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Lessons for Vancouver from Santiago
My wife just loves the fact that when we go on vacation, she gets to pretend she's not with me when I get excited about Metros.
Anyway, I just got back from Chile and besides watching the eruption of the Llaima Volcano on January 1st, I was quite excited to ride the Santiago Metro.
Santiago metropolitan area has a population of just over 6 million. The transit system was organised for the first time in Feb 2007 (under Transantiago); before then thousands of buses were operated by 1, 500 private bus operators. The organisation was actually a disaster, with too few buses and forced transfers. While I was there, lines at bus stops went around the block and buses were lined up for blocks to take passengers - transantiago had to hire in private buses to handle the demand. Amazing really. The result of feb 2007 reorganisation was to cause thousands to flock to the metro, causing an overnight ridership increase that even the metro is hard-pressed to handle.
The system is safe and very clean - no graffiti or litter anywhere. The metro uses a barrier system with a touch-less card, or tickets to enter the system. Free transfers to buses are possible with the use of the touch-less cards. The price on the metro is $380 pasos (or 70 cents CDN), alittle higher in the peak periods. The last metro trains leave the end of the routes at 11:00pm. Transantiago articulated buses provide the overnight service.
The Santiago Metro opened in the 1960s and is largely based on the Montreal Metro using GEC Alsthom rolling stock, the most recent was built in 1998. The System has 81 stations, 7 of which interchange with other lines. In 2007, the system carried over 680 million people.
There are 5 lines:
Line 1 (Red) runs east to west and is the busiest line on the system. Articulated trains are platform length, trains run every 2 minutes and they are packed solid. Trains are rubber tyred. This line is being extended further west into Las Condes.
Line 2 runs from the northern suburbs to southern suburbs on the eastern central part of the city. Trains run every few minutes. Trains are rubber tyred.
Line 4 runs north to south on the western, generally more affullent, part of the city. This line is steel rail.
Line 4A is a shuttle line running int he southern suburbs only
Line 5 runs from the south central area to the city cente. it is planned to be extented east and to the south east - actually will be designed to avoid interchanging with Line 1 to avoid over-crowding that line even more.
Line 3 was planned, but rapid growth in La Florida (south-east) caused to to be abandoned in favour of building Line 4.
So the lessons:
1. plenty of staff on hand to answer questions, sell tickets and ensure safety on the platforms (note, friednly uniformed staff, not armed police)
2. ticket barriers do not prevent attempts to avoid paying - staff watched all ticket barriers, helping when necessary. I did see some people entering through the exit barriers, but in every instance they were caught and simply asked to get a ticket (no arrests as far as I saw)
3. Keep the prices low and simple - Vancouver should abandon the zone system for Skytrain and SeaBus (why is the North Shore two zones when it is closer than Marpole to downtown Vancouver)
4.
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