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A similar thing happened with SkyTrain's Canada Line, where it reached capacity very soon after it was built. They did plan a contingency to be able to extend the platforms for somewhat longer trains, however.

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Canada Line is a bit weird since it wasn't built by Translink and doesn't use the same technology as the rest of SkyTrain. It was under built by the P3 out of caution for opening in time for the Olympics and extreme cost control, but they were really pessimistic in ridership projections. It was always going to burst at the seams pretty quickly, especially with all the transit oriented development along the route. It should have been built to the same ~80m platform as the rest of SkyTrain.

My ideal default rapid transit buildout for midsized urban areas would basically be SkyTrain with value engineering to extend the platforms to 100 or 120m with minimal cost in the future.

When I first used it, when it was first opened, I couldn't believe how tiny the platforms were. I don't think I'd seen anything so noticeably small before. It was a huge let down. It seemed that the planners/designers were completely clueless on what is required for transit line. Didn't they use the Skytrain and see how busy it was at the time? And if you are going to spend all that money building it in the first place why would you build it so small from the get go? The only explanation was they knew it was too small but they just built it so they could say that they got it done. A big fail in my books. They should be ashamed of themselves.

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