Transit service increases coming to Metro Vancouver in September
Credit to Author: Jennifer Saltman| Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2019 00:22:48 +0000
More bus, SkyTrain and SeaBus service is on the way just as summer vacation comes to a close.
TransLink announced that its fall service increase — the transit authority makes changes to its services every three months — will be the first time it is making changes to those three modes at the same time. The changes take effect on Sept. 3.
“To all the students nervous about your first day of school, to all the employees worried about all the work they have to catch up on after returning from their vacation season, and to all of our valued customers using our system every day, who are the reason we can run our transit system in the first place: Better transit service is coming,” said TransLink CEO Kevin Desmond.
TransLink CEO Kevin Desmond speaks at a media conference on Monday, Aug. 19, 2019, at Production Way-University SkyTrain station in Burnaby announcing changes to services to begin Sept. 3.
More than 40,000 service hours will be added to the bus network, including permanent increases to a dozen routes.
For instance, the 503 Langley Centre/Surrey Central will be upgraded to a limited-stop express service that comes every eight to nine minutes during peak times and every 10 to 15 minutes off-peak, which is an upgrade from every 20 to 30 minutes at peak times and 30 to 60 minutes off-peak.
The 301 Newton Exchange/Brighouse Station will come every 30 minutes between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. on weekdays, and in October double-decker buses will be added.
For night owls, the N17, which runs between downtown Vancouver and the University of B.C. at night, will have service every half hour until 5 a.m. toward downtown and until 4:30 a.m. heading to the university.
“Consistently adding service hours for our bus system has been instrumental in fuelling and supporting a record-breaking 17-per-cent increase in bus ridership over the past three years,” said Desmond.
Six, four-car trains will go into service on the Expo and Millennium lines, adding five per cent and nine per cent capacity, respectively. The new trains will all go on the Expo Line, which will free up existing trains to be added to the Millennium Line.
“That means more space on your train, fewer full trains, and fewer pass ups,” said Desmond. “That’s particularly true here on the two-car-only Millennium Line, which is very much during the peak periods suffering significant crowding.”
Eight more trains, or 32 cars, will go into service next year.
As previously announced, the SeaBus will be running at 10-minute intervals — instead of every 15 minutes — during rush hours.
“This service improvement is much-needed and long in coming,” Desmond said.
Nav Sanghera, who is a graduate student and works in external relations at Simon Fraser University, said a large percentage of students count on transit to get to class, home and other activities.
“This announcement means a lot to us — it will make a difference in our daily lives,” she said.
On Monday, Infrastructure Canada announced that the federal government will contribute more than $6 million in funding to upgrades at Brentwood Town Centre SkyTrain station in Burnaby. The total cost of the project is estimated at just over $24 million, with $9 million from the province and the rest coming from TransLink.
Work is expected to begin in late 2020, and will add passenger information displays, closed-circuit cameras, two new escalators, a storefront and improvements to lighting and the public-announcement system.
“This will improve station capacity and accessibility,” said Burnaby North-Seymour MP Terry Beech. “Everybody who’s seen what’s going on in our Brentwood community, you’ll see why we need that extra capacity. There’s a growing neighbourhood around Brentwood Town Centre.”
The station’s north stairs will be enclosed and rehabilitated, the mezzanine resurfaced and canopies added to the mezzanine to provide protection from the weather.
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