Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Airports. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Airports. Sort by date Show all posts

Wednesday, May 14, 2025

YVR receives unique accolade among the world's best airports

 https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/yvr-worlds-best-airports-accessibility

Unfortunately, the single-track YVR-Airport_station has one of the shortest & narrowest stations of any major airport on the planet. 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Vancouver_Airport_Skytrain_Station_2008-04-22.JPG All of the C-Line stations should have been designed to ultimately accommodate 10 car trains, at least 8 car trains. This picture shows what a 4 car train could be like. Unfortunately, its only two, 2 car trains. Ridiculously short 50m stations can only accommodate a 2.5 car train, not 5, let alone 8-10 cars. Combine this with mostly very narrow bridges in the Greater Vancouver Region and you see congestion or bottleneck planning at its best in backwards BC.

In true lack of a big vision for BC, the YVR-Airport_station_Platform is so narrow & short that only 1 train at a time can stop on the very short single track station. While such small-scale train infrastructure would be impressive for Victoria, Kelowna, Prince George & Kamloops, it's hardly impressive to Seattle, WA and Perth, WA. 

https://www.yvr.ca/en/passengers/transportation/public-transportation

https://thecanadaline.com/station-guides/yvr-airport/

https://www.translink.ca/schedules-and-maps/station/yvr-airport/schedule 

Being from backwards BC, it's amazing to see how several major airports will have at least a double track airport train station. The Portland_Airport_MAX_station is another one of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Airport_station , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAX_Red_Line

Ideally, this Vancouver-Richmond airport+train should have been more than a 2 car joke. If there wasn't a big enough budget for running 5 car trains on longer stations, there still should have been enough level clearance in the design for proper big city scale expansion. So instead of having 5 car trains, the absurd stations were only designed to accommodate 2.5 car trains. This is one of the best examples of the think small, because its backwards BC.

For a long time, provincial Vancouver only had one runway long enough for the biggest planes. That was also the main problem with the Old+Kai+Tak+Airport+in+HK, until a proper big city airport was eventually built. At least YVR still has some runway expansion potential, unlike the San+Diego+International+Airport. 


https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=YVR-Canada-Line

Thursday, November 13, 2025

Airports and Tall Buildings

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_City_Airport

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e0/London_City_Airport_Zwart.jpg/960px-London_City_Airport_Zwart.jpg 

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/58/BACF_departure_London_city_Airport.JPG/960px-BACF_departure_London_city_Airport.JPG 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_Wharf#Tallest_buildings Tall buildings are no problem there, despite the airport being relatively close to them. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle-Tacoma_International_Airport The FAA prevented Seattle from having a 1000 foot tall office tower in the 1980s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_International_Airport Runways don't conflict with the tallest buildings in Boston, but some still could be taller.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonton_City_Centre_Airport#Closure Once closed, Edmonton could finally plan and allow for the tallest building in Alberta. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Diego_International_Airport Unless its ever closed and replaced, SD buildings are kept short, because of its location. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Reid_International_Airport Tall buildings are relatively close to a runway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_International_Airport Unlike, London and LV, Richmond, BC is forced to have very short buildings, because of YVR. Its used as an excuse to have buildings much shorter than flat-land New_Orleans and mostly flat Singapore.

https://www.richmond-news.com/in-the-community/the-tallest-building-that-stands-in-richmond-3116197 113.39 meters or 372 feet 

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Amrize+%231+Substation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richmond,_British_Columbia 

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Richmond,+BC 

Airport+Square in SW Vancouver has 15 floors, but could have easily been 30 stories. Its safely just out of the alignment of the north runway at YVR.

Monday, August 31, 2026

Why New York City has a Two-Car Subway Train and provincial Vancouver is stuck with a 2 car airport train

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH37SqlW0Ks 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Avenue_Shuttle 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R68_(New_York_City_Subway_car) 75-foot (22.86 m) length for each car. So roughly, a 2 car joke of a train is almost 46 m, or 150 ft. The absurd Canada_Line-Stations with its 2 car trains are in the 40 m to 50 m range. Thus, only two car & 2.5 car trains are only possible. In contrast, a 9 car Montreal_Metro train can be up to 152.5 m, or 500 ft.

Train length
  • 2 car train: 150 feet (46 m)
  • 4 car train: 300 feet (91 m)
  • 8 car train: 600 feet (180 m)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R68_(New_York_City_Subway_car)#Description So, an 8 car, 600 foot long train is 100 feet longer than a 500 foot, 9 car Montreal train. 

The end of the line for the Franklin_Avenue_Shuttle is only a single track platform. 

Unfortunately, the YVR and the Richmond end if the Canada_Line stations are also a single track platforms. Even if this was initially decided as a cost saving measure, a double track guideway still should have been built. Then, a proper double track station could eventually be completed. Especially if the line is ever extended to the Delta Ferry terminal.

The YVR-Airport_station was deliberately designed to be narrower and shorter than what a proper big city airport station should be. Its another example of the unofficial BCMV reducing and thwarting the scale of things. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearson_Airport_station Almost like REM quality for Toronto, but not for provincial Vancouver. https://www.upexpress.com/en/up-express-stations/pearson-station , https://www.torontopearson.com/en/transportation-and-parking/up-express Wow, Toronto like Perth can run 3 car big city type trains. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Pearson_Express#Rolling_stock Vancouver can only hope for a 2.5 car train, someday. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Pearson_Express#Route Sometimes, a 2 car joke of a train might be OK to start with, but there should already be enough station clearance for at least 3-5 car trains. Then, as long as its a walk-through train, Selective_Door_Operation (SDO) can make it possible to add an extra car at both ends of a short train. SDO can be an intermediate step before having to extensively lighten each station. 

Stubborn, backwards Vancouver will eventually have to seriously consider SDO in order to have longer big city type trains. Unfortunately, as long as its stuck in the BC backwater mentality or under the spell of the BCMV, things won't improve.

https://canada.constructconnect.com/dcn/news/projects/2026/05/montreals-airport-rem-station-will-have-signature-iceberg-motif , https://montrealgazette.com/news/rem-has-begun-testing-trains-on-airport-branch Of course the YUL-P.E. Trudeau_station, like the Honolulu Airport station, will be longer and wider than the one at YVR.

Perhaps the short, single track & platform at the YVR-Airport_Station would be impressive if it were in Victoria, Prince George, Kamloops or Kelowna, but its hardly impressive when compared to the SeaTac/Airport_station, Portland_Airport_station, Lelepaua_station in Honolulu, Brisbane_Airport station, Sydney_Airport stations, the future Melbourne_Airport station and Perth_Airport station. The scale of the San_Francisco_International_Airport_station, which can accommodate 10 car trains, is on a whole other scale. All major airports and their train stations in Asia & Europe are so far beyond what Canada has. There is no reason as to why Greater Vancouver and some other cities in BC, can't be upgraded to a Pacific Rim infrastructure level, instead of  being stuck in a perpetual BC backwater mindset. 

The VMV, under the umbrella of the larger BCMV, is such a horrible impediment and it doesn't even officially exist. 

Saturday, June 2, 2018

airports