Regular readers of this website are likely aware of the controversy over TransLink's refusal to offer SkyTrain service out of downtown Vancouver after 1:16 a.m. on weekends.

Bars and pubs don't close until 3 a.m. in the downtown core, creating a transportation bottleneck as 5,000 to 6,000 people pour into the streets. This has led to fights over taxis and other assorted street mayhem.

On November 17, the Straight posted a commentary with this headline: "How many fights and hospital visits could TransLink prevent by extending weekend SkyTrain hours?"

That was followed up with an interview with former Vancouver police sergeant, former TransLink cop, and Barwatch chair Curtis Robinson, who claimed that TransLink didn't want the late-night weekend bar crowd riding its trains.

Robinson also dismissed TransLink's longstanding claims that it needed to do track maintenance and that this is why trains could not run two hours later on weekends.

TransLink has since conceded that it could extend hours if it had sufficient funding to cover infrastructure costs.

Yesterday, Coquitlam mayor Richard Stewart added his voice to the discussion with the following Facebook post:

"Late-Night Skytrain: For years I've advocated for late-night Skytrain to assist folks to return to the suburbs from downtown Vancouver—both patrons and staff. And, for years we've been told that Skytrain has to shut down at 1 a.m. to permit track maintenance, etc. 

"Now, the story looks a little different, as TransLink appears to acknowledge that later hours are possible after all. Plus, we now hear the suggestion that they don't WANT to keep this enormous public asset operating later than 1 a.m.

"I'm holding back my anger until I can get a response directly from TransLink. But the societal cost of shutting Skytrain down early is undoubtedly enormous—including collisions/injuries/deaths from those who shouldn't be driving, assaults, inability to get a taxi to the suburbs (another story entirely), the $100 taxi fare for those who WERE able to get a cab, workers who can't get home from their evening shift jobs, women who end up at risk because of lack of transportation options, etc. 

"Hoping TransLink has an explanation for this contradiction of what they've been saying to me for a decade."

Stewart is a member of the TransLink Mayors' Council. It appoints a majority of TransLink's board of directors and performs regulatory oversight.

If TransLink had the ability for years to extend SkyTrain service for two hours on weekends and it wasn't being truthful to a member of the mayors' council on this matter, this could have serious ramifications.

So you can be sure that Stewart's post was noticed within the executive offices of the regional transportation authority.

Not long after the Coquitlam mayor's comments went on Facebook, the president of TransLink's rapid-transit operation, Vivienne King, wrote a letter to the Straight, insisting that the chair of Barwatch, Curtis Robinson, was wrong.

"In fact, on Expo Line alone, we conduct about 1,500 hours of overnight maintenance work each year," King stated. "That's about four hours per night. If we were to adjust the hours of SkyTrain to run 24 hours per day on weekends, we would need to shift about 400 to 500 of those maintenance hours on the Expo Line to make up for that lost time somewhere else in the day."

She later included these lines as an olive branch to TransLink's critics: "That being said we also want to help in being part of the solution to get people home safely every day of the week. Extending service hours later on a weekend—or any other time—is a good discussion to have."