Let Burnaby City Council know that you want bus lanes on Hastings!

Burnaby council will be deciding this Monday, Nov. 18th at 5pm on whether or not to implement bus-only lanes, 7 days a week from 7am to 7pm, along Hastings St between Willingdon Ave and Duthie Ave.

If you have personal experience taking the R5 or any of the other buses along Hastings, we encourage you to share your story by sending Burnaby council an email by 5pm, Monday November 18th.

You don’t have to worry about crafting the perfect email, it’s more important to just send a note in support.

Some ideas for points to include: 

• The R5 saw nearly 15,000 riders each weekday in 2023 and was TransLink’s 9th busiest bus route
• The Hastings St corridor was one of the most delayed in the region: 1st in bus-hour-delay (96 hours/day) and 2nd in person-hour-delay.
• Up to ⅓ of road users in peak hours are on a bus on Hastings.
• Bus lanes will save up to 4 min of time for riders in this 3.5km section alone, increase bus reliability by 50-80%, and have negligible impact on travel time for cars.
• There is precedent set by Vancouver implementing bus lanes on 9 corridors, including Hastings
• Bus lanes come with many benefits, including improving street safety, making buses cheaper to run, removing cars off the road, improving affordability, and increasing accessibility.
• Creating bus priority lanes will put us on the right track to achieve the City of Burnaby’s goals: to have ¾ of all trips made by public transit and active transportation by 2050 and reduce vehicle emissions by 100% by 2050.
• They are aligned with TransLink Transport 2050 Regional Transportation Strategy to make active transportation and transit a competitive choice accounting for at least half of all passenger trips and decreasing time stuck in congestion compared to today!

Here are Translink’s recommendations and presentation for those who are interested:

• Hastings Street Bus Speed And Reliability Improvements – 2024-11-18.pdf
• Report.pdf
• Presentation.pdf

Let’s get these bus lanes on Hastings! Your voice matters. Thanks for sending an email, and feel free to join us at Burnaby City Hall at 4:45pm on November 18th to watch the results in person!