Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/SkyTrain (Vancouver)/archive3
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.
The article was promoted 18:00, 19 June 2007.
SkyTrain (Vancouver)[edit]
This one was on the FAC a long time. Selmo has been persistent in responding to and fixing problems. Most of the old ones had been addressed, so I wanted to give this one a fresh start. (old nom) Raul654 17:03, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Support. It has had so many of its mistakes and flaws corrected and it seems to do a great job at describing what it is, and all other aspects towards it. Dreamy 19:02, 10 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comments Support: I would like the nom's responses to the following comments before i vote on the article
- "There have been no derailments or collisions in its history" - wouldn't "no accident in history" be more concise and better representation?
"TransLink claims to lose about C$6 million in unpaid fares annually, including $3 million from SkyTrain alone." - Is reference to translink's losses necessary?- lead para needs details on the planning stages of the skytrain? details like designer, budget, construction start date
"Shortly after Vancouver was chosen to host the 1986 World's Fair" - year?
Isnt this phrase redundant - "The SkyTrain was conceived as a legacy project of Expo 86 ..."- No, because the lead is for concise information, and the rest of the article is for details. — Selmo (talk) 19:19, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I still disagree but will go with you. the reason i disagree is that the previous para started with "Shortly after Vancouver was chosen to host the 1986 World's Fair, or Expo"
- No, because the lead is for concise information, and the rest of the article is for details. — Selmo (talk) 19:19, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Construction of the original line proceeded under the Socred government of Bill Bennett,[6] who inaugurated the system at Waterfront Station." - when did the construction begin?- taking a different view, very little info is available on the planning and building of the first line of the sky train. is there a possibility that more information can be added?
"and the first line was finished in 1985 in time to showcase the fair's theme" - it will help if you can provide details of the train system in 1985. how many stations? how long was the track?
"Several options including streetcars and rapid buses were proposed before a final decision was made to build a new SkyTrain line.[12]" - year?
Other than these comments, the rest of the article looks to be fine. (Do i have the option to change that during the next round of review!) --Kalyan 18:58, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Support - since first nom the article has been improved drastically; hard work deserves to be paid off. --:Raphaelmak: [talk] [contribs] 05:48, 12 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Comments: The article has improved. There is still some outstanding issues:
** "As of 2007, there is a proposal to extend the Millennium Line westward along the Broadway corridor through the Central Broadway business district, but stopping short of the University of British Columbia (UBC)." - needs attribution (who's proposal is this?) and contradicts the next section.
- I still believe the article needs to improve its coverage of the financial aspects of the system. What are its annual operating costs and annual revenues? How much money annually goes to debt servicing? What level of government covers the system's losses?
- From Translink's 2005 Annual Report, I added that the Skytrain cost them $73,381,000 to operate. Annual revenues are more difficult as it is just generally counted as "Transit fare" (and "Advertising", etc.) and not as money spent on SkyTrain tickets. They use mainly sinking fund bonds for debt servicing but it is also grouped with other Translink capital projects (roads, bridges, stations, etc.), not SkyTrain projects alone. By "losses" do you mean shortfalls in budget forecasts? Looks like they've had surpluses since 1999 and have only needed to borrow to pay for major projects and whatever they inherited from BC Transit.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Maclean25 (talk • contribs)
- The numbers that have just been added to the article [1] confuse more than they inform. Problem 1) You've cited operating expenses for SkyTrain, and transit fares for the entire system, when only 20% of the region's transit users ever use SkyTrain! Problem 2) By losses, I mean what losses usually mean: the difference between revenues and expenditures. If I'm reading the 2005 TransLink annual report correctly, it mentions nearly $500 million in subsidy (from taxes) versus only $292 million in fare revenue, but only the second figure is given. Why not give both figures? Problem 3) Why does the figure of $3 million worth of fare evasion appear prominently in the lead, with lots of detail after that, without putting it into perspective as a proportion of fare revenue or as a proportion of paid-up fares? From what I've heard, something like 95% of SkyTrain users pay up, whereas the article currently makes it sound as if fare evasion is the system's biggest problem. On the other hand, the $3 -$6 million figure is only one of many point of view.[2] and the other points of view should be represented 4) Translink's annual report will only report the expenses that Translink is responsible for. What other expenses are incurred by other levels of government? That is the main point of my question, and it's still unanswered. Hint: "Costs are shared between the Province and the local Vancouver Regional Transit Commission. Overall, the Transit Commission pays about 65% of the day to day operating costs and 31% of the capital cost. SkyTrain debt is over one quarter of the budget."[3] (this quote is from 1997 and the current structure may be different). Some reports say that SkyTrain is subsidized $200 million per year. Where does that number come from? Sorry for sounding grumpy here, but I'm getting tired of repeating a request for extremely basic fiscal information. The article devotes more space to the issue of how MK1 and MK2 cars are coupled together than it gives to the question of what happens to half a million dollars every day. Kla'quot (talk | contribs) 07:19, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- 1)The problem we are facing is that revenue comes in one general fund, not a SkyTrain fund, bus fund, seabus fund, etc. Who decides what portion of a monthly transit pass goes to SkyTrain? So, all we can say is that they generate $x from transit fare. Though I did find find a source that said fare evasion of $4 million was 5% of their revenue (does that mean $80 million -$4m in revenue?). 2)I added both revenue sources (fare/tax) and where the debt comes from and goes (ie. "loses"). 3)I reduced the weight given to this aspect (one paragraph now) and put it context (5% of their revenue). 4)I added an example of how other governments chip in for the Canada Line but as I'm restricted to internet sources I do not know about the pre-1999 situation, and I have no idea where a $200m subsidy (are you saying it is strictly a user-pay system?) would come from and it is not mentioned in the article (at least I didn't see it). --maclean 04:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The section is looking much better! If you have a Vancouver Public Library card, you can access the Canadian Newsstand database from the web. A search for "SkyTrain debt" in document text yields 37 results which cover the subsidy issue well. Kla'quot (talk | contribs) 06:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- 1)The problem we are facing is that revenue comes in one general fund, not a SkyTrain fund, bus fund, seabus fund, etc. Who decides what portion of a monthly transit pass goes to SkyTrain? So, all we can say is that they generate $x from transit fare. Though I did find find a source that said fare evasion of $4 million was 5% of their revenue (does that mean $80 million -$4m in revenue?). 2)I added both revenue sources (fare/tax) and where the debt comes from and goes (ie. "loses"). 3)I reduced the weight given to this aspect (one paragraph now) and put it context (5% of their revenue). 4)I added an example of how other governments chip in for the Canada Line but as I'm restricted to internet sources I do not know about the pre-1999 situation, and I have no idea where a $200m subsidy (are you saying it is strictly a user-pay system?) would come from and it is not mentioned in the article (at least I didn't see it). --maclean 04:50, 19 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The numbers that have just been added to the article [1] confuse more than they inform. Problem 1) You've cited operating expenses for SkyTrain, and transit fares for the entire system, when only 20% of the region's transit users ever use SkyTrain! Problem 2) By losses, I mean what losses usually mean: the difference between revenues and expenditures. If I'm reading the 2005 TransLink annual report correctly, it mentions nearly $500 million in subsidy (from taxes) versus only $292 million in fare revenue, but only the second figure is given. Why not give both figures? Problem 3) Why does the figure of $3 million worth of fare evasion appear prominently in the lead, with lots of detail after that, without putting it into perspective as a proportion of fare revenue or as a proportion of paid-up fares? From what I've heard, something like 95% of SkyTrain users pay up, whereas the article currently makes it sound as if fare evasion is the system's biggest problem. On the other hand, the $3 -$6 million figure is only one of many point of view.[2] and the other points of view should be represented 4) Translink's annual report will only report the expenses that Translink is responsible for. What other expenses are incurred by other levels of government? That is the main point of my question, and it's still unanswered. Hint: "Costs are shared between the Province and the local Vancouver Regional Transit Commission. Overall, the Transit Commission pays about 65% of the day to day operating costs and 31% of the capital cost. SkyTrain debt is over one quarter of the budget."[3] (this quote is from 1997 and the current structure may be different). Some reports say that SkyTrain is subsidized $200 million per year. Where does that number come from? Sorry for sounding grumpy here, but I'm getting tired of repeating a request for extremely basic fiscal information. The article devotes more space to the issue of how MK1 and MK2 cars are coupled together than it gives to the question of what happens to half a million dollars every day. Kla'quot (talk | contribs) 07:19, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- From Translink's 2005 Annual Report, I added that the Skytrain cost them $73,381,000 to operate. Annual revenues are more difficult as it is just generally counted as "Transit fare" (and "Advertising", etc.) and not as money spent on SkyTrain tickets. They use mainly sinking fund bonds for debt servicing but it is also grouped with other Translink capital projects (roads, bridges, stations, etc.), not SkyTrain projects alone. By "losses" do you mean shortfalls in budget forecasts? Looks like they've had surpluses since 1999 and have only needed to borrow to pay for major projects and whatever they inherited from BC Transit.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Maclean25 (talk • contribs)
There is a lot of weight devoted to fare evasion which costs $3 million per year, but in order for the reader to understand this figure we need to know the bigger picture.There has been significant controversy over using Public Private Partnerships to build SkyTrain. What's this about?- The following
is still not what the source says, andimplies that the only time the system had debt problems was in 1998. "The system has also had debt problems in 1998 when the debt servicing of SkyTrain were three and a half times the actual operating budget. Only a seventh of the funding went to buses." Kla'quot (talk | contribs) 06:20, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I still believe the article needs to improve its coverage of the financial aspects of the system. What are its annual operating costs and annual revenues? How much money annually goes to debt servicing? What level of government covers the system's losses?
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.