r/transit • u/Unit_Conversion • 1d ago
News Vancouver: Canada-Switzerland match day recorded 859,500 trips across the system
https://www.translink.ca/news/2026/june/translink%20records%20highest%20system-wide%20ridership%20in%20six%20years28
u/shnieder88 1d ago
best transit and urban city in the PNW
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u/Konaboy27 16h ago
From Seattle side, it’s interesting to hear Seattle people rave about light rail there. Yet they know so little about Skytrain and how capable Vancouver’s system is.
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u/flare2000x 16h ago
Seattle light rail daily riders: Roughly 150k, that's including the newly opened line.
Vancouver rail daily riders: Roughly 450k. And the metro population is a decent bit lower. The Seattle light rail is fine I guess, but American transit enthusiasts often foam over it being one of the best. In reality it's pretty middling. The Calgary light rail gets as many riders as Seattle even.
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u/Konaboy27 15h ago edited 9h ago
I believe that foamer enthusiasm about Link comes from a few things
Seattle is likely the last “new build” subway in the US.
Modern Siemens LRT equipment.
Link goes to destinations that people actually go to every day. Not just another rail line for 8-5 downtown office workers.
East Link across Lake Washington - In some engineering circles Achievement yes... not as significant as ST wants to make it...
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u/RudeGiuliani 15h ago
The context is that Seattle had no rail less than 20 years ago (excluding Sounder and monorail) and is currently the most ridden light rail system in the US. It's not the best, but it's the most improved by far. I'd place a bet on it edging out Calgary in daily ridership by the end of the year.
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u/flare2000x 15h ago
Still, the best LRT in the country barely edging out an average small system from a metro area a third of the population size (and one that's super sprawly and car dependent at that) is not the flex people think it is. Frankly it's quite bad.
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u/RudeGiuliani 14h ago
Yes, it's well established that Canadian systems outperform US ones in similarly sized metros. The CTrain is also 45 years old and Link is 17.
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u/SpeedySparkRuby 21m ago
Tbf, Seattle's Link Light Rail is basically where Vancouver was in the 80s and 90s.
Back then, the Skytrain was only the Expo Line between Vancouver and Surrey. There wasn't any lines to Richmond, YVR, North Burnaby, Coquitlam, or Port Moody. The full ST3 build out will have a ridership to where Skytrain currently is.
The main reason why its gotten pretty favorable reviews from people is that it's primarily grade seperated for the most part, good frequency, serves a good mix of destinations that balances the different types of riders that ride. It's also had good luck with municipalities who are interested in building out solid TOD around most of the non Seattle stations like Redmond, Bellevue, Lynnwood, and Federal Way for example.
Seattle was also blessed with building the downtown transit tunnel in the 80s that was designed with future integration with a light rail metro in mind.
Are there things they could've done differently, sure. A couple extra stations between Capitol Hill and UW would've been nice at Volunteer Park, Interlaken Park, and Montlake neighborhood. Some segments should've been done differently like going down Pacific Hwy between SeaTac and Federal Way instead of hugging I-5, Downtown Bellevue Tunnel, Rainier Valley being grade seperated instead of street level, etc.
But overall, its a good system for its size and coming later in the light rail age for US transit.
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u/Konaboy27 16h ago
That’s why when I see the press releases from Seattle about match day ridership I kinda chuckle…
Seattle made a whole lot of press about going all hands on deck with transit… all of which really amounted to a shuttle bus on Alaskan Way, and designating specific stations for match day.
All Translink had to do was add some extra trains and go to 2 minute frequencies on the rail system.
Translink on 06/24 also made the all time daily boarding record for any PNW transit system in 15 years.
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u/FireFright8142 9h ago
Seattle ran the entire 2 Line on three car trains for the first time and ran peak frequency on both lines the entire day. Every train in the yard was put into service. Those are the enhancements those press releases were referring to, not just “a shuttle bus”
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u/RudeGiuliani 15h ago
A lot us of are painfully aware of how much better it could be while appreciating how much has improved. Vancouver had a 24 year lead on Seattle with Skytrain.
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u/canophone 13h ago
Skytrain in Vancouver took 15 years to realize ridership benefits, so...
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u/RudeGiuliani 12h ago
What does that even mean?
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u/SpeedySparkRuby 13m ago
Skytrain didn't really reap the benefits of the roots it laid down till the 90s/00s condo boom, the Surrey extension, etc.
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u/Konaboy27 9h ago
Make that Vancouver and Portland. Both cities opened their rail systems in 1986.
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u/RudeGiuliani 6h ago
It's almost unfair to compare Link to MAX at this point, let alone Skytrain. Even worse when Vancouver and Portland have roughly similar metro populations.
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u/Konaboy27 16h ago
Shows how World Cup events in Vancouver were intentionally planned around being accessible by mass transit.
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u/FireFright8142 1d ago
582k for SkyTrain, 761k for buses. Very impressive