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November 4, 2007
SkyTrain!
 Last weekend, Elaine and I went to Vancouver for a quick getaway and dinner with family. The border was no problem (take those passports, kids!), so we found ourselves in downtown Van with a late morning, early afternoon and chunk of early evening at our disposal.
Somehow, I managed to talk her in to riding SkyTrain.
(I tell you, this woman puts up with everything.)
See, I'm a regular reader of Frank Bruno's (excellent) Seattle transit blog, Orphan Road, and he'd recently linked to a movie about Vancouver's forthcoming third SkyTrain line (Canada Line), which will connect Vancouver's waterfront to their airport and the Richmond suburbs. (Movie available here, QuickTime required.)
Frank's post put the bug in my ear, and, since we were in town, it felt like a great thing to try riding the Vancouver system end-to-end, just to see what it's like. I was also interested in riding the line on the SkyBridge across the Fraser River. SkyBridge (see associated photo) is a super-cool suspension jobby that was built exclusively for the rail system - in fact, it's the longest transit-only bridge in the world.
My notes:
- SkyTrain's initial line was built for Expo 86, and the system expanded with a second line - the Millenniun Line - in 2002. The two systems share the same track from Waterfront Station to Columbia Station; at that point, Millennium veers off and heads back downtown on its own tracks (it's a loop), while Expo continues out to King George Station.
- To ride both lines, we boarded downtown at Granville, and then rode Expo all the way to Scott Road. SkyBridge is between the Columbia and Scott Road stations, so we hopped out at Scott Road, switched to the other direction, rode across the bridge again and changed to the Millennium line at Columbia.
- SkyTrain is a largely elevated system (hence the name, right?). The best way to think of it is as a two-lane highway in the sky - concrete pillars supporting a concrete pad, on which tracks run each direction, with a middle strip between them for emergency evacuations. SkyTrain is electric, with the powered rail running along the outside (right side) of the train.
- The system is fully automated, and wonderfully efficient. We were able to get 19-some kilometers outside of downtown Vancouver in less than a half hour.
- Many of the SkyTrain stations are full on-suburban, connecting malls or bedroom communities with the downtown core. These stations are generally outside, and a few of them are elevated, especially in more-developed areas. Ridership was steady throughout our journey - people got on, they got off. It's a part of daily life.
- There is a fair amount of development going on around many of the stations - high-rises, shopping, transit hubs. This definitely bolsters the argument that fixed-rail transit investments spur more investment near the stations, because people know that the station "means" transit in a way that busses don't convey. Real cities have trains.
- As an automated system, SkyTrain has no need for a driver car (or a driver section in the forward car). The Canadians have been kind enough to simply put a windshield in the frontmost car, and a seat behind it - you can sit and watch the tracks as they come at you, rather than being confined to the side-facing windows.
- (You can guess who got lucky enough to sit in the front seat. Elaine, bless her, didn't roll her eyes at me.)
- SkyTrain has a number of graded sections. This was a surprise, as I'd always thought of rail as being bad on hills, but these cars just zoomed up (or down) these inclines without missing a beat.
- SkyBridge is fantastic. Fantastic views, fantastic architecture, just killer. It should be a tourist attraction in its own right.
- Overall the system does all the right things - it connects stadiums, colleges, residences, shopping, and the downtown core in an inexpensive, clean, reliable and fast way. When the Canada Line opens in 2009, they'll have the airport on the system, too.
I really, truly, can't wait for Link to open in 2009. Wowza.
Posted by Gavin Shearer at November 4, 2007 10:19 AM. Posted to Transit.
So--thoughts on Proposition 1's defeat?
Posted by: Richard Barrett at November 7, 2007 6:21 AM
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