SkyTrain is Brilliant

There are some things about living in Vancouver that I'll probably never get tired of. Like seeing the lights in the sky on a winter's night from the three ski areas. Seeing the curtain of mountains to the north. Seeing the clusters of glass towers everywhere - some people don't like it, but I can't get enough of it. And riding SkyTrain.

So I hereby declare that SkyTrain is brilliant for the following reasons.

There's nothing next to you. You can look out your window and look straight out, up, or down, and there's no track or railing or anything to block your view.

It's fast. Not push-you-back-in-your-seat fast. But if you have a decent distance to travel, there's no faster way to get around the Lower Mainland without flying.

It's above the street (except the tunnels of course). You're at tree level and it's a neat place to be. It feels like low-altitude flying. And it's impossible for street traffic to slow you down - you can't get stuck behind a clueless SUV driver like you could in a street trolley.

Nobody is driving. For some reason, this seems to make station stops happen faster to me. We pull up, the doors open, they close, and we pull out. I wonder if a driver might keep the doors open longer or otherwise delay things.

It's pretty quiet. Being electric, there's no engine noise, and no nasty smells.

It's super-convenient. I ride some commute hours and some weekends, and I never have to wait more than a few minutes. During rush hour on the main line, when one leaves, you usually just look down the track to see the next one coming.

And, partly for the reasons above, and partly just our gorgeous surroundings, the view out the windows is un-ignorable. I sometimes read on the bus, but I never read on the SkyTrain for more than a few minutes at a time because I'm always distracted by the view and end up just looking out the windows.