Aleph Ersatz

Hello, my name is Aleph and I am a commuter.  I am a victim of the Metro Vancouver public transit system: TransLink.  This week I got to experience my “best” commute ever via the wonderful SkyTrain system.

For those of you not familiar with our system, I’ll explain it quickly.

=== Quick Explination ===

The skytrain is an above and underground mono-rail trains system created in 1986 for the Expo world fair, and expanded in 2000 to cover more of the Burnaby area.  This rendered two distinct “lines” for the system, the Expo Line and the Millenium Line.

Another thing to note is that there are only two tracks, one eastbound and one westbound, with crossover connections between each station.

Click here for a basic system map.

The Expo Line trains only run from Waterfront station to King George station, while the Millenium Line runs from Waterfront station to VCC-Clark station.  (VCC-Clark is not show, but is slightly west of Commercial Drive, and only along the Millenium Line.) The two trains branch only at Columbia, as Broadway and Commercial Drive stations are completely seperate tracks, just across the street from each other.

=== Class Dismissed ===

Now, I need to take a train from Stadium, which is on the edge of downtown Vancouver, to Scott Road in Surrey.  And at 9 pm at night, this should only take about 1.25 hours at most.

So I leave my office at 8:45 pm the other night, adn ehad for Stadium Station.  5 minutes later, I’m there, but the station is packed.  Imediately, red flags start going up, and I overhear a few phone conversations with people about problems at Broadway.  I only see one completely packed train come in over the next 15 minutes or so.  At this time my other coworker shows up and I ironically greet him by saying “Welcome to Hell.”

Of course, there’s been no information provided by the SkyTrain announcement system.  However, we do overhear an attendand explaining something about shuttle busses at the next station.  After a short deliberation we say “Fuck it” and begin walking to Main Street station.

15 minutes of brief walk on the edge of the shady part of downtown and we are at Main Street, where inevitably, things are much worse.  The station is completely packed, but, there is someone there who knows what’s going on.  Unfortunately, the one that had the clue was not the only attendant there.

We find out that there is a problem at Broadway, and that trains are staying in downtown, while another is shuttling from Main Street to Nanaimo station and back.  This is fine, so we begin to wait for the next shuttle train.  Soon after, an announcement comes over the PA system to tell us that the next westbound train is heading into downtown and is NOT shuttling back to Nanaimo.  That is fine, and the person with the megaphone is also telling us this.

Now this is where the fun really starts.

A second attendant who is, thankfully, only yelling, is telling people to get onto the non-shuttle westbound train while the megaphone and the PA system are saying it is going the wrong way.  Luckily, the moron corrected himself in time to empty the train of hapless and confused cattl…err…passengers.  (I was not one of them because I was one of the few who could hear the PA system.)  The train finally departs and the PA announces that the next shuttle will be 6 - 7 minutes.  I can live with that, given the current situation.

Then, the police officer walks in.

The SkyTrain has a dedicated police force within the VPD and they are fully armed officers that only cover the SkyTrain system.  One such officer showed up and began telling people that no trains are coming and that we needed to be moved onto shuttle busses to get going.  Meanwhile the attendand with the megaphone, and the PA system, and still broadcasting the same message about the shuttle train while the officer is telling us that none is coming.

Being that the officer was right behind us, my coworker and I begin arguing with the officer and pointing out what the otehr attendant is saying.  Luckily, just as this begins, a train shows up and the officer stopped arguing.  (Also luckily, the officer was trapped by a flow of people and couldn’t board the train in time.)  However, a boat load of confused people still end up leaving the station for the bus loop.

Once safely packed into the train we get going, but begin praying that the train begins heading east and not west as it leaves…in the right direction.  At this time it’s 10 pm and I’ve only started my journey home.

On the way, we pass through the open track at Broadway and get to see the always-disturbing caution tapped station that is half-covered with a thick blue tarp.  It’s pretty obvious that someone has died, either by suicide or accident.  There is no barrier between the trains and stations, and it would be impossible as the Expo Line cars and the Millenium Line cars are both different lengths and have doors in different locations.  We also notice that both Nanaimoand 29th Avenue stations have unused trains blocked off on the Westbound track side.  This is highly unusual for a jumper situaton adn doesn’t help settle things much, especially when transfering at Nanaimo.

We get to Nanaimo station on time and get hurder out like sheep to a full platform.  We then end up packing the station to the gills, leaving me and my co-worker at the edge of the yellow warning strip and hoping no one adds a second “accident” to the night.  The eastbound train arrives and we manage to empty that packed train onto the platform, leaving just enough room that people can get to the only non-emergency exit for the station.  However, there still is alot of mosh-pit style pushing and yelling as people try to both disembark and enter the same double- doors at the same time.  I managed to hold off a half-dozen pushers as I let the last remaining people off the train, all the time calmly telling people to try and wait for half-a-freaking second for the train to empty.

We eventually fill the tran and manage to continue uneventfully.  Surprisingly the last train is not stuffed to the gills and is fairly normal for heavy train traffic.  The rest of the trip from here settles down aswell and finishes off the last half-hour of my commute gently, which is much desired at this point.  However, I still missed the 10:30 pm bus and had to wait at Scott Road until 11 pm for the next bus.

In total, that commute took me over 2 hours to finish and was perhaps the most disorganized handling of an emergency sitation yet!  Surprisingly, this is SOP for TransLink and once I knew it was a jumper, I really wasn’t surprised, misinformation included.

Oh, did I mention they jacked up the fair prices by 10% in January for this service?  Biggest waste of $140 each month ever.  Did I also mention that these jackwads are running the transit system that will service the 2010 Vancouver Olypics and Paralympics?