Transit Update

According to the Aldergrove Star, TransLink has been breaking ridership records during the Olympic Games. I have to say that I’m glad that TransLink’s prediction of 1 to 2 hour waits have not come to fruition.

The Canada Line carried a record 210,000 people Saturday – twice as many as ever rode the line in a single day before.

More than 500,000 rode the Expo and Millennium SkyTrain lines Sunday and 133,000 took the SeaBus over the weekend.

The longest lineups have seen passengers wait 35 to 40 minutes at downtown Canada Line stations before they could board trains.

In other Olympic related transit news, the Seattle Times has written a piece about our transit system. They point out the lack of park and ride spaces in Surrey. This is one of the beefs that I have with transit out here. Park and Ride lots are a good interim step to attract riders to rapid transit as density builds.

Except for parking, everything went well. We're using the King George Station of the SkyTrain light rail system. It was very difficult to find parking; it took longer to find parking than it did to ride the train in to the city.

Finally in Detroit, they are changing from motor city to transit city. According to CNN:

Along Detroit's Woodward Avenue, a downtown stretch that seems permanently stuck in the "emerging" phase of business development, community leaders are hoping a new light rail system will help spark a renaissance. The city plans to break ground this year on stage one of a $420 million project: the first modern, mass-transit initiative in a city long synonymous with automobiles.