imagine what will happen when coquitlam gets skytrain service.
and a very good, depressing point about the whole gateway project, but it’s not too late. if we can get the funding happening for the ubc line, the spine will be set for a pretty great regional transit system.