Vancouver Transit installs faregates after 26 years of service
44 replies, posted
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[quote]For the first time in the SkyTrain system’s 26-year existence, a fare gate has been installed, signalling a major shift in how the Metro Vancouver light rapid transit system will operate.
The move will help TransLink crack down on fare evasion while making the system safer for commuters, said Chief Operating Officer Doug Kelsey. It will also improve public confidence in a system that has outgrown the transit needs of 1986, the year it launched.
Provincial, municipal and transit officials announced the installation at a photo opportunity at the Marine Drive Canada Line station Monday afternoon. Amid a throng of news media, B.C. Transportation Minister Blair Lekstrom and mayors’ council vice-chairman Peter Fassbender helped put the system’s first four-foot, paddle-style gate in place.
The fare gates – which, at completion, will total 245, including 151 wider, accessible fare gates for wheelchairs, strollers and luggage – will work with the Compass card, a smart card similar to Hong Kong’s Octopus card or London’s Oyster card. Users will tap in and out at stations and fare will be automatically deducted from the prepaid cards.
Fares will initially go by zones, as they do currently, though TransLink is looking at a distance-based model as well.
Mr. Kelsey estimated the gates would save TransLink between $7- and $10-million per year in fare evasion within a few years of operation.
The installation is one of the first visual manifestations of a major overhaul to TransLink’s fare system. The outgoing “open” system, which counts on transit users to purchase prepaid passes and fare cards, or purchase a ticket immediately before walking through largely unmanned stations, has been criticized for being too trusting in a growing metropolitan city.
Mr. Kelsey acknowledged Monday there is a widespread belief many transit users don’t pay their fares.
“Research has shown us that there’s an optics issue, that nobody’s paying their fares,” he said. “Research has shown us that for a long time. The gates will demonstrate that there is a price of entry.”
The transportation authority has maintained perceived fare evasion is considerably higher than actual fare evasion. Spokesman Ken Hardie estimated two-thirds of those who walk past fare machines and on to the SkyTrain have prepaid fares, such as a monthly transit pass, and up to 80 per cent of SkyTrain users arrive at the station by bus – on which they have already paid. Mr. Kelsey estimated the evasion rate to be between 3.5 and 5 per cent.
Precise user data is difficult to gather, however, which TransLink says is a large part of the reason it decided to adopt the new system now. In 2005, TransLink’s board overwhelmingly rejected fare gates after a staff report found the cost of installation and yearly operations would be far more than the amount lost to fare evasion. But the ability to gather precise data – how many transit users are going where, and at what time – as well as increased ridership and a changing system, brought the idea back to the table, spokesman Drew Snider said in an interview earlier this summer.
“It’s been highly educated estimates up to this point,” he said of user data. “Now [planners] are going to have hard data they can work with.”
The project to add fare gates, a partnership between the Government of Canada, the province and TransLink, is expected to cost $171-million. Of that, up to $40-million will come from the province, up to $30-million from the federal government and the balance from TransLink.
NDP transportation critic Harry Bains, who was at the event Monday, expressed concern with the finances of the project, citing TransLink’s inability to immediately identify its operational cost.
“You’re spending $170-million and you don’t know have the answer [to] what the operational cost is going to be? That really, really worries me as a taxpayer.”
TransLink was not able to provide a breakdown of operational costs by print deadline.
Mr. Bains was also critical that two major SkyTrain stations – Main Street-Science World and Metrotown – won’t have fare gates installed until they undergo major reconstruction. The older stations, as they are, are not equipped to have fare gates, TransLink said.
“They said they have to do a lot of reconstructing, but there are other stations, like Surrey Central, that will have to do much of the same reconstruction in order to put the fare gates in,” Mr. Bains said. “But they’re getting the fare gates [first].”
Until the gates are installed, the two stations will have Compass card readers and additional staff.
TransLink will begin transitioning to the fare gate system next spring, with the system in service by next fall. All Evergreen Line stations will have fare gates when it opens in the summer of 2016.[/quote]
[url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/skytrain-gets-its-first-of-many-fare-gates/article4479867/]**SOURCE**[/url]
I really don't want these gates. Hell, even TransLink's old board said no to it a few years ago. They have been heavily criticized for recent cost overruns recently too. Administration and policing costs exploded and all the stations got massive upgrades, some of which is pure overkill (you have extra elevators installed at stations which only need one and you want to demolish Metrotown to put a new roof on it simply because it does not match the surrounding decor anymore). Now they also have to cope that even with the gates installed they'll be fighting to break even on those too and you got a massive fucking bottleneck at all the stations.
To boot, you decided that the best station to demonstrate the gates while all the others got theirs installed would also be the least used one on that shitty-ass Canada Line. You could of at least put them at City Hall station which sees real world daily traffic.
I find it odd they didn't have fare gates in the high transit places in the first place, they work perfectly fine when you include multiple exits with 10+ gates at each one.
Or, just jump over the gates, therefore making them completely useless and a waste of money if someone's not watching.
[QUOTE=wickedplayer494;37308668]Or, just jump over the gates, therefore making them completely useless and a waste of money if someone's not watching.[/QUOTE]
In New York or Chicago, you do that and you get tackled.
In Toronto you can just walk onto the subway before realising you didn't even pay.
~hey i'm dumb and didn't read~
[QUOTE=MIPS;37308574]To boot, you decided that the best station to demonstrate the gates while all the others got theirs installed would also be the least used one on that shitty-ass Canada Line.[/QUOTE]
What are you talking about, the Canada Line is a hundred times better than any of the other lines
-snip-
Can't be bothered to figure out how to embed this, it changed or something.
[URL]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp5-DKWTh_Y[/URL]
[QUOTE=ewitwins;37308729]In New York or Chicago, you do that and you get tackled.[/QUOTE]
Key words: if someone's not watching
Even then, there's practically no need to have people watching the gates if they put up a glass barrier between them.
You're lucky you have a real LRT system. Ottawa -still- only has the Greenboro-Bayview line. The O-Train is useless for most of the city, and the biggest criticism it gets is that it "goes nowhere to nowhere via Carleton."
Fairs on buses and the train in Ottawa are enforced by "Transpo Cops" who basically come on the vehicle at random stops and check your pass or transfer to make sure you paid. Getting on the back of a bus or onto the train is honour system. Vancouver is obviously a tonne bigger with more issues, but is it unfeasible to have people check fairs on the train or bus like Ottawa?
P.S. I love the O-Train, because I live near Greenboro station and go to Carleton lawl. But I have a very fortuitous living situation to take advantage of the train.
[QUOTE=Sixer;37308886]You're lucky you have a real LRT system. Ottawa -still- only has the Greenboro-Bayview line. The O-Train is useless for most of the city, and the biggest criticism it gets is that it "goes nowhere to nowhere via Carleton."
Fairs on buses and the train in Ottawa are enforced by "Transpo Cops" who basically come on the vehicle at random stops and check your pass or transfer to make sure you paid. Getting on the back of a bus or onto the train is honour system. Vancouver is obviously a tonne bigger with more issues, but is it unfeasible to have people check fairs on the train or bus like Ottawa?
P.S. I love the O-Train, because I live near Greenboro station and go to Carleton lawl. But I have a very fortuitous living situation to take advantage of the train.[/QUOTE]
Our buses are still like that, this is just because basically everyone was just walking directly by the pay machines and onto the trains.
[QUOTE=wickedplayer494;37308821]Key words: if someone's not watching
Even then, there's practically no need to have people watching the gates if they put up a glass barrier between them.[/QUOTE]
Here in Philadelphia there are ALWAYS either public transport police or actual police posted near faregates. Even if some off chance there is no one there, there is a person behind the glass in the booth that will just call it in, Where the fuck are you going to go? Sure you may make it onto the train/car but they'll just be waiting at the next stop with a description of you.
[QUOTE=wickedplayer494;37308821]Key words: if someone's not watching
Even then, there's practically no need to have people watching the gates if they put up a glass barrier between them.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but there's a fatal flaw in that plan:
Someone is always watching. They always have a cop stationed there, and here in Tempe they have Metro cops on most of the trains, checking for tickets.
[editline]19th August 2012[/editline]
Just... just save yourself the fucking trouble and buy the ticket like the rest of us.
[editline]19th August 2012[/editline]
[QUOTE=mysteryman;37309005]Here in Philadelphia there are ALWAYS either public transport police or actual police posted near faregates. Even if some off chance there is no one there, there is a person behind the glass in the booth that will just call it in, Where the fuck are you going to go? Sure you may make it onto the train/car but they'll just be waiting at the next stop with a description of you.[/QUOTE]
What he said.
[QUOTE=Elspin;37308934]Our buses are still like that, this is just because basically everyone was just walking directly by the pay machines and onto the trains.[/QUOTE]
Ah, OK. Yeah, the O-Train gets a lot of free riders too.
Although... they sort of fixed that a couple years ago by building a bus/transit pass into the student fees at U of O and Carleton. Carleton students were (as far as I know, don't quote me on this) the biggest offenders for free riding the train to Greenboro to get groceries/liquor/sneak into movies/raid Walmart. Now as long as they're not too drunk/stupid to forget their pass, they've already paid their way there!
In Ottawa we're building a downtown east-west (Greenboro-Bayview is south-north) subway line. I imagine we'll get dealies like Vancouver's in time as well.
Personally I find the transit system drains us of ever nickel and dime, interesting they never put in fare gates to begin with.
[QUOTE=ewitwins;37309009]
Just... just save yourself the fucking trouble and buy the ticket like the rest of us.
[/QUOTE]
Where did I say that I implied that I was doing such things? I'm just saying, if someone else wanted to do so, that's the fatal flaw in the security system.
Vancouver: Faith in humanity +2 bonus lost.
Read the title as "Fargate" as in that one episode of aqua teen hunger force.
Where I went to uni they installed electronic gates in the train station to "cut down on congestion" but the most it did was let you use old tickets for ages and fuck up half the time so it didn't cut down on anything at all.
[QUOTE=Sixer;37309054]In Ottawa we're building a downtown east-west (Greenboro-Bayview is south-north) subway line. I imagine we'll get dealies like Vancouver's in time as well.[/QUOTE]
Given how quickly the council moves, we can hope to have the East-West running sometime within a decade if we're lucky.
U-Pass is a pretty sweet deal though.
[QUOTE=wickedplayer494;37309078]Where did I say that I implied that I was doing such things? I'm just saying, if someone else wanted to do so, that's the fatal flaw in the security system.[/QUOTE]
Oh no I get that, I'm just saying for people in general. What's the point in risking jail time and fines over a buck fifty?
Where i live the train station people cant be fucked turning them on so everyone just goes through the always open disabled gate.
that kid in the OP is going through it like a boss
[QUOTE=Elspin;37308796]What are you talking about, the Canada Line is a hundred times better than any of the other lines[/QUOTE]
It's slow, it's noisy, it dead-ends at brighouse unless you demolish the track and rebuild it and all the stations were built for two car trains which are now at capacity only two years after opening. The only way to increase capacity at all is to gut the stations and rebuild them. Damn thing was a total waste of time and a massive fucking waste of money that buttfucked the canbie/granville street corridoor for months. Hell, we had its first snowfall and it couldn't even make it over the bridge.
ITT: Don't get me started on the Canada Line.
[QUOTE=ewitwins;37308729]In New York or Chicago, you do that and you get tackled.[/QUOTE]
I find it weird they make those fare gates barely chest high. Here in the Netherlands the gates at the underground are as high as an adult person.
[QUOTE=MIPS;37311776]It's slow, it's noisy, it dead-ends at brighouse unless you demolish the track and rebuild it and all the stations were built for two car trains which are now at capacity only two years after opening. The only way to increase capacity at all is to gut the stations and rebuild them. Damn thing was a total waste of time and a massive fucking waste of money that buttfucked the canbie/granville street corridoor for months. Hell, we had its first snowfall and it couldn't even make it over the bridge.
ITT: Don't get me started on the Canada Line.[/QUOTE]
Its decent, atleast it beats walking/bus and is cheaper then gas. Plus, all the lines are noisy as fuck so..
FUUUUCKK! Vancouver! No! It was a perfect system! You buy a monthly pass and use any transit you want! I dont want some prepaid nightmare. I want my monthly!
[QUOTE=wickedplayer494;37308668]Or, just jump over the gates, therefore making them completely useless and a waste of money if someone's not watching.[/QUOTE]
I did that in Belgium when the gate wasn't working, there were two big security guys in front of me by the time I was standing upright again, it's not a good idea.
ITT: Mips bitching about something all other modern transport systems do already
Unless it is 100 percent funded by taxpayers, it is a corporation and guess what, they want your money.
I wish there would be more train based transport here. Getting in and out of cities from where I live is pretty costly via car.
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