The November Buzzer is out today!
The November Buzzer is out today!
Grab the latest Buzzer on all our buses, SeaBus, SkyTrain, and West Coast Express today!
This issue has tips for winter transit travel, an overview of the Broadway SkyTrain changes, GoCard mobile photo locations, and the dates of the Golden Ears Bus open houses. You also might enjoy the Back Issues history item, about cellular payphones that were once installed on the SeaBus!
As always, if you can’t get the Buzzer on the system, you can always read it in PDF form on our website. Visit our Buzzer PDF archives, which stretch back to the heady days of June 2006. (And here’s the direct link to the November issue, as requested by sungsu in the comments :)
Don’t forget to enter the FareCard contest too: you can win a FareCard in every issue of the Buzzer. As well, in this issue I mistakenly put the contest’s end date as December 8, so you’ll get an extra week to enter this time around. (The November winner will be announced in the January edition, since our next Buzzer issue is actually December 5.)
So, enjoy the latest Buzzer! And feel free to let me know in the comments: what stories would you like to see featured in upcoming Buzzers?
How about a direct link to the current buzzer? Yes, I know I can go to the archives and click on the link there. :-)
Ahh, sungsu! The extra click won’t hurt you. Plus, if I link to the PDF archive page, then everybody can see the big archive of PDFs on the site instead of just seeing the one PDF—and in the future, they’ll know where to look for the latest one, or old ones. Just trying to help y’all the best way I can :)
Hi, I checked out the buzzer the other day and saw that Translink now has a mobile version website. I also saw that web surfers need to actually go to http://m.translink.bc.ca – instead, as a website coder, there is a simple code to add on the main Translink website that redirects iPhone/iPod Touch users from the main, to the mobile version. Is there anyone I could speak to so that it makes it easier for people to access the website?
Regarding the new routes…
» #125 BCIT/Patterson Station
» #364 Langley Centre/Scottsdale
» #388 Walnut Grove/22nd Street Station
» #609 Tsawwassen First Nation/South Delta Exchange
…Surrey is really getting the lion’s share of the new routes. #364 starts & stops at “my” bus exchange, Scottsdale Exchange, so I’ll be happy about that route. Scottsdale Exchange is such an important hub south of the Fraser. You can go to so many different destinations from Scottsdale Exchange with only 1 bus.
– Richmond
– Downtown Vancouver
– Ladner
– Surrey Central Station
– Scott Road Station
– 22nd St Station
– Newton Exchange
– Langley Centre [coming soon!]
Once Downtown New Westminster & Downtown Surrey develop more, more of those routes will become more useful.
I think the #388 should be useful for me as well, because I can transfer to & from the #388 to go to & from the station. In fact, the #388 crosses 4 different bus routes that go to & from Scottsdale Exchange, and 1 of them runs every 10 minutes. This means that there is always a good connection for those travelling between Scottsdale Exchange & 22nd St Station. Of course, you could skip all that and just go to Scott Rd Station, but what if traffic is blocked, and what if the buses get crowded? I personally enjoy having a bit of elbow room and an alternate route.
Regarding crowded buses, the #319 is well known for passing up passengers because of full buses, or because people don’t go to the back. I’m really looking forward to the #388 as an alternate route, and a crosstown bus.
Thanks, Translink!
I’m interested in hearing what others think about the 4 new routes. How do the new routes impact you?
@eugenetswong
You are a thorough guy when it comes to comments! Great to have your feedback as always though, and it is really nice to know that you will find the new routes useful. The south of Fraser in general has definitely received the lion’s share of service expansion in the last four service changes, I believe — we are really trying to alleviate the transit pressures we’re hearing about from the Surrey area.
@ Adrien:
Thanks for your comment! I’ll pass your suggestion along to the staff in charge of the main website.
@Jhenifer
Just to add on to Adrien’s comments: it’s interesting that the mobile website for TransLink is m.translink.ca, but the main website address — and one most people use — is translink.BC.ca
Could you also tell our webmasters that users who type in m.translink.bc.ca (which currently doesn’t exist, and an address in which I’m used to typing) should be automatically forwarded to your mobile website m.translink.ca?
And also second Adrien’s suggestion to have iPhone users automatically be forward to the mobile website once they reach the main translink.bc.ca webpage.
Also, any plans for TransLink to create a BlackBerry application for us BB users?
I too support a Blackberry version. The Translink website contains too much Java, which slows Blackberries down and introduces stability issues.
It’s true. It’s strange how the mobile version website has a total different website than the main desktop version. It’s only a few lines of code that tells the ‘server’ that you are loading from an, for example, iPhone and will load the mobile version instead. Very simple and works perfectly fine. I use it on my website and it works like a charm. Let’s just hope the webmasters will contact me soon so that this issue can be settled and Translink can become accessible, in an easier way, to the mobile phones/devices. :)
@Website user, @xl, @adrien:
Hey! I have answers for all of you.
– Our web team is right now working on redirecting the .bc.ca addresses to .ca for the mobile site and Buzzer. Should be done by the end of the day. So thanks for suggesting it!
– We do know that the mobile and Buzzer sites are on the .ca and not .bc.ca endings. This is actually because we are working on revamping the TransLink website, and the new URL will be at .ca (the .bc.ca addresses will be redirected when the site finally launches, roughly in early 2009)
– Re: redirecting people to the mobile site automatically from the main TransLink website. So, the problem with this is that the mobile site only contains next bus info, so if all mobile users were redirected to m.translink.ca, they wouldn’t be able to access the wide range of info on the main website, such as the trip planner. So that’s why the redirect has not been implemented.
– Last, Blackberry features will be included in v1.1 of the app, and we will continue to improve features for all device users as we move forward. The current site is just optimized for iPhone right now as iPhone users represents the largest chunk of our mobile user base.
Hope that answers what you guys were asking about!
Update: the redirects from .bc.ca to .ca will likely take longer than I indicated. They won’t be done by the end of the day, but please be patient—they will go through!
The issue I see right now is that the main site uses a lot of Java. By keeping core functionality in HTML (ie Closest stop and Trip Planning). The site becomes open standard for cellphones, blackberries and iPhones. An added benefit is improved speed, reduced bandwidth for Translink servers, and importantly less data charges for transit riders using the service.
I agree with xl. I’d like the web sites to use only HTML & CSS if possible, and less of everything else. Web sites don’t typically need a lot of bells and whistles.
Also, if the web site uses only HTML & CSS, then it becomes more accessible to blind people. I’m surprised that we don’t see blind people speaking about it. Are there any blind users reading this?