In the past few months, I have had a few people ask me about the wayfinding or the design and typefaces of the signage used on the SkyTrain system. I’ve wanted to talk about this for sometime and since I am on Christmas holiday, I felt like it was time to write about a part of its design language.

The question in particular was this: what font does TransLink use? Well, fortunately TransLink told us in 2010 that it is FF Meta. It forms the basis of nearly all fonts or typefaces used in the TransLink system and even the ‘T’ logo is from it.

Starting around 2010, the transit agency began to standardise its signage across the system although except (sort of) for the Canada Line, but I’ll explain this in a bit. Before, the system was distinguishable from its BC Transit predecessor but it still had a lot of features lingering over and one of them was having so many different typefaces. This was part of TransLink’s 2040 plan and in 2011, they released a guide on the subject of wayfinding.

Prior to 2010, you’d see a mix of Helvetica and Times Roman. In fact, FF Meta’s mere existence is as its author, Erik Spiekermann puts it: “[the] complete antithesis of Helvetica”. I guess TransLink hated Helvetica because I rarely see it outside of advertisements or the odd thing some employee prints out that doesn’t conform to the style guide.

The use of FF Meta elsewhere isn’t unheard of. The Stockholm Metro and Caltrans both use it as part of their system. A very similar font, FF Transit is in use by the Société de transport de Montréal (STM).

One interesting thing I learnt while researching all of this is that the provincial government has its own typeface: BC Sans. It was introduced in 2018 as an initiative to standardize content viewed on websites and to provide support for indigenous languages.

The use of FF Meta or BC Sans is not unheard of. In the late 1960s, the Canadian federal government came to the realization that having consistency across government agencies and departments was important, so in 1970 the Federal Identity Program was created.

TransLink for a long time really had a lot of inconsistency with graphic design across its services. You’d look at the West Coast Express and see that it was very different from the three SkyTrain lines and then you’d also see the buses not matching either. So the choice of a common typeface, design language, and livery across the whole TransLink network made sense.

Even to this day there are some holdouts or the odd thing just sitting out in the open (there are still signs from the 2010 Winter Olympics languishing about at a few stations), but in the 13 years since TransLink has adopted the current typeface standard and design language, it has nearly replaced anything from its BC Transit past.

As for the Canada Line, it has to do with it not being completely under the control of TransLink. That said, some of the design language has crept into it and I am curious to see the new Capstan Way station once it opens to see what happens. If there is interest in why everything is weird with this line, let me know.

I do plan to talk about design language and transit in the future too, but for now enjoy using FF Meta.

Via Wikipedia:

One significant difference from previous versions of Windows NT is that the Graphics Device Interface (GDI) is moved into kernel mode rather than being in user mode in the CSRSS process. This eliminated a process-to-process context switch in calling GDI functions, resulting in a significant performance improvement over Windows NT 3.51, particularly in the graphical user interface. This, however, also mandated that graphics and printer drivers had to run in kernel mode as well, resulting in potential stability issues.

It has been my longest-standing gripe in cyber security–I probably first started complaining about this in discussion forums as early as 2003. LogoFAIL pretty much demonstrates my point.

A few months ago, I posted a video on how reliable transit to the Valley is miserable. There really isn’t a good excuse for it other than TransLink not wanting to play ball with CPKC, CNR, and SRYBC due to funding and due to a lack of focus on anything outside of its jurisdiction.

As it stands right now, the only railway station you can get to in the Fraser Valley with regular cadence is Mission City, but it only gets a handful of trains per day and they’re only set up for commuting.

In the map above, you can see an area circled in green on the left. That is the existing Mission City station. Annoyingly, it’s after a junction with no realistic connection to Abbotsford, which is south (pointed at using the green arrow).

When the West Coast Express was built, Mission was the terminus and BC Transit shoehorned any attempts at future expansion thanks to this station placement. Granted, this might have to do with CPKC telling them they could put a station there, but there is a something annoying to point out.

Prior to the late 1990s, there was an attempt to save the above building, formerly known as Mission Junction. It was about a few hundred metres away around the junction, but burnt down due to a combination of neglect and arson. Essentially at one point, Mission had three railway stations in and around its city centre, but is now down to two.

However, I think we can fix this and do so rather inexpensively.

If we zoom out of the map from earlier, we can see the southern shore of the Fraser River and another junction. This is where the CPKC, CNR, and SRYBC all meet. The purple angle you see at the bottom is the link which takes you out towards Chilliwack with the southern railways going towards Abbotsford city centre and then the United States by way of Sumas.

At the intersection of Essendene Avenue and W. Railway Street, we are greeted with a parking lot. This is a huge waste of land, but an opportunity to place a railway station with a siding. This could be the WCE’s new terminus to Abbotsford.

Flying out to Chilliwack, we find ourselves at Young Road near Fifth Avenue. This is in fact the pre-existing Chilliwack station for Via Rail. Why not make it less horrible and make it another WCE station?

This of course leaves us with a problem: are we going to run trains with three termini then? No. That is a bad idea. It would thin out service greatly and would create a disservice to Mission residents who use the WCE.

Let’s move the existing Mission City Station a kilometre and a bit west and create a new station around some big box stores. There is ample room around here.

These stations do not need to be elaborate at all. They don’t need an overpass over the tracks at least at the onset and for the most part have reasonable bus connections.

As covered in the video I made back during the summer, I mentioned that TransLink has in the past ran more intense service even on weekends with the WCE. Passenger rail service on these tracks are not unheard of and historically have existed.

It would require more trains to run, but there is room even downtown for these trains.

In this 2009 study by the City of Vancouver, it makes mention of a “potential additional transit line” being an option for Waterfront station. Four platforms would be available to handle all of the trains that could be used to run out to the Valley.

Scheduling these trains and what trains to run are another story, but the options are there to build our region a proper rail service as opposed to this pitiful one we have here today.

I suspect that the reason for why we’re not seeing this in the cards is because of much of the Fraser Valley not being part of TransLink. Mission is an anomaly for the transit agency as at the time, BC Transit offered service in Metro Vancouver when the WCE was introduced.

The Fraser Valley has had proposals created to contend this, but there is a consistent lobby that wants to make use of the old BC Electric interurban (mentioned in the linked document) which in my opinion is slow and does nothing to make a reasonable service. Just because legislation exists to enforce passenger travel rights on this track doesn’t mean it’s ever going to be useful.

One other problem is that when the BC Liberals (now BC United) had reorganized TransLink in 2007, they had included this little tidbit:

Falcon has also unveiled plans to expand TransLink’s scope to include roads, bridges and transit all the way from Pemberton, north of Whistler, to Hope, at the eastern end of the Fraser Valley.

He said the smaller outlying communities that are now not part of Translink would be asked but not forced to join. If they were to join, they would have to impose the gas tax that supports Translink, which will go up three cents a litre.

I suspect that Falcon (who is now the BCU leader) was banking on the Fraser Valley municipalities to jump onboard, but for political reasons never did. A decade and a half since this reorg, TransLink’s boundaries haven’t changed at all and today we remain with Mission as the lone municipality with any TransLink service but isn’t in its jurisdiction.

Anyway, politicking aside, this is doable and just requires political might to get it done. Since it is a politics issue, I am not holding my breath.

In a somewhat recent video made by Jago Hazard on Wes Anderson’s new film, Asteroid City, he discussed the train depicted in the movie. It reminded me of times where SkyTrain had appeared in movies itself, so let’s talk about where it started and the ones that I can recall.

And yes. I am aware that the above photo was taken in a West Coast Express vehicle, which I guess at some point I should write a piece on.

Filming in Metro Vancouver for global audiences has been a thing for over a century, but it was never formal until 1977 when the provincial government established an office to attract production work to the region. Since SkyTrain grew alongside the development of the film industry in the region, it was only natural that TransLink would support production crews on their services.

The underground stations appear to be popular to film as evident by MovieMaps, but I was not able to find much showing the use of anything above-ground. This would add up as it is easier to dress up an underground station as belonging to some other city than it is to obscure anything above ground. There is an excellent video called Vancouver Never Plays Itself, which goes into depth about the relationship of Vancouver, its identity, and how filming obscures it all.

One of the earliest films to feature SkyTrain I could find was 1989’s Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan. Jason is shown as chasing through a Mark I train albeit in a curious fashion: he and his candidate victims were going between cars, something that isn’t doable unless you’re transit staff.

The train cars used were 061 and I believe 062, which is interesting for another movie later on.

It also portrays Granville as what seems to be Eighth Street-New York University station in Manhattan. However, it’s kind of funny of them to do that considering that the actual station isn’t very deep and isn’t anywhere near as modern as the movie depicts.

In the 2003 movie, Paycheck, Ben Affleck’s character is shown being chased down in a train tunnel with very distinct Mark II train chasing him down ever so slowly. The train car is marked as 162, but not only does that car number not exist for that model of train, the whole thing is in fact a set.

Interestingly, the European cover of the DVD release for the movie shows this train but it’s omitted from other regions.

Also there is a scene involving TransLink buses but that is perhaps for another time.

The 2012 movie, The Company You Keep directed and starring Robert Redford, has Granville standing in as “50th Street” station in New York city. A Mark I is shown arriving in the station and the main character is shown boarding the train. What stands out most here are the very Vancouver-specific ads left on the walls of the station.

In this movie, train 062 is used in this scene and I was made to not see this as a mere coincidence. I asked TransLink about why 061 and 062 is the most common vehicle seen in filming, but I never got an answer.

Pacific Central Station is also shown in this movie. This building alone deserves its own article, but unlike Waterfront, it is not a SkyTrain station.

Hard work is done by the writing crew, cast, and stage production staff to turn these stations and trains into pivotal or supporting scenes. I had put off this little entry for a few months due to the SAG-ACTRA and SWG strikes, but with their now conclusion, I felt it appropriate to finally post it.

One of the things I’ve been slowly doing the past year is spending less time online. I’ve noticed that since doing so that my mental health has been easier to manage and I have had a better relationship with my body. Is what I am about to say going to apply to everyone? No. But I do want to share my experiences.

I’ve been an online person for a very long time. I have my career due to my online activities, I’ve appeared in the press due to my online activities, and many if not all of my friends I owe in one way or another to being online. The Internet has been for better or for worse the reason for my life being the way it is today.

However, one of the things I’ve noticed is that while I have a lot of great long distance connections, it’s the connections I make in person I’ve always done better with. During the first year of COVID, this became acutely aware to me because many of those links became strained and limited. I couldn’t engage in the same activities as I did before. I just wanted a goddamn hug and aside from my partner and a handful in my bubble, that was it.

This ate at my extroverted personality so much that it probably played a role in my then partner and I separating. It made me make some pretty terrible decisions dating-wise soon after and it also made me reengage in some activities that my past-self had sworn off. I often joke that COVID “didn’t at all leave me with mental health challenges”, but the sarcastic statement was for sure untrue because I earlier this year admitted here on cohost that I was struggling but working to turn things around.

It goes a bit further than that, as in summer 2022, it started to dawn upon me how bad things were and I piecemeal had to figure out what to do. Two successive incidents across a bit over a week in August of that year clued me into where my brain was at. I had to change things in my life and my online activities were part and parcel to that.

When I say I have been an online person for a long time, I am not joking. Over two decades of being on IRC, message boards, and social media have built a legacy in my own head. In reflection, a lot of it was not a waste (as evident by the wonderful friends I have been blessed with), but so much shit I did online is seen by me now as a waste of time. This is not to say that what I consider as a waste to be without benefit, as I can argue that I am the person I am today because of it, but how much of that waste really mattered ultimately?

Five years ago, I would have come home from work and then would go straight on to my laptop. Now? I come home from work and I want to watch TV, play a game by myself, or socialise.

I joined softball this past year and it was the first time I’ve done a sport since I injured myself out of roller derby–I have hip problems now. It was also the first time I’ve picked up softball since 2007 and since I dislocated my shoulder that same year. Playing the sport clued me into something: I need human interaction and it has to be at the same level and same stakes as where I am.

I also picked up photography again (of which I will be posting about here on cohost eventually), got back into dancing after an eight year hiatus (I used to on the regular do Cuban Salsa and briefly West Coast Swing), formed a renewed interest in birding, and have gone and done day trips for the sake of doing day trips.

I still want to do the nerdy things I love, but i also want to just get far away from technology short of having my mobile phone on hand. Camping in situations where my phone is useless is really important to me for example–I am likely doing camping in the winter just to make it clear how much I like being outside.

One of the drawbacks of all of this is that I just have less to post on cohost because oddly I have content to consume outside. I want to see my friends and I want to go do the things because that is what my brain wants me to do. This has also meant that my streaming on Twitch has been greatly reduced, because it was starting to severely stress me out having to maintain some artificial schedule at the expense of being able to see people in person.

So the decision I’ve made is to be social and not stress about the social media. I’m going to do the hikes, the photoshoots, the dancing, and the hanging out. I’m also going to keep COVID and other ailments in mind. However, I am not going to stress out about what is online.

I should have seen this mentality coming really. A year before Twitter became what it is today, I had noticed that I was posting on it far less. Heck, even on Facebook I started to post a lot less sometime around 2019. The only social media besides cohost I give a damn about is Instagram, and what I post on there is really just a lot of IRL stuff.

What I have come to the conclusion of here is really for me. It works for me because I do have some level of privilege. I live somewhere that has exceeded the low-bar for public transportation in North America, I own a car and can drive to things public transit is not capable of providing access; I have a modest income, and while I have health challenges, none of them are limiting me from going to places. This is why I know what I am writing about is not going to reflect upon everyone, but I can at least give you all pause for thought.

This also doesn’t diminish the importance of online communities. For many, it is what works for them be it due to circumstances or just due to who they are ultimately. It is just for me, it isn’t the be all end all and while it could revert in the future, for now I feel like this is what works for me. I’m still keeping tabs on what is affecting the world I must add, but I am just consuming it at a pace that works for me.

If online stuff is stressing you out, consider my post as a guide and not a ruler.