According to the article 25%(21 buses)of the North Shore fleet already comes from Burnaby, but shutting down the 3rd St., depot will mean that all 85 will be driven from Burnaby everyday (85 X 2 or 170per day). So what? That's more g.h.g. and c02 that didn't exist before. Every little bit counts in my opinion.
Even though most of the buses will travel at 5:30 AM their is still signifigant potential for inaccesability to the North Shore and service problems.
John, It's difficult to comment because the "Please prove you're not a robot" isn't working. I can't make out the letters and/or numbers half the time. Perhaps you should lower it down a level. We shouldn't have to guess.
In early '06 the council narrowly voted against (3-4) converting the old BC Rail site to a new Translink Depot. I was the swing vote that voted it down. I'm not saying that because I am proud of that, but rather because it was necessary when you consider Translinks actual offer.
In the public meeting I told the Translink reps that I would vote for the project if they built a continuous sound wall across the north side of the property. They said they would consider it at the Development Proposal stage, and I said I needed a guarantee at the rezoning stage because I couldn't stop the project at the DP stage. They refused to pay for the wall and they lost the vote.
I raised the issue because in Steveston, Translink offered sound mitigation to the neighbors across the street at rezoning and then at DP changed their minds and went with a chain link fence instead. Everyday the neighbors of the Steveston bus depot have about 130 buses start up their engines for a 20 minute maintenance warm up at 5:30am. Would that have been fair to the residents of Norgate?
Incidentally John, the Burnaby Depot (3855 Kitchener Street) is only 4.8km from Phibbs Exchange (mostly highway), while the BC Rail Site is 7.1km away. That means that all of the buses serving Seymour, Lynn Valley and Grand Blvd would actually have a smaller environmental footprint.
I'm not convinced that we need an additional bus barn on the North Shore. At this point I would probably be supportive of an expansion of the Blue Bus facility at Lloyd.
Most of the Municipalities in the Lower mainland do not host bus barns. Also, a significant number of the buses that are currently housed here, head into the city on the first trip and aren't seen again till the end of the day.
Perhaps we can look outside of the box and build a maintenance depot adjascent to one of the many parking lots that sit empty every evening. We could cut down on the land needed and save a few bucks.
I was wondering about the math. How many buses are actually serving North Vancouver on an ongoing basis?
Phibbs has up to 10 bus parking spots (Including 2-3 Regional buses) and Lonsdale Quay has the same, so since the North Vancouver buses are tied to the Sea Bus schedule and Phibbs has the same schedule, then theoretically only ~20 buses are actually driving around North Vancouver at a given time. Sure maybe a handful more are managing shift changes or maintenance schedules, but are the remaining 60 buses seconded to regional routes?
I was not comparing distances between Phibbs exchange and the Kitchener St. depot and a site that was 'never to be for whatever reason'. The point was the buses have not been making these trips and now they will be. That's a larger footprint unless I'm missing something.
The bridge closure thing is a red herring. If the bridge closes the buses that are trapped here plus the entire West Vancouver fleet will still be on the north shore for our uses.
Perhaps I have rose coloured glasses on, but I have to assume that if Translink can lower their overhead and operational costs by consolidating facilities, they'll be able to put a higher percentage of their revenues directly into better bus service.
I am always concerned about jobs leaving the North Shore, but Translink is facing critical budget challenges, and I don't think this change is going to result in a reduction of service on the North Shore.
Yes, you do have coloured glasses on. The North Shore has abysmal bus service, with the exception of the Seabus, which is still only two when we were promised three years ago.
I think ml has not been a regular user of our transit system. As it stands, there service is mediocre, at best. It isn't frequent enough to get people out of their cars. The service needs major improvement and moving the bus barn is a step back, not a step forward. The fact that my tax dollars are subsidizing this organization just adds insult to injury.
To ml and all his fellow councillors (City and District), I challenge you all to ride transit daily for a month. Then lets see what colour your glasses are tinted!
This is the guy that spoke at all candidates meeting in November and said that traffic hasn't increased around the Iron Workers' Memorial second narrows crossing in the last 15 years.
No I said the line up from Seymour hasn't increased in 15 years... and it hasn't increased, it has shrunk.
We used to line up just after Riverside, now most mornings I can cruise up to the cloverleaf.
I agree that the Transit service is in desperate need of peak hour improvements. I don't see how the location of the bus maintenance yard has anything to do with that. Service levels are determined by some bureaucrat at Translink based on a variety of factors. Proximity to a Bus maintenance yard is not one of those factors. You don't get peak hour improvements by having more facilities, you get better peak service by having more buses and drivers.
26 comments:
Maybe the District could offer them some property from which to run a new depot. Oh yeah, no new development at any cost...
All the current DNV council, with the exception of Coun. Bassam voted against the bus barn/depot at the old BC Rail site.
If the council of the day 2005-2008 had voted in favour we wouldn't be having these problems.
This is one case where I agree with TransLink. If municipalities vote against their own public transit system, what do you do?
Looses?
Looses should be loses, and effect should be "affect."
So what?
According to the article 25%(21 buses)of the North Shore fleet already comes from Burnaby, but shutting down the 3rd St., depot will mean that all 85 will be driven from Burnaby everyday (85 X 2 or 170per day).
So what? That's more g.h.g. and c02 that didn't exist before. Every little bit counts in my opinion.
Even though most of the buses will travel at 5:30 AM their is still signifigant potential for inaccesability to the North Shore and service problems.
Read more: http://www.nsnews.com/news/North+depot+close+2015/6699978/story.html#ixzz1wk88Th42
John,
It's difficult to comment because the "Please prove you're not a robot" isn't working. I can't make out the letters and/or numbers half the time.
Perhaps you should lower it down a level. We shouldn't have to guess.
Don't like it either. Google has changed many things about Blogger, not me.
Just keep trying. Once it took me 5 times and I don't think I was correct on the 5th either. Maybe software is taking tenacity into account.
Google recently changed their privacy standards. One cannot create a gmail account now without providing birthdate.
Not good.
I'm concerned that people just won't bother to comment, but I suppose all the blogs are the same now.
You can keep refreshing(the little circle with an arrow) until you find one that's easiest.
Never knew about that circular arrow. Works.
In early '06 the council narrowly voted against (3-4) converting the old BC Rail site to a new Translink Depot. I was the swing vote that voted it down. I'm not saying that because I am proud of that, but rather because it was necessary when you consider Translinks actual offer.
In the public meeting I told the Translink reps that I would vote for the project if they built a continuous sound wall across the north side of the property. They said they would consider it at the Development Proposal stage, and I said I needed a guarantee at the rezoning stage because I couldn't stop the project at the DP stage. They refused to pay for the wall and they lost the vote.
I raised the issue because in Steveston, Translink offered sound mitigation to the neighbors across the street at rezoning and then at DP changed their minds and went with a chain link fence instead. Everyday the neighbors of the Steveston bus depot have about 130 buses start up their engines for a 20 minute maintenance warm up at 5:30am. Would that have been fair to the residents of Norgate?
Incidentally John, the Burnaby Depot (3855 Kitchener Street) is only 4.8km from Phibbs Exchange (mostly highway), while the BC Rail Site is 7.1km away. That means that all of the buses serving Seymour, Lynn Valley and Grand Blvd would actually have a smaller environmental footprint.
ml
So Mike,
Where would you vote for a bus barn? There is nowhere left and that was the point in '06.
I'm not convinced that we need an additional bus barn on the North Shore. At this point I would probably be supportive of an expansion of the Blue Bus facility at Lloyd.
Most of the Municipalities in the Lower mainland do not host bus barns. Also, a significant number of the buses that are currently housed here, head into the city on the first trip and aren't seen again till the end of the day.
Perhaps we can look outside of the box and build a maintenance depot adjascent to one of the many parking lots that sit empty every evening. We could cut down on the land needed and save a few bucks.
I was wondering about the math. How many buses are actually serving North Vancouver on an ongoing basis?
Phibbs has up to 10 bus parking spots (Including 2-3 Regional buses) and Lonsdale Quay has the same, so since the North Vancouver buses are tied to the Sea Bus schedule and Phibbs has the same schedule, then theoretically only ~20 buses are actually driving around North Vancouver at a given time. Sure maybe a handful more are managing shift changes or maintenance schedules, but are the remaining 60 buses seconded to regional routes?
Hello Mike,
I was not comparing distances between Phibbs exchange and the Kitchener St. depot and a site that was 'never to be for whatever reason'. The point was the buses have not been making these trips and now they will be. That's a larger footprint unless I'm missing something.
So, what happens to our transit when the bridges are closed? And don't say it doesn't happen.
Sounds to me like council should have grown a pair and not given Translink a choice about sound mitigation, if it was that important.
Yep, it's going to happen. Transit users will be left out in the cold.
Yep, it's going to happen. Transit users will be left out in the cold.
The bridge closure thing is a red herring. If the bridge closes the buses that are trapped here plus the entire West Vancouver fleet will still be on the north shore for our uses.
Or, the buses will go over the... (wait for it)...other bridge.
John
Perhaps I have rose coloured glasses on, but I have to assume that if Translink can lower their overhead and operational costs by consolidating facilities, they'll be able to put a higher percentage of their revenues directly into better bus service.
I am always concerned about jobs leaving the North Shore, but Translink is facing critical budget challenges, and I don't think this change is going to result in a reduction of service on the North Shore.
ml
Yes, you do have coloured glasses on. The North Shore has abysmal bus service, with the exception of the Seabus, which is still only two when we were promised three years ago.
I think ml has not been a regular user of our transit system. As it stands, there service is mediocre, at best. It isn't frequent enough to get people out of their cars. The service needs major improvement and moving the bus barn is a step back, not a step forward. The fact that my tax dollars are subsidizing this organization just adds insult to injury.
To ml and all his fellow councillors (City and District), I challenge you all to ride transit daily for a month. Then lets see what colour your glasses are tinted!
This is the guy that spoke at all candidates meeting in November and said that traffic hasn't increased around the Iron Workers' Memorial second narrows crossing in the last 15 years.
No I said the line up from Seymour hasn't increased in 15 years... and it hasn't increased, it has shrunk.
We used to line up just after Riverside, now most mornings I can cruise up to the cloverleaf.
I agree that the Transit service is in desperate need of peak hour improvements. I don't see how the location of the bus maintenance yard has anything to do with that. Service levels are determined by some bureaucrat at Translink based on a variety of factors. Proximity to a Bus maintenance yard is not one of those factors. You don't get peak hour improvements by having more facilities, you get better peak service by having more buses and drivers.
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