Delta - The Editor, Re: "Light rail ads destroying 'Yes' campaign," the Now letters, March 24.
Memo to Daryl Dela Cruz: Modern LRT made SkyTrain obsolete decades ago.
Live with it. The reason? Modern LRT is cheaper to build, cheaper to operate and cheaper to maintain than SkyTrain, with the added bonus, LRT can carry more customers.
The proprietary SkyTrain light metro system has had more than 35 years to prove otherwise, but it hasn't. This explains why only seven such systems have been built, with only three seriously used for urban transit.
TransLink inflates ridership numbers by using "boarded passengers," instead of "revenue passengers for ridership statistics to make the mini-metro look good.
TransLink is atypical in how it counts "passengers" as other transit organizations use "revenue passengers" for key statistics to represent the real number of people taking transit. TransLink uses "boarded passengers" to represent the fake number of people
taking transit.
TransLink uses the number of times that transit users board or alight transit and by doing so, inflates ridership numbers to make certain key statistics look good. TransLink is unique in "using boarded passengers."
The region has paid two to three times more for SkyTrain than LRT for regional transit and by doing so, has beggared itself and it's why TransLink is in the financial predicament it finds itself today.
Donald Johnston
Delta