I try to avoid driving to Surrey, having been caught in traffic jams and gridlock on the bridges too many times.
Transit can get me most places south of the river, but the issue is time. If my destination is near a SkyTrain then transit is always faster than driving.
The problem is usually “the last mile”, that distance from the SkyTrain to my destination at the other end. If it’s a few kilometres, then it’s often (although not always) via a slow and roundabout combination of bus-ing and walking.
This past weekend, I was going with my son to his soccer game in Surrey, roughly 31km away by road. Transit would take over an hour-and-a-half. Too long for an impatient youth.
So I thought we’d go with a combo trip of train to King George Station at the end of the Skytrain’s Expo line and take a Modo carshare to the field 6.5km from the station.
This combo worked out well on a previous trip (as I documented).
Too bad other Modo members had booked all the station cars by the time I opened the app. It’s the weekend, I guessed.
Then, I considered, again, driving all the way from our home in Vancouver.
Modo’s Trip Calculator said it would be a little over $50 for booking a car for four hours and driving the 62km round trip.
Modo Trip Calculator calculation for a 4-hour trip, travelling 62km.
But a $50 drive, of potentially up to an hour and a quarter each way (depending on traffic), wasn’t an enticing prospect.
So I dug a little deeper into the route from the SkyTrain station to the match field in Newton, Surrey on Google Street View.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that there appeared to be bike lanes, an off-road cycleroute, and what looked like relatively quiet, secondary roads.
The ride was still an extra 20 minutes or so from the station, but we’d have a more reliable journey time, save a bit of cash, and do a bit of exploration.
The Trip
Stage 1: Home to Main Street-Science World station
3km (5 mins)
We live close to the Main Street-Science World Skytrain, with a good separated bike route leading to the station.
This was the easy part.
Stage 2: Main Street-Science World station to King George Station
The SkyTrain railway is around 26km or about 21km from station to station as the crow flies. It takes a reliable 35 minutes and has impressive views down on the city, particularly when passing along the Fraser river at New Westminster.
Leaving the city, the train was moderately busy, but we had no problems finding one of Translink’s dedicated bicycle spaces to secure the bike and e-scooter.
Stage 3: 6.5km (20 mins): King George Station to Newton Athletic Park
This for us was the exploratory part of the trip.
King George Station is the last stop on the Expo line. It was encouraging to see a modern, separated bike lane leading out of the station’s passenger area.
However, once away from the station the bike route comprises of just a line of white paint on the side of the road.
That said, the route was relatively quiet for the ‘burbs, at least to begin with. Roads were wide enough that cars were at a comfortable distance from us when passing.
The route took us through the wide-open Serpentine Greenway, with a utility-truck sized tarmac path through a gorse-strewn, green corridor dominated by towering electricity pylons.
It was a pleasant ride with rabbits and birds hopping around (see picture at top). You could drive a bus or a kid’s tricycle quite comfortably down here, although not at the same time.
There were a couple of minor unplanned surprises.
Google’s route map led us down a road which was reduced to one lane due to construction work. We avoided it on the return journey.
On several occasions, drivers blocked the bike lane when turning on or off the road, either because they weren’t used to, or didn’t care, about cyclists.
I also lost my network connection and took a wrong turning, so we arrived 5 minutes later than planned (I had built in some buffer room).
But the trip ended up being a good decision. We arrived on time to the field, to find (network connection re-established) messages from other players saying they’d got stuck in traffic and would miss the pre-game warm-up.
The Return Journey
Coming back, we maximised our route through the Serpentine Greenway, avoiding any major roads and traffic.
It was a little wet and windy. After a burger and a warming coffee at King George Station, we boarded for the 36-minute trip back to Main Street-Science World.
The roads were clear, but slower than the train. As we pulled out from the terminus station, I appreciated having a spot to park our vehicles and my son being able to sit by the window after his game.
The train got more crowded, as we closed in on Vancouver. But it was a comfortable trip.
Also, noteworthy, since all transit fares are 1 zones at weekends, it was easily our most affordable travel option.
Unless, of course, we’d ridden the whole way.
