SkyTrain purse snatcher sentenced

CBC: SkyTrain purse snatcher says sorry in Vancouver court.

The real tragedy here is that turnstiles at SkyTrain stations would have prevented any of this from happening in the first place.

Snow Days

I'm riding the SkyTrain this week. The snow and ice and slush is just too much for me to ride my bike. It's driving me crazy. I'm getting a lot of reading done, though.

I'm looking forward to spring.

Just give it a shove

The Skytrain was delayed a bit this morning. The woman making the announcement said that it was in part because of door problems. So if you see a door that is trying to close or is having trouble closing, give it a shove. She then repeated this message.

Revenue Sharing

Crackdown on transit crime.

KFalc visited Europe and soiled his pants when he saw turnstiles at transit stations. After returning to British Columbia and changing his pants, he started talking about it. He's also jazzed about SmartCards. They're like regular cards, except they're smart, so they're much better and they create efficiencies.

Turnstiles have been priced at $100 million plus, but Falcon hopes to find a private partner to build and operate the system on a revenue-sharing basis.

I'm confused; why does this have to be some kind of revenue-sharing agreement with a private partner? Ignoring for the moment the fact that the stations were not designed with turnstiles in mind (which makes retro-fitting them difficult?), can't we just buy the turnstiles from somebody, and pay them to install them, and maybe buy a service contract? Somehow we managed to install fare machines and ticket validators without having to enter into a long term revenue-sharing agreement with the manufacturers. If that's not true, please correct me. Maybe some company in Ohio or Manitoba gets two tenths of a penny every time I stick a two-zone ticket into one of those blue boxes (one tenth for one-zone, three-tenths for three-zone?).

Falcon said turnstiles weed out the hang-arounds and reduce the chance of an act of terrorism.

I included that quote because I wanted to tag this post with terrorism. Also, I'm amused by the thought of terrorists whose plans are thwarted because they're too cheap to cough up $2.25 for a skytrain ticket.

Snow

I rode the SkyTrain to work 4 out of 5 days last week. It drove me crazy. I took the train for more than 3 years and didn't mind too much. But after 6 months of commuting on a bicycle I cannot go back. The only upside to the train is that I get a lot more reading done.

The route has several spots that are covered with ice. The paths in Central Park are covered in hard packed snow. I partially deflated my tires to get more contact and that seems to help -- there were only a couple of spots where I slipped a bit and they were slopes with corners that were ice and snow covered. But on pavement it's like riding on marshmallows.

It's supposed to snow tonight. I hope it doesn't start before I leave for home. And I hope it doesn't make the roads any worse. I do not want to take the train tomorrow.