TransLink is a dysfunctional regional transit organization created by the NDP which believes in centralized bureaucracy. TransLink cannot meet the needs of all the regions and its mandate is to operate regional transit. Regional transit often conflicts with the needs of the local community and transit. A good example is the regional B-Line regional diesel bus rapid transit service operating in parallel along the #9 and #17 trolley bus routes. Over the summer, we were forced to tolerate the spectacle of redundant B-Lines spewing toxic emissions and subjecting residents along the B-Line route to harrowing noise levels.

The B-Line service could have been suspended during the summer without compromising transit service, but despite lobbying the COV to stop TransLink, the COV did nothing because the COV has people who are just collecting a paycheck and who want to keep their jobs as hassle free as possible: sad and very frustrating. We could benefit from taking local transit away from TransLink to operate transit in the most cost effective manner and in a way that benefits local transit users. TransLink operates redundant regional transit to keep its costs up in order to secure more funding rather than to risk reducing costs and its funding.

In fact, if we just had BC Transit take over transit in the Lower Mainland and got rid of TransLink, we could save a lot more than the $430,000 per year seeing as just the TransLink CEO makes $300,000 per year to look dignified and do next to nothing. We could be saving a few hundred million dollars annually by bringing back BC Transit to avoid all the do nothing management at TransLink.

Charlie, how about posting this as a commentary in the next printed edition? The COV and TransLink deserve to be put on the spot for the B-Line mayhem. 

I would get rid of Translink -replacing it with a loonie in a jar. 

Actually, TransLink was create by the demands of then GVRD Chair and Vancouver councilor George Puil. The deal was signed, when the GVRD supported the then contentious Millennium Line and the provincial government to pay the 66% of the costs of SKYTRAIN ONLY construction West of Commercial Drive in Vancouver. Thus owing the seeds for the Canada Line and the Broadway subway.

TransLink is supposed to be run by a Board of Experts (In reality a board of Amateurs and Liberal hacks), but in reality is is run by the premier's office. premier Campbell wanted a Canada Line Subway for Vancouver and got a Canada line subway for Vancouver.

BC Transit was bad, yet TransLink is worse and there is absolutely no change on the horizon. 

Every visitor I've come across, whether friends, or even people I meet in a pub or out and about, always raves about Vancouver's transit in comparison to where they come from.

The first poster here says the B-Line could be "suspended" for the summer. Are you insane? Do you mean the Broadway B-Line? Do you ever take buses on Broadway? A suspension of the B-Line through the summer is absurd; clearly you write a lot, but do not think your argument through very well. I'm guessing you don't even take most of the buses in service.

We have a great transit system here. Folks, there is no such thing as teleportation. There is, however, traffic and a large number of people living in a small area. It takes time to get places.

Buses meet timetables quite well from my experience; and this is throughout Vancouver and Burnaby. What people need to do is quit complaining, plan your day and have patience. Or just continue to be unhappy in your little lives and do the typical Vancouver thing: piss and moan for no real reason. 

Therzo38:

You need to get out more. London, New York, Barcelona, Madrid...even Toronto have transit systems that put ours to shame! Just last week, a group of Kwantlen College students made the 19km trip between their Surrey and Langley campuses faster by jogging than by using the bus!

We have an expensive, proprietary rapid transit system that has a short structural lifespan, and costs billions to maintain. It serves "town centres" that are served by an infrequent, overcrowded bus network. And what's worse, the people who receive the least amount of service (anyone in Zone 3) pay the highest fares. In fact, when you factor in park & ride costs & fares for just 2 people commuting downtown, it's cheaper to drive & park.

Go to a real city, and see how they run transit! You'll see the difference! 

Maybe I am a little insane from all the noise and toxic emissions including mercury emissions from the B-Line. I might have mad hatter's disease from the B-Line mercury emissions or might have lead poisoning or arsenic poisoning, as well, because I live 15 m from the B-Line route. TransLink is an outstanding transit company run by very best: it is like a family on social assistance living in a trailer park with a heavily financed BMW parked in front of the run-down mobile home.

TransLink definitely has its priorities in order by spending $2 billion or so for the RAV Line, while letting service plummet as students ride crowded smelly B-Lines and transit costs soar with $150 million per year in carrying charges to finance the RAV Line. TransLink is not lying to us by telling us that it is moving 100,000 transit users on the RAV Line when only 270,000 people use transit in the entire Lower Mainland (deduced from 2009 Annual Report). Outstanding, let”˜s keep eating it up from TransLink as it moves to New Westminster to expand the TransLink empire!

Broke and destitute, TransLink is spending $10 million to plan the next big rapid transit line to UBC when the Pacific Ocean is right there for it to run ferries for a fraction of cost in a fraction of the time without creating another Cambie Street disaster. I'm just a mere simpleton and will never understand the outstanding and brilliant people at TransLink, I guess.

I agree with you 100%, TransLink has its priorities in order when it keeps spoiled and selfish transit users happy by running redundant diesel buses on the B-Line route while it results in empty trolley buses running parallel to the B-Lines during the summer. TransLink has money to burn and it can afford it to keep spoiled transit users happy. Let me know when TransLink needs more money running your well managed transit company which everyone raves about in your circles.

It is much better to poison residents along the B-Line route and harass residents along the B-Line route with harrowing noise so that transit users can get to UBC 10 minutes quicker on the B-Line rather than on the milk run trolley buses. I’m with you totally on that and so are the outstanding TransLink individuals running our outstanding world class B-Lines.

 

Thanks for the correction, perhaps the NDP were just in power at the time. Good to see you posting. What's that song by Beck: " I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me ... "

I'm TransLink baby ... 

Nice to hear Surrey mayor Dianne 'delicious' Watts on NW affirming the $1 toll charges across the board -- all bridges.

(see above) 

RealityCheck,

You say it's cheaper to drive and park. You're dead wrong. It would be if you're only factoring gas and parking. Now get real and factor in a purchase of a vehicle and maintenance, both scheduled and surprise.

It's never cheaper to drive than take transit, no matter what city you're in.

Anyone can get anywhere faster by running/jogging than taking a vehicle. Again, there's a little something called traffic that includes not only vehicles, but also lights and rules of the road.

All the cities you mention likely (I've only been to three of them) have better transit systems. You know what else they all have? An extensive train/subway system. Vancouver is working without such infrastructure, and will never have an extensive infrastructure of rail. Thus, we have buses.

Sure, if you don't like the system by all means run, jog or bike. Not only will that alleviate pressure on the transit system (maybe able bodies morons will walk the five or six blocks instead of taking up a spot on the bus) it will also get fat Canadians healthier and lessen the strain on the medical system.

First poster (and subsequently posting complaining about fumes), you're a lost cause. Your seeming insanity will kill you physiologically before anything else. 

@Therzo

You've just repeated one of the biggest falacies and myths amongst the defenders of our pathetic transit system. Do the math:

3 zone passes for a couple @ $151= $302
Park & Ride at $4 day for a working month: $80-$100 month

So we're already up to over $400 a month. We haven't even factored in kids yet. And remember, if you use a Park and Ride (which you have to if you don't want to add an additional 30-45 minutes to the final leg of your trip), you still have all of the costs of car ownership and maintenance. The costs of gas and parking on their own are far less than the costs and inconvenience of taking our current transit system.

I haven't even factored in the lost hours every week to poor bus connections. buses that run only once a half hour or hour. I commute home by transit from downtown at least three times a week, and my car beats Translink home every time by at least half an hour, even in rush hour. And what make it worse, my area is considered to have adequate bus service (only one bus connection from Skytrain).

Translink is broken. It sticks with broken systems such as Skytrain while ignoring proven infrastructure such as Subways and LRT. It also ignores the areas with real needs (like the two-thirds of the population who live outside of Vancouver). To defend it is pathetic. It's time to shut it down and start over. 

Toronto has a better transit system? Oh dear lord that is funny. Exact change only, CASH only, ancient cars and buses, NO air conditioning. No rapid line to the airport. You must be insane to think that Toronto has a superior system.

Skytrain is excellent. The buses are excellent.They are clean , almost every bus has a bike rack, fare paid zone loading on articulated buses. So many good things I could type for hours. 

If you've ever lived in Toronto, you'd know that their rapid transit system covers a lot more ground, more frequently. There isn't a place in Metro Toronto, or the Golden Horseshoe for that matter, that you can't get to in less than an hour, usually with only one transfer. They have a straight forward, single fare system that's enforced. Their stations are safer. The GO train system makes it easy to commute from as far away as Hamilton and Oshawa. The number one rule of transit is to get people where they're going fast. The TTC beats Translink hands down in this sense.

Meanwhile, Translink has a regional rapid transit system where people need to take buses just to get to their station. It's made up of elevated concrete structures that will begin to reach the end of their useful life by the end of this decade (Yes...entire portions of the line will need to be rebuilt). They have proprietary cars that cost far more than standard LRT or Subway cars, and they are beholden to Bombardier.

And on top of it, the government stuck them with being in charge of bridge construction, which is a ridiculous mandate for a transit company.

You call that a good transit system?
 

If you at the make-up of the TransLink board, they almost all have some sort of trivial business degree. None of them came up the ranks to understand how to make transit operational efficient to keep costs down; none of them have electrical or mechanical degrees to know how to maintain and build a transit network which works without spending tons of money on dumb studies which require hiring someone else to think for them. Are we getting value for money from the CEO with his Mickey Mouse business degree?

Look at the RAV Line, the engineering company bid low and promised TransLink that it could bore the RAV Line in no time with a roto-rooter. None of the TransLink brass had the smarts to know that they were being suckered. So what did they do? The called their friends at the COV and got a permit to cover their asses by open cutting Cambie Street. We're in good hand with these morons. Sack them and bring back BC Transit before they do any more damage. 

as a tradesperson it`s impossible to take transit ,because of all the tools that I have to carry to do the work.... 

The merging of state and corporate powers is Fascism.
This is a private business, which taxes you directly, and has it's own police force.
Put your thinking caps on.