SkyTrain is making it easier for visitors to take in events in Coquitlam and Port Moody — and that’s boosting transit ridership as well as the hopes of event planners.
According to TransLink, the number of transit users passing through the fare gates at Lafarge Lake-Douglas Station — the end of the Evergreen Extension at the southwest corner of Coquitlam's Town Centre Park — almost tripled on Canada Day compared to a typical Saturday in June: on July 1, 9,966 users tapped in and tapped out at the station versus the prior month's Saturday average of 3,331.
“That’s music to our ears,” said Eric Kalnins, Coquitlam’s tourism manager.
Visitors going through Moody Centre Station, a short walk to Port Moody’s Canada Day/Golden Spike festivities at Rocky Point Park, increased by more than 276% over a typical Saturday in June.
“It’s helped us with our biggest problem,” said Port Moody Mayor Mike Clay. “We can get more people in the park than in the parking lot.”
Coquitlam's Kalnins said the huge crowds that have turned out for recent events at Lafarge Lake and Town Centre Park, including Canada Day celebrations, the BC Highland Games and the Harry Jerome Classic track and field meet, are testimony to the positive impact easier access by transit can have on those events.
And he’s rubbing his hands in anticipation of what more can be done as the city leverages its position at the end of the Evergreen Extension to to the Millennium Line.
"It really creates this new access we never had,” Kalnins said. “We’re able to go after new markets, like people who live in Vancouver, people who don’t drive. They can get to Coquitlam now.”
Clay said he noticed a lot of people attending the Canada Day events in Port Moody were shuttling between other celebrations in the area, like the one in Coquitlam or even venturing out from the big party at Canada Place in Vancouver.
“It opens up opportunities for people to travel into our city for an hour or two,” Clay said. “It gives them the option to be very mobile.”
The proximity of Lafarge Lake, Town Centre Park and the Evergreen Cultural Centre to the SkyTrain line’s terminus station is also a slam-dunk from a marketing perspective, Kalnins said. In fact, the organizers of the Harry Jerome Classic included the event’s location at “the end of the line” as part of its advertising campaign and the meet was sold out weeks in advance — something that never happened in the events years at Burnaby's Swangard Stadium.
“Lafarge Lake is easy to explain to the market,” Kalnins said. “It’s the last stop and you get off; that’s what works in our favour.”
But it also creates challenges.
Kalnins said as more event planners eye the area, the city has to find a balance of scheduling programming at the park and keeping it as a quiet space where residents and visitors can escape the hustle and bustle of crowds and city life.
“We don’t want to become victims of our own success,” Kalnins said.
More thought also has to be given to things like wayfinding signage or placing volunteers at the SkyTrain stations to direct visitors who may not be familiar with the area.
Clay said those wheels are already in motion in Port Moody, where the city’s tourism committee has been charged with looking at better signage options to direct visitors from its SkyTrain stations to its various attractions.
It’s all about keeping visitors happy, Kalnins said, because happy visitors will be more inclined to return or stay longer to explore surrounding businesses or neighbourhoods.
“If someone is coming in, they see we’re not the sleepy suburbs,” Kalnins said. “We’ve got a budding downtown core, it gives us more of a downtown feel.”
And convenient transit access is a big part of that city vibe, Clay said.
“People are getting out of their cars," he said. "People don’t have to be slaves to parking spots.”
