Also is it a Vancouver thing that people shout thanks to the bus driver from the back door? The first few times I didn't think anything of it but it's like a super regular thing. I though it kind of cute.
Yeah, people do it all the time. I think it's because the back doors sometimes don't open when you "touch the doors" (and they don't explain what the mechanism is, like is it static electricity? Are the doors pressure sensitive? Does beating on the door help?), which can cause the driver to start pulling away from the stop before anyone has had a chance to get off, which sometimes prompts the shout of "Backdoor!" I think people are just used to it, that every time there
isn't a problem with the back door, the driver deserves a "Thank you."
Also, drivers deserve a "thank you" in general because some assholes have been taking their frustrations out on the drivers (sometimes it's verbal abuse, and occasionally it has made the news with beatings), and that's never cool. The drivers are generally nice people and they do a good job, and they deserve all the support they can get.
Other things I've noticed ... It's true Toronto may have extreme heat and cold over the seasons but at least the temperature is constant day and night be it blazing hot or bitterly cold. Here in Vancouver on the other hand I'm like freezing in the morning then oh fuck it's hot in the afternoon. I wondered why everyone layers here, now I get it lol.
The drastic day/night temperatures only really happen around Spring and Fall, and only when the sky is clear. When the clouds roll in (our default weather pattern) we don't build up much daytime heat, and the clouds actually insulate against the nighttime cold. Maybe the clouds bring rain, maybe they don't, but they usually bring warmth and mildness. It can get weird when the clouds blow in or out before evening, which can cause abnormally cold days or warm nights. This sort of hot/cold day like we're having right now is just our reminder that Summer is over, and now we're running on borrowed sunshine. Enjoy it while it lasts!
And yes, layers are great. I've got a hooded sweatshirt and a nice fashionable thin jacket, and both have their own uses during Spring/Fall, but if you wear them both at the same time (which is still stylish), it can shrug off most of the worst cold that Vancouver can throw at you. The sweatshirt hood is useless against rain, but you need an umbrella and good shoes/boots to deal with the rain.
Thank you for giving these people, especially people from Surrey, perspective. Everyone here whines about Translink (our transit company) thinking that everything is so bad, not realizing how good our transit system is. Both in efficiency, cost, and punctuallity.
You weren't here recently, but there was a plebiscite asking voters whether they would be willing to give 0.5% sales tax increase for transit projects like a light rail in Surrey and a new skytrain line down broadway. It lost due to voters thinking our current transit system is bad.
I would love to hear from the people who voted No respond to your perspective of our transit.
I used to ride Transit heavily in the late 80's/early 90's, and this summer I decided to ride Transit much more often (due to the loss of the car my work provided), and I think the quality of Transit has gone sharply downhill. The Skytrain has been extended to go more places (oh hey, did you guys hear, next month they're taking down the "zone" system. One-zone fare to go anywhere on Transit, except the Seabus), but even the Skytrain ain't what it used to be. As a result, I was literally out used-car shopping earlier today.
Translink has become entrenched in the system (it's a corporation with it's own police force, access to taxes, and almost no accountability), and they have access to more money than they ever did, with ever-new arms reaching into ever-new cookie jars, but they still don't have enough money (they never will). They've grown to serve more people, and that growth should have provided the money for it's own expansion, but somehow they're broke and yet they claim that they could serve the Transit needs of the entire city, if only everyone would agree to give up on cars.
Even before the referendum, I heard a bus driver saying that Translink is due to implode, because the backbone of it's fleet is a bunch of 1980's busses that are 20 years older than anything driving on the roads today (nevermind the kind of mileage those busses rack up, with many of them running all day and night), and they're being held together with duct tape and rubber bands. Even Skytrain has been failing lately because the Expo Line has been running since 1986.
Translink won't be fixed by a new tax that goes part of the way towards fulfilling Gregor Robertson's election promise to install Skytrain along the Broadway corridor. Translink needs to fundamentally re-examine everything about the way they do business (they won't, they're doing a
wonderful job, their own internal studies said so), in addition to the fact that they need to hire some new PR people so that they stop looking like cartoon supervillains.
Thankfully I caught myself and got off at Granville and just crossed the street back onto Canada Line.
