25/01/2013

Are Translink's Fare Gates Fairly Distributed?



Above is the picture of the faregates on the North Side of the South Side of Commercial Broadway Station. You see: There are 9 (NINE!) Gates at this side of the station, each equipped to handle 40 pph. And this is the less intensive side of the station, where the only transfers are between the 9 or 20 and the skytrain. You may be unaware of the degree of overshoot until you see how many faregates are at Broadway-City Hall:



There are 5 (Five!) This Exit is more than 3X busier than the North side Broadway Station Exit above. Think about it; this is the major transfer between both directions of the 99B-Line and the Canada Line! Each Train that arrives at the station gives at least 50 people during rush, imagine the chaos if the 99 and the Train arrives together. My point is that with only gates, that is only 2 gates one direction and 3 gates the other direction. The maximum capacity for one of the direction with only 2 gates is 80 people. With more than 40 people getting off the bus at one time and even 80 people off the train, the waits just to enter City Hall station faregates will be >1 minute! Imagine lining up 70 seconds just to get into the Canada Line station!

This shows extremely poor planning on Translink's behalf, overshooting that side on Broadway station, drastically under calculating the volume of people using the City Hall exit. From my perspective, the only way 8 gates will be used is if the overhead walkway is closed down and people need to go down and back up again to transfer. But then again, there is a new walkway being built, and I can't imagine why there needs 160+ ppmpd (people per minute per direction) capacity at this exit.

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