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Translink Tales
Nov. 24th, 2014 10:53 pmI use transit a lot when I'm in Vancouver. Partially this is because I often don't have a car while here, but also because Vancouver's transit is a lot swifter for the places I need to go, than Calgary's. Just a function of where I am in these two cities though.
My first day here, I took transit from the airport to the neighborhood where my suite is located. It was almost too fast, since I was meeting friends and I ended up at the meeting place well before they did.
Before getting on the train though, I opted to get a day pass. This is often cheaper than multiple single fares depending on how fare you want to go. Going to Port Moody and back during the day time, for example, the day pass is better. But you can't get a day pass at the airport. When I asked the transit cop who was there to answer tourist's questions, he said "because they add an airport station improvement fee." Well that's fine and all, but add it to the day pass. "They said it was too hard to program into the ticket machines." Yeah, right. I program for a living , so I can tell you that that is just as much bullshit as you think it is. He did helpfully tell me that I could buy day passes at the 7-11 in the airport. It was on the other side of the airport, so I opted to simply pay the extra fare.
I ended up buying a two zone ticket, because the airport is one zone away from Vancouver proper. The machine was OK with this, though I realized later that it was Saturday, and there are no "zones" on Saturday - it shouldn't have let me do that. Again, something easy to program if you care to not rip people off. Still, partially y fault because I'm familiar with the rules and should know better. It would suck if you didn't know the rules - like all those people who just got off an airplane.
So that was bad. The next day I was in Port Moody visiting. Afterwards I went out to catch the shuttle bus I needed, that only ran once every 35 minutes. Just as it arrived, I realized that I didn't have a ticket, and I didn't have the change required to buy one. I confessed my yogurt-headedness to the driver, and he let me on for "whatever change you have on you." So I ended up getting back to my suite for a grand total of 55ยข.
All is forgiven Translink, all is forgiven.
My first day here, I took transit from the airport to the neighborhood where my suite is located. It was almost too fast, since I was meeting friends and I ended up at the meeting place well before they did.
Before getting on the train though, I opted to get a day pass. This is often cheaper than multiple single fares depending on how fare you want to go. Going to Port Moody and back during the day time, for example, the day pass is better. But you can't get a day pass at the airport. When I asked the transit cop who was there to answer tourist's questions, he said "because they add an airport station improvement fee." Well that's fine and all, but add it to the day pass. "They said it was too hard to program into the ticket machines." Yeah, right. I program for a living , so I can tell you that that is just as much bullshit as you think it is. He did helpfully tell me that I could buy day passes at the 7-11 in the airport. It was on the other side of the airport, so I opted to simply pay the extra fare.
I ended up buying a two zone ticket, because the airport is one zone away from Vancouver proper. The machine was OK with this, though I realized later that it was Saturday, and there are no "zones" on Saturday - it shouldn't have let me do that. Again, something easy to program if you care to not rip people off. Still, partially y fault because I'm familiar with the rules and should know better. It would suck if you didn't know the rules - like all those people who just got off an airplane.
So that was bad. The next day I was in Port Moody visiting. Afterwards I went out to catch the shuttle bus I needed, that only ran once every 35 minutes. Just as it arrived, I realized that I didn't have a ticket, and I didn't have the change required to buy one. I confessed my yogurt-headedness to the driver, and he let me on for "whatever change you have on you." So I ended up getting back to my suite for a grand total of 55ยข.
All is forgiven Translink, all is forgiven.
