Category — Transit

Tranlink’s latest  update on the Canada Line’s 100,000-trip a day numbers has sparked dreams of moving up the date at which Translink will be able to retire the debt required to build the project in the first place. Translink pegs that happy day as early as sometime in 2022, rather than 2025.

That day could have come even earlier, of course, if the project had been funded entirely by the public sector. Instead, the province forced Translink to contribute a share of capital and to repay the construction, operation and maintenance costs of Intransit, the private operator. Private capital always costs more.

Fortunately, the P3 craze seems to be fading, with the Port Mann Bridge replacement and the Evergreen Line both marked down for public finance.

Here, scientifically validated, is the real reason commuters — whether they travel by car, bus, streetcar or train — lose little sleep about the higher costs of faster, more expensive transit options: they get more personal time.

This was a big issue with the Canada Line, when advocates asked rhetorically how much we’re all prepared to pay to cut travel time by five to seven minutes, one way.

That apparently small shift adds up to hours, then days, then weeks and months of life lost for good, never to be regained. Voters are prepared to see big money spent to cut travel time.

It may come as a shock to business leaders, but commuters do not hate gridlock because they want to get to work earlier. They hate it because they have to leave home earlier. During the black hole of commuting, they can neither earn money nor enjoy life in all its splendor.

Exercise, sleep, spend family time — it all beats commuting or working in the findings of this common sense poll.

The hugely-popular Canada Line is nowhere near its capacity to carry travellers to and from future development along Cambie, according to Translink.

Former NPA Park Commissioner Bill McCreery argued last week that the train is so full it would be folly to build more development near stations like Marine Drive and Oakridge.

But Translink says there’s lots of room to expand Canada Line service. In a note to the Mayor’s Council, Peggy Hunt, manager of government relations, says the line currently can handle 10,640 passengers per hour, north and south combined, using 14 of the 20, two-car gtrain sets between 6.30 a.m and 7 p.m  More trains can be added at peak periods.

In August, 2011,  time between trains in daytime service (6.30 a.m. to 7 p.m.) will be reduced to 3.33 minutes from 3.75 minutes, increasing peak service capacity to 12,020 per hour. (These calculations assume 334 passengers per car.)

With even more trains and increased trip frequency, that number could rise to 30,000 passengers per hour, north and south combined.

A rare piece of unqualified good news for public transit and students: a universal transit pass province-wide for all post-secondary students.

Today’s announcement by Premier Gordon Campbell delivers on his pre-election promise for a universal pass and is a huge win for student activists, particularly at Vancouver’s Vancouver Community College and Emily Carr University.

They kept up good-humoured but unceasing pressure on Campbell and Transporation Minister Shirley Bond — on Twitter, Youtube, Facebook and even with a giant pink cake — to deliver on the pledge.