Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Turnstiles in Brentwood Station

The turnstiles at Brentwood Station have been revealed, although they have yet to be activated.



  As I've stated before, only 3 turnstiles in a station slated to become one of the busiest in the region is a reflection on the lack of foresight shown by TransLink decision-makers.  The 3 turnstiles are going to be used to scan people entering and exiting the station.  It makes me wonder if anyone in TransLink that is responsible for making decisions has considered the obvious problem with having only 3 turnstiles to simultaneously facilitate the entry and exit of people.  The new smart cards that will work with the new turnstiles will require transit users to scan into the station before going to the platform and will be required to scan out of the station with their smart card before exiting.  I wonder if TransLink executives have given this as much consideration as I have in the previous few lines of this post or as much as any other actual transit users have that actually understand the logistics of entering and exiting SkyTrain stations during busy rush hour periods?

I also wonder if TransLink ever considered the logistics of facilitating a mass exit of people out of the stations during an emergency?  I wouldn't be surprised if no plan is currently built into the turnstile gates that would allow them to be promptly opened to allow transit users to escape potential harm in the event of a bomb scare such as the ones that occurred last week along the SkyTrain system between Surrey and Burnaby.  If not, how much money will TransLink have to spend to "upgrade" the turnstiles to facilitate emergency exit plans on top of the extra money it will have to spend to overcome the logistical flaws inherent in the current turnstile "plan"?

3 comments:

  1. A few weeks ago, I counted about 80 people exiting at 5:30 PM. Twice. Two trains worth (EB and WB) I'm not sure if the gates are bi-directional or not. Note to self: make sure I'm always in the car closest to the stairs.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's just it. Even now there seems to be a log jam of people entering and exiting at that point during rush hours and the gates aren't even operating yet. I don't know how TransLink came up with its projections, but it must have used the same formula it uses to manage its finances.

      Delete
  2. Very helpful post, thanks for posting.

    ReplyDelete