Thursday, February 10, 2011

Metro Vancouver Trip Survey - Part Four aka Regional Transit

Continuing my look at TransLink’s 2008 Regional Trip Diary Survey, I want to see were people in the South of the Fraser are heading on transit. 47% of all trips in the region take place during peak AM and PM travel periods and the vast majority of commuting trips take place during these times as well.

During the AM peak travel times in Surrey and White Rock 65% of all transit trips leave the South of the Fraser sub-region for other parts of Metro Vancouver. 5% off all transit trips from Surrey and White Rock end up in Langley. During the PM peak travel times 40% of all transit trips leave the South of the Fraser sub-region. This is interesting giving that this is the reverse commute.

As I talked about yesterday, the longest trips people take are on transit which points to the fact that transit very much plays a regional role. This is important to note because there has been some talk from Delta and others to “go it alone” and leave TransLink. This would be a big mistake as it would hurt the current base of transit riders in the South of Fraser and not save any money as there would be duplication of transit service. The fact is that overall funding is TransLink’s main issue and not Vancouver taking all the transit for itself.

About 82% of all trip in the South of Fraser stay in the South of Fraser and we know the average trip length is 6km. While beefing up transit in the South of Fraser is important, our built for is even more important. If we want to reduce our dependency on the auto, we need to be building neighbourhoods that give people transportation choice. We can’t build the same-old, same-old and expect sustainable transportation to magically appear. Tomorrow, I’ll wrap things up with some trends about transportation in the region.

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