The Editor,
Re. "Is TransLink the wastrel its critics claim? Not really" (Referendum Questions, The Tri-City News, April 22).
Where is the proof that TransLink is one of the best systems in the world?
Ranking transit systems is not like choosing Mr. or Miss Universe but rather like placing runners in the Sun Run in several categories, thus having several winners.
"One of the best" could mean a fairly low ranking.
One cannot possibly compare TransLink to the transit systems of huge cities like Tokyo, Osaka, Paris, London and New York. One might compare it to rapid transit systems in the first 20 towns ranked most livable in the Mercer Report (not all of them have a rapid transit system as the Mercer report favoured smaller towns).
The common link between these systems is that within a town at the centre of a given metropolitan area, one is always close to one rapid transit line, if not several lines.
The major flaw with rapid transit in the city of Vancouver is that there is no rapid transit line west of Cambie and no rapid transit line under the two major arteries (Granville and Broadway). This is very unusual in transit planning.
Another major flaw is the size of the cars on both SkyTrain and the Canada line. They are light-rail vehicles with a much smaller passenger load than conventional subways. The Canada Line's twin units will need a major retrofit.
Automated LRT are commonly used to link self-contained areas to a town major rapid transit system (Kobe's Port liner and Rokko liner) or as the main transit system in a metro area with under 1.5 million inhabitants (Lille, Toulouse, Torino).
J-L Brussac, Coquitlam
