Report Finds $71 Million Needed just to Improve/Bring up to Acceptable Standards, Very Poorly Managed, SkyTrain System and Communication.

Yet local mayors and TransLink “executives” feel THEY Deserve Increased Pensions, Additional Other “PERKS” And A Salary Increase.

An independent review of the SkyTrain service disruptions in July has come up with 20 recommendations and Translink has very reluctantly, accepted all of them.

·         In July, there were two major service disruptions of the SkyTrain system, lasting five to six hours. The report found that while the root cause of the delays not related, the reason for the extended delay period was related. “The loss of communication between the train command computers in the SkyTrain Control Centre and the computers on the trains caused the trains to stop,” the report stated. “Once the cause of each failure was repaired, it took many hours to manually re-enter each train into the SELTRAC automatic control system.”

·         During the SkyTrain service disruptions in July, thousands of commuters didn’t know what was going on, prompting some to take the very dangerous action of prying-open the doors, out of frustration.

·         If there is a loss of communication between the trains and the control centre, it could take up to five hours for service to be up and running on the Expo and Millennium Lines because the trains have to be manually re-entered into the system.

·         Despite Translink saying, they had plenty of staff to deal with the system-wide issues, the report found that was not the case; more staff definitely, needed, to help passengers when the system goes down.

·         Although SkyTrain supposedly, more than adequately, or so reported, updated the technology for the publically owned (Crown Corporation) transportation system in 1994; the updates Did Not Include An Auto-Restart Module That Was Available At The Time. The problems for the shutdowns blamed on both a computer system failure and a power outage for a control panel.

·         Further,Translink should un-link the system to prevent a chain reaction when something goes wrong.

A security video shows 40-minute gap before Lucia Jimenez found hanging in YVR holding cell-this was of course- after, she was illegally arrested by TransLink/Transit Police and turned over to Canadian Services Agency staff (transit police had no authority whatever to take such an action).© Al (Alex-Alexander) D. Girvan. All rights reserved.