Psst…psst…have you heard? The Canada Line will surpass 200 million passengers this month! We’re sharing stories about the Canada Line on the Buzzer blog leading up to this month’s celebratory event. 

Gabby Ventura is a senior manager at Zennkai Hair Salon. She lives in the Knight Street and East 57th Avenue area and is one of 200 million passengers on the Canada Line to date!

Prior to the opening of the Canada Line in 2009, she says she had a lengthy commute by bus to get from home to Richmond Centre.

“Before I had to take the 430 bus, and it would take me about 45 minutes to get to our Richmond Centre store,” she says.

The commute time between home and work was improved after the opening of the Canada Line. She could now catch the 49 bus to Langara-49th Station before taking a quick 14-minute Canada Line ride to Richmond-Brighouse Station.

During the summer, Gabby transferred to the company’s Oakridge Centre location, where she currently works. Gabby says her commute is now even quicker — about 15 minutes — thanks to a combination of working closer to home and the two-minute commute time between Langara-49^th and Oakridge-41^st stations.

She adds the Canada Line is an asset to Zennkai’s business, especially when she and her staff have to travel between stores. Zennaki has eight locations throughout Metro Vancouver including at Metropolis at Metrotown in Burnaby and on Granville Street in Downtown Vancouver by Vancouver City Centre Station.

“I can get from one place to another so much quicker. From our Richmond location, going downtown is 24 minutes,” Gabby says. “It’s nice to get there really fast.”

By being located close to the Canada Line, she believes it has brought in a new demographic of customers too.

“I definitely feel like there’s been an increase at this location,” she says. “We have a lot of people from the Richmond area that are saying how this is much more convenient for them, so we definitely have a lot more traffic.

“We have a lot of locals, but today, for instance, I had two guests that were from out of town and were really intrigued by our store and what we have to offer them, so we do get a lot of customers from outside of Vancouver.”

What does Gabby like to do on transit?

“I’m a reader. I like to play games on the SkyTrain as well, but I like to people watch – that’s the one thing that I like to do. Plug in my music and just people watch,” she says.

Author: Allen Tung