Send an email to Vancouver for fast, reliable buses on Hastings!
Let’s prevent gridlock and make transportation better for everyone.
Hastings is a crucial transit connector for Vancouver. Thousands of commuters on the R5, 3, 8, 20, 16, 14, 27, 130, 28, 160, 131, and 222 use it every day. SFU students, families with children, seniors, and downtown workers all rely on it.
Currently, the City is proposing a mere 1.5km of bus lanes directly in front of Hastings Park.
This is an excellent start, and we commend the city for making these bus lanes 24/7. They’ll have over 1,000 buses a day, or about every 90 seconds.
But they won’t help transit riders stuck in traffic in themost congested part of Hastings, west of Renfrew, between downtown and the PNE.
Better transit is the only way we can efficiently move thousands of commuters, solve the parking issues in this neighbourhood, and easily bring in thousands of event-goers without disruption.
Tell Vancouver council and staff to be more ambitious by sending an email today! Or write your own! And fill out the City’s survey to show them that there is lots of support for bus lanes, it’s open until Feb 9th.
We can avoid traffic disaster.
Tell the city to be more ambitious with bus lanes on Hastings. Fill out the survey by February 9th.
What about parking at Hastings Park? Won’t bus lanes take some away?
Even modest events at Hastings Park turn the area into a parking treasure hunt.
When people try to visit this major event centre, they have a few transportation options:
– walk or bike (this option is only available to those who live reasonably close by)
– drive and search endlessly for cheap parking, or pay high event parking rates
– take rideshare or taxi and be stuck in the same traffic as the cars
– take a long transit trip, and get stuck in the same traffic as the cars
We can’t change the lower mainland’s geography, and there’s no way to make it easier to drive without attracting more drivers, which makes traffic worse. But we can make transit attractive, easy, and fast by implementing bus lanes. Making transit better will also decrease the amount of people driving, making it easier to drive and find parking for those who still need to!
What is the current bus lanes situation on Hastings?
There are bus lanes on Hastings, but for the most part they are only active in the peak direction for rush hour traffic in that direction.
They don’t help people travelling at midday or on weekends, and we know traffic can actually be at its worst on Saturday afternoons. We need all day bus lanes!
Bus lanes can be curbside or offset, preserving parking in some areas, or preserving an extra travel lane for general vehicles.
