Vancouver Transit System Explained | Guide To Vancouver

hey guys what's up today I'm gonna be showing you the Vancouver transit system and along the way I'm gonna be showing you how you save money in Vancouver and at the end of this video I'm gonna show you how you get a free one-month pass so let's start by explaining the fare system this is called a compass card the compass is a reloadable fare card that works on transit everywhere in Metro Vancouver compass cards can be loaded with variety of fares such as day passes month passes and stored value now a day pass is great if you're here as a tourist and you want unrestricted travel within all three zones for the entire day if your planning is staying in Vancouver for a while you might want to consider getting a month pass instead you can buy a one two or three zone month pass that will allow you to travel by bus skytrain and sea bus for the duration of the calendar month so when I say calendar month that means that if you purchase your month pass on August 14th it'll only be valid to August 31st so it's best to always purchase them at the beginning of the month to get the best value because month passes are not prorated and will cost you the same at any point during the month be aware that month passes are only sold until the 15th of each month last but not least you have the option of store value this is great if you don't plan to use transit very often but still need to have access to it it's essentially a form of pay-as-you-go which is perfect for single trips and occasional use on bus skytrain and sea bus when paying by single fare your ticket lasts 90 minutes and can be used multiple times in that 90 minutes so that was the one-minute explanation of the compass pass and there's a few things I didn't mention one is that if you're under five you can ride the sky train or any of the transit system for free and if you're between the ages of five and 18 you can get us a concession pass and a concession pass looks exactly like the compass card except for it's orange and the prices are cheaper which is great so between 14 and 18 just have photo ID and you can get cheaper tickets by using a compass card you can save money on each trip you make here's a comparison of the prices of cash versus using the compass card to pay for your trip you'll save 65 cents on a one's own almost a dollar on a two zone and a dollar 50 on a three zone if you're buying multiple tickets a day using cash credit or debit from the ticket machines these numbers can really start to add up now in that last part I mentioned three zones and you might be thinking well what are the three zones I'm gonna show you what they are right now the Metro Vancouver transit system is divided into three zones zone 1 the City of Vancouver zone 2 is North Vancouver Burnaby New Westminster and Richmond zone 3 is Coquitlam Port Coquitlam Port Moody Surrey Delta Langley Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge after 6:30 p.m. everything becomes one zone buses are always one zone and on Saturday Sunday and holidays everything's one zone using the compass is easy all you do is walk up to the card reader and tap your card there are three skytrain lines and the first one you'll probably use is the Canada Line leaving yvr this takes you to Waterfront station in downtown Vancouver or any of the other stops along the way now when you're riding the Canada Line itself the train will have alternating destinations it may look like you're heading the same direction but one will be going to Richmond brig house the other one will be going to yvr the trains alternate every few minutes each station on the cattle line has signs indicating which train is arriving as well as displays inside the train and announcements over the PA to let you know you're on the right train when taking a sky train from YVR you're charged the $5 surcharge on top of your regular fare this means that a single to zone ticket is gonna cost you nine dollars and ten cents whereas a day pass only costs $10 so you can see the difference nine dollars and ten cents for a 90-minute ticket for ten dollars for a day pass so in order to save money when you landed YVR what you're gonna need to do is you can either do two things you can go to the 7-eleven located in the domestics area of the terminal and pick up a compass card there or you can go right to the Machine and pick up this compass card there but I recommend going to 7-eleven because you're gonna need to go back into YVR so the process is go get a compass card go hook up to Wi-Fi register your compass card it takes like two minutes it's very quick and buy a day pass online because if you buy a day pass or any kind of pass on sea island at any of those three terminals you're gonna be charged to five dollars get the six dollar compass card go into YVR get Wi-Fi register your card buy a day pass you'll save yourself five dollars I should also mention that it does say it can take up to 48 hours for something to show up on your card but every time I've ever done it it's always been instant so I would not worry about that let's jump into the next sky train line which is the Expo Line and that starts at Waterfront station it has alternating destinations of King George and Surrey and production way and Bernardine similar to the counter line if you're not going past Columbia station though this won't matter if you want to get to the money in line you can get off a commercial on Broadway and switch the millennium line there in order to transfer it to the millennium line from the expo line you have to walk down this walkway right here down a set of stairs through another walkway and another set of stairs and that'll bring you to platform one and to the millennium line starts at V visa Clarke and has two stations that allow you to transfer the Expo Line production way and low heat you can also continue to the final destination of lafarge Lake Douglas College now that I've explained the SkyTrain system let's take a quick look at the bus system the B Line is the Express busses in the city the b99 starts at commercial and Broadway travels down Broadway Street makes a stop at the Broadway Sky train station for the Canada Line and continues through Kitsilano ending at UBC v95 starts at Burrard Street in downtown Vancouver and travels down hastings street by some notable stops before ending at SFU if you're planning to visit Vancouver Island during your stay you can get to the Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal by taking the 257 or the 250 bus alright guys so this is my must-have when visiting Vancouver and don't already have it on your phone I'm gonna be pretty surprised but it's Google Maps so Vancouver was the first Canadian city to partner with Google Transit and what that means is whenever you put in a location in Google Maps it's gonna bring up a detailed transit list for you to get to your destination so it takes all the guesswork out of what bus or what sky train you have to catch now I know some of you won't have data when you're traveling but keep in mind in Vancouver you're never more than a few minutes away from a Starbucks or at Tim Hortons or McDonald's or any other franchise that will offer you free Wi-Fi last but not least we have the C bus and that's located at Waterfront station in downtown Vancouver now it takes about 15 minutes it takes you across the broad Inlet and it takes you over to North Vancouver the C bus is pretty cool and if you've never been on it I suggest doing it there's a cool market on the other side you can check out if you have no other reason to go to north van but keep in mind it will require two zones to cross I'd also like to make an honorable mention to the West Coast Express which is a train that can take you out to the Fraser Valley but it's mostly used for commuting and is a completely separate fare another honorable mention is the Pacific Central Station which is located right across the street from the Main Street science world Sky train station so if you need to catch a Greyhound or another charter bus or Amtrak or Via Rail this is where you're gonna want to come I've mentioned the refundable compass pass now before you leave the city you might want to get rid of it you might want to get your money back place to do that is stadium chinatown sky train station it's located just outside of that you can't miss it you'll see it there's people walking around so you can always ask if you don't know but the stop is stadium in Chinatown it's just on the side of Beatty Street I'll give you back any stored value on the card plus the six dollar refundable purchase if it's over twenty dollars though they're gonna have to cut you a check alright guys that's it that's that's the Vancouver transit system it's not very hard once you get to know it I know it can be overwhelming going to new city and not knowing how to get around but I've got you covered now and if you guys enjoy this content please hit the like button subscribe share this with people on Facebook and this will help me make more videos like this showing you around Vancouver really giving you the down-low as a local and before I forget I mentioned at the beginning this video how to get a free one zone month pass well I'm gonna be holding a draw and it's very simple to enter all I gotta do is hit the link below this could be your chance to get a free one zone month pass when you're coming to visit Vancouver and if you want to find me on social media my twitter is at guide to band and my Instagram is guide to Vancouver so hit me up thanks for watching guys

Channel: David From Vancouver

Views: 299,926

Keywords: cheap vancouver, vancouver bc, vancouver, guide to vancouver, food vancouver, hostels vancouver, vancouver blog, vancouver canucks, vancouver island, vancouver airport, vancouver transit, vancouver bus, vancouver skytrain, vancouver apartment, vancouver instagram, vancouver compass pass, vancity, vancouver vlogs, skytrain, skytrain vancouver, how to travel vancouver, things to do in vancouver

Id: etuRfvcw_m4

Length: 7min 45sec (465 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 05 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/crap4you]

Tourist #1: Let's go to Anton's Pasta for lunch.

Tourist #2: Why?

Tourist #1: Because I saw it on this transit video, it must be good.

[u/MrDavidArcher]

Hey Reddit. I made a video last year and posted it here. Now, a year later I finally made another video to try and help people coming to the city.

[u/sapulous]

Nicely done. The only thing I would change is removing some of the background music while explaining stuff; it is a bit distracting. Otherwise, I really like it.

[u/[deleted]]

It's probably just me but another distracting thing is you moving your body left and right while explaining something. Stay still! Otherwise, very helpful video especially the YVR day pass tip.

[u/noob09]

Great video! Saved it to my favorites so I can share it when I have friends/family visiting.

[u/AintNothinbutaGFring]

This is amazing! /u/tbow2000 this should probably be its own link in the Wiki

edit: and/or also maybe a sidebar link

[u/is_probably_working]

Great video! my only nitpick is that you define the zones, their boundaries, and exceptions, but don't explicitly state that different zone passes cover travel between zones.

I know for us it's obvious, I can imagine a tourist, who's English might not be so great, not catching the nuance of "Zone 2" and "2 Zone pass" and either getting a 2 zone pass when they're only traveling within zone 2, or getting a 1 zone pass when they intend for their destination to be in Vancouver, but starting in Burnaby or Surrey.

[u/changhwi]

Good video but I would have clarified that when you used stored value to travel, 1.5 hours is the limit you have to tap in, but 2 hours to finish your trip and tap out.

[u/KojiMakenshi]

Very very nice. Props to you for doing this.