Some Vancouver transit riders are alleging an increase in disruptions to TransLink service.
Over the past couple of months, we’ve seen a few periods of frequent incidents, whether police or medical, impacting hundreds and bringing service to a halt.
In February, Daily Hive Urbanized reported at least eight incidents on SkyTrain over three weeks, resulting in disruptive shutdowns.
Many shared their concerns and frustration in a Reddit thread on Thursday in response to another disruption limiting service between Brain and Lougheed. We’ve also received comment from TransLink about the concerns, which come just months before transit fares will be increased, impacting all fare zones.
There are a lot of folks who are travelling from the Lougheed area who are impacted by some service changes.
“The whole Expo Line service reduction for the new rail yard near Braid has been brutal. I feel like there must have been a better way to branch a track without a two-year-long service disruption,” one user said via the Reddit thread.
Another user said, “SkyTrain’s been terrible lately.”
Some have elected to switch to using rideshare services.
“I’m literally in an Uber right now ’cause I ain’t dealing with that s**t.”
Drivers or people using other means to commute offer their condolences to Metro Vancouver transit riders.
“I feel for anyone that has to rely on SkyTrain to get to work. Absolutely ridiculous the number of outages that have been happening lately, I seem to get an alert every day, sometimes multiple a day.”
Some sound more forgiving, comparing SkyTrain service to other transit systems in North America.
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In response to the concerns, TransLink’s Tina Lovgreen told Daily Hive that SkyTrain service remains “frequent, reliable, and safe.”
“For the year, we delivered 99.5% of scheduled service with an on-time performance of 95.3% for the SkyTrain system,” Lovgreen said.
“At times, there are unforeseen service disruptions due to several factors, and we regret the inconvenience those may cause our customers. In those cases, our crews work tirelessly to get the system back up and running as soon as possible while setting up alternate service for customers.”
She added that TransLink does a lot of work to keep the system in a “state of good repair.”
How do you feel about the state of transit in Metro Vancouver? Do you agree with the concerns, or do you feel that disruptions are too frequent? Let us know in the comments.