So, The Lower Mainland has finally tested it’s 1st bout of wintery weather this week-end: we had a beautiful wind storm on Friday, with hail, sun and falling leaves followed by a very gloomy Saturday, cold and rainy and very depressing. It was however a little more entertaining for some as SFU received it’s 1st snows of the season. Not much, mind you but noticeable enough.
Check the News Report on CTV for a glimpse of the snow falls on Saturday (It is at the very end of the clip).
And here’s Global TV’s report about the wind storm on Friday: A wind warning by Environment Canada predicting gusts over 90km/h. (strangely, I can’t seems to find historical data on Environment Canada site about Friday’s alert)
The above led me to think about the value of this SFU gondola: We had high winds on Friday and snow atop the mountain on Saturday. Although this was over a week-end it is an excellent test of the gondola’s potential reliability.
The winds were said to be over 90 km/h, which would have shut down the gondola. The maximum wind speed in which a 3S gondola can be safely operated have been reported as being around 80 km/h.
I didn’t hear anything about bus service disruption on Burnaby Mountain. (I can’t see anything posted on Translink’s Transit Alerts page)
In light of the above I would say that the numbers of days service has been shut down during the winter 2011-12:
- Gondola: 1
- Bus: 0
It would be informative to keep track of these conditions, seeing how many days bus service to SFU is actually interrupted this year versus how many days the gondola would potentially have to stop because of the winds.