---

I have written extensively about the problems Twitch has with harassment via user interactions, so it should come as no surprise that I have been keeping myself informed of the the activities that eventually lead to A Day Off Twitch, where many streamers protested against the company’s milquetoast response to the problem by not streaming. While I have many opinions about how everything was co-opted and mutated from what the #TwitchDoBetter movement, I am of the opinion that the media attention it receive was likely beneficial.

Earlier this week, Twitch finally announced seemingly effective tools to contend with harassment. Streamers can now enforce a requirement for users to have either or both e-mail and phone-based verification (via SMS) before they are permitted to participate in chat. Being that many users legitimately may not have done either prior to this new feature, streamers can permit users who have accounts with a specific age to avoid either, they can elevate them to VIP or moderator status, or require them to subscribe (as in pay the streamer) to participate.

Moderation configuration settings from a Twitch dashboard. Options show e-mail verification and phone verification with settings for first time chatters, with additional features for chatters without verification being granted permission to participate with a minimum account age.

The one thing many streamers had called for that is not mentioned at all in the above screenshot is this one pertinent feature from the announcement:

We know there are many reasons someone may need to manage more than one account, so you can verify up to five accounts per phone number. That said, to help prevent ban evasion, if one phone-verified account is suspended site-wide, all accounts tied to that number will also be suspended site-wide. Users won’t be able to verify additional accounts using a phone number that is already tied to an actively suspended account.

At the channel-level, if one phone-verified or email-verified account is banned by a channel, all other accounts tied to that phone number or email will also be banned from chatting in that channel.

This is huge as for the longest time, a harassing user could just register multiple accounts to a single e-mail address without consequence. While it is easy to have multiple e-mail addresses, there is a much larger barrier to having multiple phone numbers capable of receiving SMS.

User account settings showing that a phone number and e-mail address are linked.

However, be that it may, it comes with many caveats and one in particular comes to mind: not everyone has access to mobile phone service, and this could lead to an inequity situation for some. Twitch themselves even point this out in the announcement.

If I don’t have a mobile phone, does this mean I can’t participate in chat anymore?

If your account is not phone-verified, this will not prevent you from watching and enjoying a stream — but it does mean there may be some channels you are unable to chat in if they have phone-verified chat enabled. Creators can also choose to make exceptions to phone-verified chat for accounts of a certain age or following time, as well as VIPs, moderators, and subscribers.

This comes down to the creator being benevolent or permissive with how individuals can participate and could just outright exclude anyone who is unable to verify via their mobile phone. The minimum age for a user to have a Twitch account is on paper thirteen years, and while many who are younger often have mobile phone service, there are many who do not. While I personally do not want anyone younger than 18-years old to participate in my stream, I do know that this is not desired by everyone.

The other problem is that this likely has some limitations. Twitch’s goal is to make harassment more expensive and is something I advocated when I wrote about this problem earlier this year, but based on how I am seeing it written about by the company, I do believe that there are workarounds.

My burning question for one workaround is this: how do the e-mail address-based ban evasion avoidance techniques take tags into account? Many e-mail services, including Google’s, support the appending a tag to an e-mail address wherein you append ‘+’ to the end of the first half of your address (also known as the “local part”) with a label following soon after.

Many do not and perhaps should not scan for this sort of thing as the rules for what can and should be in a local part are sort of defined, you cannot be assured that the use of a tag is implicit of anything as it is dependent on the e-mail service to start with. Does Twitch scan for this potential problem? I have my doubts and may consider testing this if someone else hasn’t already.

I also pointed out that there are throwaway e-mail services, and those can be used to verify an account. What is Twitch doing about that? There are lists that are freely available for them to use to detect the use of the, but are they doing this?

From page 35 of my March 2021 report on Twitch harassment. This shows a throwaway e-mail service granting me a verification code for my new account.

So then we’re led into this scenario: let’s verify by mobile phone? This seems to be straightforward as surely it is hard to evade that way?

It is a valid assumption as while I have had to buy disposable SIM cards for consulting engagements, not everyone is going to have more than one or two mobile phones. However, this assumption is still wrong as there are throwaway SMS services.

A service showing available mobile phone numbers for web-based reception of SMS messages.

Now, I will admit that these numbers provided by this and similar services are often exhausted extremely quickly. There is also the consideration that there is a finite quantity of available numbers on these services, but it is a matter to give thought to when relying on this scheme.

Overall, I am supportive of this new feature, but the equity issue and the potential evasion techniques remain.

So what about this lawsuit?

On September 10th, which was two and a half weeks before announcing these features, Twitch filed a civil suit in Northern California against two Europeans who are alleged to have created software to engage in harassment on the streaming service.

The timing has always baffled me because it would have made sense to drop this feature and this lawsuit on the same day. Many found that this was Twitch trying to look like they were doing something instead of anything concrete and this further alienated streamers from the company. In my case, I found the filing rather damning towards the company themselves, because they admitted a few things that I find rather embarassing.

However, despite Twitch’s best efforts, the hate raids continue. On information and belief, Defendants created software code to conduct hate raids via automated means. And they continue to develop their software code to avoid Twitch’s efforts at preventing Defendants’ bots from accessing the Twitch Services.

This paragraph (51) was rather interesting because I want to know more about “Twitch’s best efforts”, There have been rumours for many years that there remains a workaround that permits harassers to create en-masse accounts to engage in harassment without any response from the company. I cannot elaborate further on this problem, but honestly it isn’t here where I raise my eyebrow.

To further curb Defendants’ hate-raids, Twitch updated its software to employ additional measures that better detect malicious bot software in chat messages.

Twitch expended significant resources combatting Defendants’ attacks. Twitch spent time and money investigating Defendants, including through use of its fraud detection team. Twitch also engineered technological and other fixes in an attempt to stop Defendants’ harassing and hateful conduct. These updates include but are not limited to implementing stricter identity controls with accounts, machine learning algorithms to detect bot accounts that are used to engage in harmful chat and augmenting the banned word list. Twitch mobilized its communications staff to address the community harm flowing from the hate raids and assured its community that it was taking proactive measures to stop them. Twitch also worked with impacted streamers to educate them on moderation toolkits for their chats and solicited and responded to streamers’ and users’ comments and concerns.

These “stricter identity controls” stand out as we did not see tools for streamers being made available to leverage this until recently, but what really raises my ire is them stating they’re using “machine learning algorithms to detect bot accounts”.

What the hell sort of “machine learning” have they deployed? I even criticised this on Twitter.

Of the 174 “hoss” follow bots that have been known to exist at the time of this writing, with the majority appearing since mid-August, they all share a common pattern which can be easily snuffed out with just two very basic regular expressions:

^hoss0{0,2}312_{0,1}.*
^.*_{0,1}hoss0{0,2}312$

Just what the fuck? How is this so complicated? You can do this with just one regular expression, but it isn’t that much more costly to do it with two and it is much easier to maintain.

My only theory about this “machine learning” nonsense can be summed up in this Discord conversation I had on the day I read the filing:

My parodic interpretation of a meeting at Twitch HQ about the chat moderation problem: “this is my theory about a meeting [on] moderation […] recently: a: “okay. so these fucks are asking us to make moderation better. what do we do?” b: “well, i have been doing machine learning for funsies on udemy and i think it would work well?” a: “that is hot shit. we can’t do this with blockchain?” b: “working on that later. nft stuff first ya know” c: “hey. why don’t we revisit my idea of just allowing bans based on how they work on irc?” a & b: “no. fuck you” a: “besides, we don’t get to do machine learning for anything beyond marketing””

I have rather poor opinions about Twitch’s approach as evident above.

The solution of using machine learning at least to me appears to be something “hot and sexy” when in reality we need something conventional. I have done a lot of work around using entropy to detect malicious activity in my line of work, but it was only done after making other attack methods more expensive, which should be done first as it is often easier to do.

At least we finally got these new verification tools, but honestly, Twitch has a lot remaining to do and I am not holding my breath.

---

As you may be aware, those in British Columbia are joining other jurisdictions in issuing “vaccine passports”, which is basically a verification system to show your vaccination status. This is to combat the spread of COVID-19, and is intended to ensure that those who are unvaccinated do not pose a threat to those who are.

BC Government Health Gateway showing my “BC Vaccine Card”

If you’re reading this and are about to go tweet at me or write some diatribe to my e-mail address about vaccines being tyranny, I have a simple response: fuck off.

I have professional concerns about the passport myself, but they’re based on equity for those who are unable procure a personal health card for whatever reason. If your concerns align with the thousands who opted to hinder access to local hospitals, you’re a fucking dickhead and I do not care about your baseless and factless opinions.

---

Anyway, historically, these are not new at all as during my own parents’ lifetimes before my being born, they existed for Canadians who needed to travel abroad. However, we’re now in the age where our mobile phones are capable of providing an aspect of verification of vaccination status.

Website for SMART Health Cards

It was feared initially that every jurisdiction would adopt a system of their own to work with the data, but fortunately it seems that British Columbia has adopted the same system as Québec, which is to use the SMART Health Card system, a standard developed by the W3C Consortium, who are behind the standards for the world wide web.

Much like how the world wide web work with establishing encrypted connections for online banking, the SMART Health Card (“SHC”) uses the same methodology to verify the contents of the presented QR code. The QR code can be shown to anyone with an mobile phone running an application capable of reading it, and then the details on the application can be compared with some photo identification to confirm that the QR code belongs to the person they’re interacting with.

The QR code can be on your phone, a piece of paper, or in one case with someone in Québec, printed on a t-shirt so it could be read metres away.

Anyone can read this QR code and with that it may raise some eyebrows.

---

So now you’re wondering: what makes it safe? How does someone not get my personal details? These are legitimate and important questions and it can be answered quite easily: the issuing health authority is only supposed to put as much information as needed on the card.

The SMART Health System is clear about what can be on a person’s card.

As it stands, the standard should contain your legal name, date of birth, tests if relevant, vaccinations, and contraindications should you have any. It is spelt out as per the image about that it should not contain your phone number, your address, an identifier such as a personal health or drivers licence number, and other health information. The SHC standard straight up outlines keeping data at a minimum and has a whole section on privacy.

Output from a SHC QR code reader. The “issuer not recognized” remark at the bottom should be of no concern until the programme goes live in a week. I would expect that to go away by then.

So does British Columbia adhere to the recommendations?

---

I have gone ahead and decoded my passport (using this methodology as a guide) and was able to glean from the data that it has the following:

• The issuer (ISS), which is remarked as the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA)
• The creation date (NBF), which is an epoch time stamp of seconds since January 1, 1970 00:00:00 UTC (standard for most computer data)
• The type of card it is, with the data outlining it is for COVID-19, immunization, and is a health card
• The family name of the passport holder
• The first or given name of the passport holder
• Their birth date
• Their immunization records and date of occurrence for each plus the vaccine type, lot number (which box or order the vaccine came in), and where it was given

That is it. There are no health numbers, no address, and surprisingly, no mention of the person’s gender. I have concerns about the name aspect for those who are transgender as it could out them, but that is it.

You can safely show this QR code to someone else if someone requests you of that information. If you’re running a wedding, you can have your guests confirmed that they have been vaccinated. All you need is to have photo identification to verify the contents of the QR code and through the power of mathematics, it is incredibly difficult and likely impossible to forge a QR code that can thwart this system.

Go ahead and print this out, make an iOS shortcut that is super useful, or put it on a t-shirt. It’ll be a piece of identification until we get through this mess we’re still in.

All we are waiting on is for the PHSA to become an recognized issuer and anyone can trust this vaccine passport. A vaccine passport issued in British Columbia will also work in Québec and vice-versa and while it may have issues internationally as I am certain that someone in Florida or Belgium may not know what the PHSA is, they’d still be able to read the data anyway.

---

Go get your passport if you have gotten your vaccine and if you haven’t gotten your vaccine yet, go get it. If you don’t want to get your vaccine, leave everyone alone and wait out the pandemic so you don’t spread it or worse get sick.

My remaining concern right now is: what do we do about those who cannot get access to the website? Equity is still my problem with all of this, and my concern lies with those who are undocumented or are of no fixed address, just to name a few.

Update: it seems that you can just call in to get a non-digital copy of the passport should you run into some issues related to equity.

---

If you have not read my previous piece on Scott Road being the worst SkyTrain station, I suggest giving it a read first as it will help give better context to this article as well! If you want to take a look at the raw data, you can read this too.

All will tremble as they approach this sign.

After poll after poll, we have finally determined that the worst station operated by TransLink is Scott Road. However, Scott Road was not the only station given negative attention.

None of this should be taken as anything more than my uneducated observations as I don’t really think it’s that important overall. We all know Scott Road sucks!

Engagement and results

As mentioned in the original piece, this was a super-scientific Internet poll where there was absolutely no bias and everyone knows what they are doing.

One big thing: no station tied. I did vote in every poll and would have removed myself or gotten someone to break it had it occurred.

There were 5,455 total votes counted across six rounds. As the polls went on, the engagement did drop, which does make sense considering the number of match ups reducing with each step. Each match up on average had 104 votes, with the opening round having the most at 127 and the third having the least with 59. The final match stood alone of course at 222 total votes.

Losers in each match up (which are really “winners”) tended to get a score of just about 25 points. With exception to the first round which saw an average of about 29 votes, all losers received an average of either 15 or 16. The final loser saw a loss of 56.

Winners (or “losers”) saw stability in the same rounds with the second to the fifth seeing 47, 44, 53, and 66 respectively, but the first saw 98 votes. The winner received 166.

Some close matchups were to be had as well. When Gilmore faced Port Haney in the second round, the resulting score was 27 to 23, pushing Gilmore into the third round.

Then there were some matchups where the outcome was so obvious that it was tempting to break the rules. A good example was where in the first round, Joyce-Collingwood received a meagre 14 votes to Lansdowne’s 115.

The winner of the tournament, Scott Road, averaged 75% of the vote share in each poll, with the worst at 65.7% and the best with 85.7%.

Ranking the worst by round weight

The way data was presented by Challonge made some stations who lost in other rounds as being tied with others. This makes ranks rather awkward as we end up with four stations tied for fifth and eight for ninth with no indication of what sits inbetween.

To combat this, I came up with this idea: we have six rounds, so the first round would give a score a weight of 1/6th, second would be 1/3rd, and so forth until the sixth and final round just being a weight of 1. What we can do with this is then apply this to the scores awarded in each round.

An example would be where Royal Oak had a score of 16 to Gateway’s 29, meaning that it was actually a score of 5.3 to 9.6 due to the match being in the second round. Another would be the first round’s Metrotown’s 52 to Production Way-University’s 189 becoming 8.6 to 31.5.

With this information, let’s rank the top ten worst stations overall using their combined weighted votes.

1. Scott Road (319.16)
2. Lake City Way (214.16)
3. Gateway (103.5)
4. Holdom (103.17)
5. King George (72.17)
6. Port Coquitlam (64)
7. Edmonds (48.67)
8. Sapperton (47)
9. Maple Meadows (43.17)
10. Nanaimo (38.84)

Of note for municipalities, we have three stations in Surrey, three stations in Burnaby, one both in New Westminster and Vancouver, and then Port Coquitlam and Maple Ridge each getting in as well. All stations mentioned are on the Expo Line except for Maple Meadows and Port Coquitlam being West Coast Express; and Lake City Way and Holdom being Millennium Line.

If you hate this idea, let it be known that I am not a statistician. The idea I have here is to look at the popular vote and which polls received the most engagement. If you wish to play with the data differently, please do check out the link at the start of the article!

Using the weighted scores on service and line

While the West Coast Express operates on regular locomotives, sharing tracks with freight rail services, the SkyTrain system is completely separate. There are however three stations where both systems do meet as transfer points, with all three SkyTrain lines having connections.

SkyTrain

This system was first introduced in 1985 and has expanded since to provide via three lines.

Most of the stations in the tournament are shown here. (Source)

The Expo Line and Millennium Line both use the same technologies and service Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam, Port Moody, New Westminster, and Surrey. The extension of the Millennium Line is the most recent addition, providing service as far east as Coquitlam. Presently, both lines are being extended with the Millennium going further west into Vancouver towards Arbutus Street and the Expo Line terminating to the southeast in Langley.

The Canada Line serves just Richmond and Vancouver and notably provides service to the airport. Unlike the other two lines, it only provides two car trains and has much shorter platforms and is incompatible physically and technologically.

The Expo Line is home to Commercial-Broadway, a station which lets you enter or exit a train on either side.

The Expo Line is home to the winner, Scott Road and also received a score of 32.05. It also received the lowest score for a single station, which will be discussed later.

It ranked as follows:

1. Scott Road (319.17)
2. Gateway (103.5)
3. King George (72.17)
4. Edmonds (48.67)
5. Sapperton (47)

Somehow I only have one photo of a Millennium Line station.

With the Millennium Line, it had the runner up, Lake City Way, and received an average of 35.26. It is home to the youngest of all SkyTrain stations, with the extension to Coquitlam opening in 2016 alongside an upgrade of Lougheed Town Centre as well — all of those new stations plus Lougheed scored 14.67.

1. Lake City Way (214.17)
2. Holdom (103.17)
3. Production Way-University (38.17)
4. Renfrew (28.67)
5. Gilmore (26.67)

Canada Line trains are wider than their Expo and Millennium Line siblings.

And lastly, the Canada Line, which has its trains physically separate from the other two lines scored 13.04, making it the least disliked of the three lines.

1. Richmond-Brighouse (34.17)
2. Yaletown-Roundhouse (32.67)
3. Templeton (29.17)
4. Lansdowne (22.5)
5. Aberdeen (19.5)

Overall, SkyTrain received a score of 26.78.

West Coast Express

The service provided by the West Coast Express (WCE) is different from SkyTrain in that it doesn’t provide service throughout the majority of the day and it also is unusual in that it extends outside of TransLink’s jurisdictions with its one station in Mission.

One cool trick about the West Coast Express now is that you may have the option to use it if SkyTrain has problems but isn’t completely down.

Because of it being a commuter rail service with single-direction service in the mornings into Waterfront and in the evenings towards Mission City, its stations reflect that nature by being quite spartan.

It was anticipated that at least one of them would place top-five when I started the polls, but it fell short by only placing sixth after adjusting for weight. Challonge tied two stations for fifth — Maple Meadows and Port Coquitlam — but I am more interested in the weighted score.

Of the eight stations served, three tie in with SkyTrain, which I do believe alters the score quite a bit as there is a larger pool of non-WCE users available to alter the outcome.

With the SkyTrain stations included, we get the following result:

1. Port Coquitlam (64)
2. Maple Meadows (43.17)
3. Pitt Meadows (34.33)
4. Coquitlam Central (22.17)
5. Mission City (17.67)

Of those above five, only one ties in with SkyTrain, which is Coquitlam Central. Stations without that connection produced a score of 34.8, which makes it score worse than SkyTrain. However, if we add the removed stations back in, the score becomes 25.

Transfer stations

As mentioned with the West Coast Express, many of the stations act as transfer points and the same is true with SkyTrain. With some stations, the service is interlined — such as Production Way-University having a single platform for Expo and Millennium Line trains — and in others, everything is separate — see Waterfront with its Expo and Canada Line platforms and also West Coast Express.

The platform just above where the SkyTrain vehicle is located is about as close as it gets for where the West Coast Express and Expo Line will meet.

I’ve opted to define the transfer points as any station where you must leave the train to go elsewhere without necessarily leaving the station. This would include connections to other lines or the WCE, but it also includes where the line would split into a spur such as what occurs on the Expo Line and Canada Line.

This gives us eight stations to work with, with two shared between the Expo Line and Millennium Line (Production Way-University and Lougheed Town Centre), one shared between the Canada Line, Expo Line, and WCE (Waterfront); two shared with the Millennium Line and WCE (Moody Centre and Coquitlam Central), one each on the Expo Line and Canada Line (Columbia and Bridgeport).

It ends up looking like this:

1. Production Way-University (38.17)
2. Columbia (35.17)
3. Coquitlam Central (22.17)
4. Bridgeport (15.5)
5. Commercial-Broadway (5.5)

In reviewing Production Way-University, which is shared as a terminus station for the Expo Line and a regular station on the Millennium, it was interesting how it scored so poorly considering it didn’t make it past the second round and had only one comment about its lack of available escalators.

Columbia did make it into the third round and ultimately lost to Scott Road, but had received less votes. The complaints were all focused on it being a terrible transfer point as the stations two separate platforms means it is very difficult to make a quick transfer.

Overall, transfer stations received a score of 15.6.

Ranking by municipality

Using the weighted votes we determined earlier, we can determine how individual municipalities fared.

Vancouver

Stations within the city limits received an overall score of 10.87. It is the only municipality with all three SkyTrain lines and West Coast Express service.

One day I will write about my love affair with Waterfront.

Notably, the original SkyTrain station, Main Street-Science World received the lowest score of 0.83, making it the last-disliked station in the tournament.

1. Nanaimo (38.83)
2. Yaletown-Roundhouse (32.67)
3. Renfrew (28.67)
4. Rupert (23.17)
5. Broadway-City Hall (12.33)

With the upcoming interchange at Broadway-City Hall, this score could change should this tournament run again.

Burnaby

This city was host to the runner up, so it is easy to determine which would place first. The scoring average here was 47.85.

1. Lake City Way (214.17)
2. Holdom (103.17)
3. Edmonds (48.67)
4. Production Way-University (38.17)
5. Gilmore (26.67)

Escalators are plentiful at Metrotown which isn’t easy to be said for most stations.

Expansion of rapid transit in Burnaby isn’t in the near future, but I am curious to how Brentwood Town Centre’s changes will have an impact on things.

Richmond

Richmond only has a single line (Canada Line) entering its city limits and is home to Vancouver International Airport, which is one of the two termini for the city. Its stations received average score of 19.9.

1. Richmond-Brighouse (34.17)
2. Templeton (29.17)
3. Lansdowne (22.5)
4. Aberdeen (19.5)
5. Bridgeport (15.5)

On its first day open to the public, it was free to ride and I happened to be in Richmond at the time.

The city will receive its newest station, Capstan Way, in 2023, which will sit between Aberdeen and Bridgeport.

Tri-cities and elsewhere

The tri-cities (Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, and Port Moody) plus Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows, and Mission do not have enough stations to make a top five list each — Mission is also the only station completely outside of TransLink’s jurisdiction.

Combined, they received an average score of 19.24, but for the municipalities which have more than two stations (which is just Coquitlam and Port Moody), it changes. Port Moody with its two stations received an average of 2.83 and Coquitlam scored 17.5. Both municipalities each have one station which provides connecting service to the West Coast Express — Moody Centre and Coquitlam Central.

1. Port Coquitlam (64)
2. Maple Meadows (43.17)
3. Pitt Meadows (34.34)
4. Burquitlam (23.5)
5. Coquitlam Central (22.17)

There are no plans to expand service further eastward for SkyTrain services although there are design considerations for it in place.

Surrey and New Westminster

With New Westminster having exactly five stations and Surrey just having four, it was given the thought to combine their stations into one list. However, the roles and areas the stations serve are different and it didn’t feel right to combine them as one list.

While Surrey did have the worst station and a high average score of 125.84, it did also have one of the least-hated stations with Surrey Central scoring 8.5, placing it 33rd out of 50 — many stations had tied despite the weights.

The challenge with this score is that the city does not have that many stations and it doesn’t extend as deep into its borders as elsewhere in the tournament, with this of course changing in the next few years.

At one point in their lifetimes, both Sapperton and Braid stations were exclusively Millennium Line stations.

New Westminster’s least favourite station, Sapperton received a score of 47, with Columbia getting 35.17. The average for the city was 23.17. Like Burnaby, there are no real major changes in the city’s future with perhaps upgrades to Columbia, proposed to alleviate its problems with being a transfer point for the Expo Line spurs.

I hate these numbers!

That is okay! So do I! Midway through writing this article, I wanted to talk more about the percentages rather than the weights, but I was already pretty tired of staring at spreadsheets and data. If you’re interested in playing with the data yourself, I have a separate piece you can read!

---

If you have not read my previous piece on Scott Road being the worst SkyTrain station, I suggest giving it a read first as it will help give better context to the data here.

From late-June until the end of July, I ran a tournament to decide which of the stations on the SkyTrain and West Coast Express systems is the worst. Here is the data if you are at all interested in taking a look.

Challonge data

Challonge does not provide an API, but it did deliver the data via JSON, which is then rendered by the browser locally.

You can view the data I extracted here, which was sourced from this page.

Facebook polls

Assuming you have access to the Facebook group, you should be able to see each poll from these links.

The numbers in parenthesis are the scores they received at the time a snapshot was made. It is likely that some of them have changed since but they’re not reflected in the data provided earlier.

Round 1

Metrotown (52) versus Production Way–University (189)
Nanaimo (95) versus Lougheed Town Centre (27)
Inlet Centre (23) versus Aberdeen (85)
Braid (44) versus Columbia (106)
Main Street–Science World (5) versus Mission City (70)
Sea Island Centre (73) versus Scott Road (140)
Coquitlam Central (115) versus Granville (57)
Commercial–Broadway (33) versus Burquitlam (131)
Pitt Meadows (56) versus Oakridge–41st Avenue (14)
Lansdowne (115) versus Joyce–Collingwood (14)
Gateway (85) versus 29th Avenue (13)
Gilmore (85) versus Surrey Central (51)
22nd Street (19) versus Port Haney (43)
Brentwood Town Centre (43) versus Broadway–City Hall (56)
Bridgeport (75) versus Burrard (31)
Waterfront (12) versus Holdom (142)
New Westminster (19) versus Rupert (111)
Moody Centre (11) versus Edmonds (61)
Sapperton (78) versus Stadium–Chinatown (28)
YVR–Airport (38) versus Yaletown–Roundhouse (116)
Port Coquitlam (83) versus Olympic Village (23)
Marine Drive (27) versus Renfrew (120)
Richmond–Brighouse (99) versus King Edward (34)
Templeton (100) versus VCC–Clark (33)
Patterson (102) versus Lafarge Lake–Douglas (19)
Lake City Way (90) versus Langara–49th Avenue (18)

Round 2

King George (96) versus Production Way–University (20)
Nanaimo (30) versus Aberdeen (16)
Columbia (27) versus Mission City (18)
Scott Road (54) versus Coquitlam Central (9)
Maple Meadows (46) versus Burquitlam (5)
Pitt Meadows (42) versus Lansdowne (10)
Royal Oak (16) versus Gateway (29)
Gilmore (27) versus Port Haney (23)
Lincoln (50) versus Broadway–City Hall (9)
Bridgeport (9) versus Holdom (59)
Rupert (14) versus Edmonds (30)
Sapperton (72) versus Yaletown–Roundhouse (40)
Vancouver City Centre (9) versus Port Coquitlam (53)
Renfrew (26) versus Richmond–Brighouse (35)
Sperling–Burnaby Lake (16) versus Templeton (27)
Patterson (15) versus Lake City Way (78)

Round 3

King George (59) versus Nanaimo (26)
Columbia (17) versus Scott Road (42)
Maple Meadows (37) versus Pitt Meadows (22)
Gateway (43) versus Gilmore (7)
Lincoln (10) versus Holdom (63)
Edmonds (33) versus Sapperton (20)
Port Coquitlam (41) versus Richmond–Brighouse (12)
Templeton (7) versus Lake City Way (33)

Round 4

King George (16) versus Scott Road (65)
Maple Meadows (14) versus Gateway (56)
Holdom (35) versus Edmonds (18)
Port Coquitlam (18) versus Lake City Way (56)

Round 5

Scott Road (57) versus Gateway (25)
Holdom (6) versus Lake City Way (76)

Round 6

Scott Road (166) versus Lake City Way (56)

---

If you have gotten off your train and are seeing this sign, you probably know why it is a bad station without having to read a Medium piece about it.

One of the questions that is easy for me to answer is my favourite SkyTrain station, but the more difficult question is what is my most-hated.

The answer to my favourite won’t be provided in this article, but it is rooted in my ability as a person, my commuting patterns, and where I live. This means that I cannot give an objective answer to a good or bad station because my needs and uses are different from everyone else.

So how did I determine the worst SkyTrain station? Well, after being unable to come to a conclusion after a conversation with friends, I embarked on crowdsourcing the answer using a tournament bracket.

Asking ELMTOTs about every station in the SkyTrain and West Coast Express network

SkyTrain and West Coast Express network as of 2021 (Source)

SkyTrain consists of a handful of automated metro lines, with 53 stations spread across a total length of about 80 KM. The West Coast Express (WCE) provides commuter rail services to eight stations along 69 KM of shared track, with three of them sharing connections to the SkyTrain network itself.

Because of the unevenness of the number of stations provided in the present-day SkyTrain network, WCE stations were included to make it easier to run a tournament bracket. The thought was that since both are operated by TransLink (the parent agency) and were both rail services, it was fair to have them scrutinized.

Expo Line Memes for TransLink Oriented Teens (ELTMOT), is a Facebook group where transit users can come together to chat about what they like or dislike about the network, share memes, and in my case, provide a “very scientific” tournament where each member of the group were invited to help select the worst station.

With the tournament, there were six rounds. In each, a separate poll was posted for each match-up of two stations. With one vote per person permitted and three days passing, a winner (or “loser”, I guess) was decided. The station with the most votes went on to the next round and this kept repeating until the finals.

Some stations did not appear until the second round, but the way the tournament was organized was done at random, avoiding any potential for bias when the list was given to the bracket software.

There were dozens of posts made of which admittedly was a lot more work than I had expected. Somehow I managed to endure the 43 C heat dome at the onset of the poll too, but I was determined (or stubborn) enough to keep it going as it was a question requiring an answer.

From June 21st to July 27th of this year, the voting kept going. After so many posts and data entry, the worst station was crowned as the winner.

So let’s talk about the winner and also let’s pay it a visit.

What did everyone say against the station?

In 2019, 3.3 million people had to endure seeing this sign.

I have collected a few quotes from various ELMTOT members and have included them here.

“Scott Road Station is objectively … not a good place to be.”

“If you walk from Scott Road Station to Brownsville Park via the parking lot, you get stuck in the middle of a highway so that’s cool.”

“Scott Road is such a depressing station. Nothing interesting, nothing remotely aesthetically pleasing, It’s just sadness.”

“Wanna run all the way across a parking lot and then cross a road with no sidewalks and horribly placed crosswalks to get to a McDonalds”

“I hate Scott Road Station personally because for a couple years on Sundays as a teenager, I would miss the 312 [bus route] by a few minutes and end up waiting there an hour. Nothing to do, nowhere to pee, phone battery at 4%… fuck Scott Road Station.”

One person did defend the highway connections and available parking, but overall the impressions of the station were negative.

Okay. So why specifically is Scott Road so bad?

The last time I visited this station was probably in 2008 when my then girlfriend and I chose to cross the Pattullo Bridge on foot at 11:30 PM at night to get back to my home via Scott Road Station instead of walking to the reasonably close Columbia Station, which would have taken just ten minutes.

I can remember getting off of the bridge after a twenty minute walk, with her and I being completely unsure about how to get to the station despite it being in eyeshot. The were fences in the way, resulting in a need to figure out where to cross. After some trial and error, we managed to get into one of the parking lots and boarded a train to Surrey Central.

She and I were both in our twenties then and it was one of those decisions you make because you like red wine too much. However, I am now in my thirties, no longer with said girlfriend, and additionally don’t like red wine anymore, so a sober trip to the station was in order with only a short walk from my home to a nearby station.

Scott Road Station on a gloomy August day.

Scott Road is Surrey’s oldest SkyTrain station and for a few years was the only station south of the Fraser River. It sits prominently above Scott Road itself, which is the crux of its issues.

Scott Road Station as viewed from space (Google/Maxar).

The road, Scott Road terminates just to the east of the station as it meets with King George Boulevard via an interchange, with north access leading to New Westminster via the Pattullo Bridge and south access towards Surrey’s city centre.

The interchange itself should be indicative enough of how pedestrian unfriendly the area is, but it is even worse than that because the road does mean you cannot go from one part of the station’s outside services to the other without having to go into the station itself.

TransLink’s provided map for what is “walkable” around the area demonstrates the underwhelming amenities you could get to by foot unless you really want to visit the nearby Home Depot. Also, you cannot really make a five minute walk to anything to the east of you unless you like playing an augmented reality version of Frogger.

Upon exiting a train, you have three options for available services: a bus loop and a car lot on the north end, and another car lot on the south end. This is extremely confusing.

Two exits lead to two identical parking lots and only one takes you to a bus.

The confusion about the two parking lots stems from how this station was first designed: it was meant to be a park and ride. Cars would drive to the station and either park there or would wait to pick up any departing passengers.

If you got off here during the era where your mobile phone did not have instant messaging, you’d have to ensure ahead of time that your awaiting car was in the correct location. This is less of an issue these days, but assuming everyone has a mobile phone which permits this functionality is problematic.

Over here in parking lot B, you better hope you’re not getting picked up from parking lot A because you will be going back inside. If it is past 1:10 AM on a weekday, you’re going to be walking for a while.

With design aesthetics lifted from an aging BC Ferry, you probably became quite familiar with these stairs when you figured out your ride is waiting on the other side.

The station is a product of its time and is in dire need of being fixed.

As someone put it to me while we were at the station: it’s a station I didn’t know about until today and it is also a station I wish to never visit ever again.

What future is there for Scott Road?

While there is the TransLink-endorsed, walkable Home Depot in the distance, there is also now rental housing within a thirty second walk from the station’s south entrance. New housing is under construction all around the area and it is likely to become less of a commuter destination and instead an actual neighbourhood.

The land around Scott Road Station is amongst the the easiest to develop in Metro Vancouver. While there are arguments against the removal of parking stalls around stations, the region has been shifting away from park and ride arrangements and instead towards expanding rail and rapid bus services and developing amenities.

The new North Surrey Sport and Ice Complex was built atop of grounds once used for parking at the station.

The station itself has also been undergoing upgrades with escalator replacements and has had its elevators improved. There are no long-term plans to add extra transit services to the station, but it isn’t hard to imagine this station being a hub for commuter rail or rapid rail service servicing areas such as North Delta.

Rendering of the new Pattullo Bridge with Scott Road Station towards the top (BC Government).

Unfortunately, a missed opportunity for the Pattullo Bridge replacement project is the whole Scott Road Station pedestrian situation. None of the renderings show an improvement even with the better connections from the bridge to Highway 17.

Considering the better connection to the highway from the new bridge, it may make Scott Road a much gentler road itself, but the arrangement does not appear to immediately suggest this.

What about other stations?

As mentioned before, all WCE and SkyTrain stations were evaluated.

As with all Internet-based polls, this project of mine was super scientific and free of bias, requiring zero peer-review. The results are concrete and completely infallible evidence of the general population’s opinions.

Thanks to science, we have details on who the runner ups were.

Lake City Way (Millennium Line)

This station was the runner up to Scott Road as it lost in a score of 166 to 56 in the final round. The arguments made for the station being the worst was that it was a rather unremarkable station, with not much around it other than industrial buildings and some homes within walking distance.

Maple Meadows (West Coast Express)

Surprisingly, West Coast Express stations didn’t get a lot of hate. The consensus about this station in Maple Ridge was simply how far away it was from everything else nearby. This station placed fifth overall in the tournament.

Templeton (Canada Line)

Simply put: a giant parking lot and a shopping centre. If you’re getting on here, you are probably parking your car to go to the airport as nobody seems to use the station to go buy clothes at the nearby outlet stores. It placed ninth.

Closing

After the Pattullo Bridge’s construction has concluded and with the upcoming extensions of the Millennium Line deeper into Vancouver and the Expo Line towards Langley, it may be worth revisiting this question: which station is the worst?

Taking the train home, which is far, far away from this terrible station.

Perhaps in 2031, we’ll be able to talk about the worst station again and maybe then the crown will be given elsewhere.