Although there would have been moving sidewalks, the plans at the time would have placed the Seabus terminal even farther north than the current location. The convention centre was to be built largely over water (not over the railway tracks), and the Seabus terminal would have been to the north of that (not under the convention centre).

If you take HandyDart they can probably drop you off at the Seabus terminal down on Waterfront Road (rather than at the CP Station). There's a door that opens (only certain hours I think) to the terminal from the parking lot that HeliJet passengers can use to access the walkway and Seabus - that doorway enters the fare paid zone directly at the base of the stairs (there's no ticket machine there, although there should be).

I don't take HandyDart downtown when Skytrain is faster and free.

There are ticket machines at the top of the ramp that people using the heliport entrance can use.

are you suggesting that the engineers can't figure out how to build the C-Line tunnels northwards so they are under the E-line? and the Westcoast Express tracks? and the CPR yard?

If you look down the tubes between Yaletown and Olympic stations, they drop quite quickly to get under False Creek.

The North Shore doesn't need rapid transit, period. It'd be a huge waste of money to tunnel the distance that the SeaBus currently covers, only to have one station at Lonsdale. The stretch of Lonsdale Ave. to the north isn't nearly dense enough to warrant Skytrain.

One thing that would be good, however, would be a light rail line connecting Lonsdale and Park Royal. Stick in a Park 'n Ride lot around Park Royal and West Van commuters would be able to take the light rail line over to SeaBus. I bet this would reduce congestion on the Lion's Gate Bridge by a lot.

I think that the bigger problem with tunnelling all the way to the North Shore might be the underwater terrain of Burrard Inlet. Unlike the relatively shallow surface of False Creek, that part of Burrard Inlet has depths that range from 15-70m.

http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/science..._profilesm.gif

Source: Department of Fisheries and Oceans

The Canada Line Waterfront station basically abuts the Expo line. If they wanted to duck under the Expo line they'd have to shut down the station, tear it up and regrade the section coming down from Vancouver City Centre station. And then the only way to accommodate a station at Waterfront would be to have it pretty much be below sea level.

Rapid transit to North Vancouver is not going to happen in the next 20 or 30 years. Not when there are so many other transit needs with much better justification.

Just my own opinion, but I think we've discussed to death that it would be extremely expensive and/or potentially impossible to continue the Canada Line across the inlet.

I think if it were feasible having the Canada Line terminate at Lonsdale might have long term cost savings over the SeaBus.

I think your idea of a North Shore LRT is very interesting. It appears a rail corridor already exists between Lonsdale and Ambleside. An LRT utilizing the rail corridor could run for 8 km from Lonsdale to Ambleside with stations a key destinations along the way, such as Park Royal. It would also be very scenic with views of the mountains, ocean and city.

Cool - didn't know that.
I wish it wasn't a fare-paid zone though so HeliJet passengers can access downtown via the walkway.

On a related bnote - since it's included in the RFP -
TranLink sold the 2 Albion ferries for $400,000 (total) rather than scrapping them

http://www.cknw.com/Channels/Reg/New...spx?ID=1632801

I can't imagine anyone being fined for just using the walkway.

Seabus in dry dock, off of Reddit: http://i.imgur.com/4eoeb.jpg Photographer unknown so linking..