🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <4mps0i$mam@aphex.direct.ca>, chanp@direct.ca (Patrick Chan) writes:
-> petert@unixg.ubc.ca (Peter Thomas Chattaway) wrote:
 
-> >: Ideally Broadway needs LRT that stops at every major intersection
-> >: between UBC and at least the SkyTrain station, and ideally continues
-> >: out to Burnaby and Coquitlem.

-> But doesn't the 9 go down Broadway fairly frequently?  It's got a lot
-> of stops... but don't they also have expresses?   (forgive me...it's
-> been a while since I needed to go down Broadway). 

The #9 runs from Boundary to Alma (or Blanca or UBC depending on the
time of day and the phase of the Moon), but it isn't a subsititute for
an efficient LRT system.  The #9 takes abount an hour to run the
length of Broadway while a SkyTrain (or whatever) could make do the
trip in about half the time (comparable to the time it would take to
drive).  Further, a SkyTrain wouldn't get caught in traffic and wouldn't
drive right the stops during rush-hour.  Busses that stop every block or
two are fine for travelling short distances, but long distance travel
with-in a city requires a system with limited stops.  As far as I know
the only express bus that runs along Broadway is the #31, which is
primarily intended to take people from UBC to the Commerical SkyTrain
station and back.  It doesn't even make stops west of Oak.

-> And I thought the next plan BC Transit's got in store is the LRT to
-> go down Lougheed or something...   or am I way off?   

I'm not sure what the current status of this route is.  There have
been a lot of different schemes proposed, but none of them ever seem
to get beyond the "how about here" stage.

 
-> All I know is that Richmond got shafted again about LRT.  I think the
-> (everything here is from my faulty/biased memory...)  city of
-> Vancouver was one of the ones who nixxed the idea.   Then a  month
-> later, they started to complain about the traffic coming out of
-> Richmond over the Arthur Laing.   Some council member had the nerve to
-> tell "us" to use transit (after nixxing transit improvement in Rmd).
-> <roll eyes>   OK, totally irrelevent.

We need a Richmond--Vancouver line but there are politics preventing
it.  Richmond voted Liberal in the last provincial election so the NDP
didn't want to spend money there.  Even if the Liberals win the coming
election it won't help because Campbell has consistantly opposed mass
transit in Vancouver.  It's hard to believe that he will suddenly change
his stripes once elected.  There is also the problem that the people who
live in the West Side of Vancouver tend to be fairly well off and don't
want transit running through their neighbourhoods.  The Cambie median,
perhaps the best place to put a Richmond--Vancouver line, was declared a Heritage Median by the City of Vancouver to prevent it from being used
for an LRT line!  Meanwhile traffic on Cambie and Oak and Granville gets
heavier and heavier...


 
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