Category Archives: Vancouver

The Problem with Anchoring

Posted on 2013/04/04 by

A major idea due to Jarrett Walker, adopted with gusto by Vancouver’s Translink, is that transit should be anchored at both ends. That is, transit lines should have busy destinations at both ends, and should strive to reorient development such … Continue reading →

Posted in Development, New York, Transportation, Urban Design, Urban Transit, Urbanism, Vancouver | 35 Comments

SkyTrain and UBC

Posted on 2013/02/18 by

I live about 3 minutes from an express bus stop, where I can get the express bus and be at UBC within 15 minutes, whereupon I can walk from the diesel bus loop to my classroom in 6 minutes. Since … Continue reading →

Posted in Personal/Admin, Transportation, Urban Transit, Vancouver | 64 Comments

How Residential Blocks Act As Barriers

Posted on 2012/10/12 by

Two weeks ago, I found a board game store in Vancouver, and through it a variety of gaming events. The store is located about five blocks from my apartment, and I first saw it from a bus nearly two months … Continue reading →

Posted in Pedestrian Observations, Personal/Admin, Urban Design, Urbanism, Vancouver | 17 Comments

Relative Costs of Transit Construction

Posted on 2012/09/25 by

The relative costs of different technologies of transit are not fixed. Although there are some rules of thumb for the ratio of tunneling cost to above-ground transit cost, the actual ratio depends on the city and project, and this would … Continue reading →

Posted in Construction Costs, Good/Interesting Studies, Studies, Transportation, Urban Transit, Vancouver | 9 Comments

Nobody Likes Riding North American Commuter Rail

Posted on 2012/09/14 by

In New York, two neighborhoods at the edge of the city have both subway and commuter rail service: Wakefield and Far Rockaway. Wakefield has 392 inbound weekday Metro-North boardings, and 4,955 weekday subway boardings. Far Rockaway has 158 riders (an … Continue reading →

Posted in Incompetence, New York, Regional Rail, Transportation, Urban Transit, Vancouver | 170 Comments

Vancouver’s Busiest Buses

Posted on 2012/08/16 by

Translink has a list of performance metrics per bus route here. Those include ridership, boardings per revenue-hour, crowding measured as a percentage of available seats, and operating cost per unlinked trip. Since the numbers are only given per route, without … Continue reading →

Posted in Transportation, Urban Transit, Vancouver | 21 Comments

Quick Note: Vancouver’s Transit Revival

Posted on 2012/08/06 by

I’ve been looking for Canadian mode share numbers that are more recent than 2006; although there was a census in 2011, it apparently did not include such numbers. However, a separate survey regarding commuting was published a year ago, using … Continue reading →

Posted in Good Transit, Transportation, Vancouver | 13 Comments

Pedestrian Observations from Vancouver: Street Width and Building Height

Posted on 2012/07/26 by

I moved to Vancouver last weekend. The slow pace of posting will probably continue for another week, but I do have multiple posts in the pipeline. I am currently at a downtown hotel, commuting to Kitsilano to look at apartments … Continue reading →

Posted in Pedestrian Observations, Personal/Admin, Urban Design, Urbanism, Vancouver | 26 Comments