riding skytrain shortly after the millennium line opened its new stations i was fascinated by the visual (and sometimes aural) feedback from the users.
the obvious change in the trains was a shift away from the socially uncomfortable bench seating, wherein two rows of people must either face each other down or attempt to stare out the window over other passenger's heads at a strange angle. these new seats, while spacious, are hard and make my legs go numb. points for effort. the other problem with the seating regards the front area of the train where there is a captain's chair. this is an awful area for people to maneouver around if you weigh more than 120 pounds. as well, the aisle area in general is not very generous. i'm a scrawny critter, so it doesn't affect me. however, with increasingly fat citizens being manufactured it doesn't leave much room for future growth.
another major point of contention is the dreadful mapping system with its affiliated nomenclature and logic. having two train lines that merge at two points at the same station (is it commercial/broadway?) confuses the hell out of both locals and tourists. i've been asked many times to explain the warped logic of this one to unsuspecting travelers. they kind of seem to get it after much pointing at the map and mumbling about how the route actually loops back on itself, though you can instead get off at one point, walk to the adjoining station and go the other direction.
a final irritant is how often the recorded messages on the trains ("millennium line to...") was out of synch with the ticker-tape message above the loading bay.
however, given the maps i've seen of foreign transit systems i'd say we have it lucky in many regards. our system is reasonably easy to use, somewhat safe to travel on, and only ripping off those that have to travel three zones (if you have a minimum wage job three zones from your house you will pay 1 hours wage taking transit each day. i think you save slightly with a month pass).
other annoyances with public transit include the lack of bathrooms anywhere near most stations, which makes sense for safety reasons - but try explaining that to my irrational bladder after a forty minute skytrain ride and while waiting the long wait for the bus home to arrive.
a final comment is how creepy it is to sit on a train by yourself at one in the morning as it courses through the burbs. each station stop makes me feel weird, like i'm going to, say, be brutally murdered by a gang of roaming youth.
all told, i'm pleased enough with transit service in vancouver. some of those bus drivers put up with a lot of shit. some of us passengers, as well, put up with a lot from our disgruntled drivers. (i wrote a prose poem called stop.stop.go years ago while commuting between surrey and richmond that illustrates this).
the only truly terrible part about transit is when you're in the middle of delta, a freak vancouver snowstorm hits, and it takes you six hours to get home. or when someone jumps onto the skytrain tracks. or when a blind person falls in - i've been told it is a nasty 600 dc current, so you definitely don't want to hit that outer power-rail if you fall in by accident. other than that it's a pretty decent system.
{October 27, 2003 07:03 PM}