bc-ferries-to-add-5-new-vessels-by-2031
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BC Ferries to add 5 new vessels by 2031

ByCharles Brockman

Posted September 16, 2024 3:46 pm. BC Ferries says it’s going ahead with the next steps in procuring five new major vessels needed on its busiest routes between Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland. The company says the new vessels will help it to address projected population growth, replace aging vessels, and meet customer expectations. CEO Nicolas Jimenez tells 1130 NewsRadio that the Ferry Commissioner still has to approve the designs, but they’re hoping to get the first of the five new vessels in the water by 2029 — with all of them operating by 2031. “What we would see is essentially a ship deployed about every six months. It takes a bit of time to bring a new ship into service. So it’s not like five show up day 1, and day 2 you take out five or four old ships. You need time to absorb that into your system,” Jimenez explained. For now, the company says, it’s going to work on maintenance to extend the operational life of two current vessels — the Queen of Surrey and the Queen of Oak Bay. The C-class vessels serve routes between Vancouver Island and the mainland, and BC Ferries has said its current fleet is aging. Last week, BC Ferries had to pull its ship, the Queen of New Westminster, out of service for six months after a propeller fell off the vessel into the sea. The company says the new fleet will help meet the record-breaking demand it saw this summer, with over 8,040,000 passengers and over 3,150,000 vehicles transported between June 1 and Aug. 31. “[We’re] one of the few transportation services, I think, in North America that have surpassed our pre-COVID high. So definitely we’re feeling the pressures and we’re going to continue to be there,” said Jimenez. Ed Hooper, the company’s executive director of shipbuilding says the five new ferries will be more environmentally friendly than its older ships. “These new vessels will be quieter and cleaner than the vessels they replace, allowing us to achieve a significant reduction in our corporate greenhouse gas emissions,” said Hooper. BC Ferries says it needs seven new vessels in total, but will look at adding in the remaining two ships later on.

how-often-are-buses-and-trains-cleaned-in-vancouver?
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How often are buses and trains cleaned in Vancouver?

ByBeth Rochester

Summer in Vancouver has brought sunshine, lively events, and fireworks to our lovely city. However, the warm weather also brought a sweaty stench to our crowded buses and SkyTrains. The public transit in Vancouver turns into a sauna with the mass of bodies boarding the vehicles, and you can feel pretty gross once you finally arrive at your stop. That got us wondering: how often are buses and trains cleaned in Vancouver? In an email to Daily Hive, TransLink shared that Coast Mountain Bus Company maintenance crews clean each of its buses daily. The daily cleaning schedule includes “sweeping, dusting, mopping, and sanitizing touch points, windows, seating areas, stanchions, and straps.” If you’re worried that this daily cleaning may be just a surface-level cleanse, there’s good news: TransLink also deep cleans each of its buses bimonthly. “Additionally, buses are deep-cleaned approximately every two months; this involves a four to five-hour (depending on the size of the bus) deep cleaning of every bus interior surface,” TransLink said. In addition to the strict cleaning schedules followed by the maintenance crews, TransLink is constantly trying to improve the commuter experience. Most recently, TransLink operators have released new PSAs on SkyTrains to encourage polite transit etiquette. One such PSA urges commuters to take off their backpacks, especially during peak travel hours. In an earlier conversation with Daily Hive, TransLink shared that it launched a new etiquette campaign to improve people’s journeys on its transport system. “This September, TransLink launched our newest etiquette campaign to spread awareness on our system. This year, we are focusing on educating customers about priority seating etiquette and reminding customers with backpacks to remove them while in vehicles. Customers can expect to hear the PSA on the system; there will also be posters and signage on the system, as well as posts on our social channels.”