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Snow clearing priority for transit trouble spots is an obvious solution to our city’s winter woes. Share your story of being stranded in the snow with council. Sign up by 5pm Feb 3rd, 2026.
Movement encourages council to vote in favour of the motion to prioritize plowing in known transit problem spots.
For Immediate Release
February 2, 2026
VANCOUVER – At the Vancouver Standing Committee on City Finance and Services Meeting on Wednesday, February 4th, Councillor Lucy Maloney is proposing a motion to give snow clearing priority to transit trouble spots.
We’ve all seen images and videos of ten buses in a row stuck on a slope, and Vancouver can bring that to an end at almost no cost. You may be familiar with the time when riders got out of the bus and tried to push it up the hill. We can do better for the city’s hundreds of thousands of transit riders.
Movement enthusiastically supports this motion. Transit is an essential service and it should be prioritized for snow clearing, because delays can affect tens of thousands of riders and have ripple effects on the entire network.
So few car owners have snow tires in Metro Vancouver. When it snows, these drivers are forced to make a tough decision between making it to work on time and staying safe on the roads. The same applies to cyclists, who might not have the right equipment to be able to bike in the snow. For essential workers who ride transit every day to jobs in healthcare, snow clearing is crucial. This is why we need our transit system to be at the top of its game on snow days.
Today, the City of Vancouver puts all arterial streets at the same priority level. But we know from past experience that very specific segments can cause the downfall of the entire bus network.
- Articulated buses have a harder time maintaining traction in slippery conditions
- Trolley buses cannot pass each other, so if one has lost traction, those behind it will be stuck too
- Slight slopes combined with articulated buses and/or trolley buses can end up being parking lots where a dozen buses simply sit, waiting to be dug out.
Notorious hotspots include:
- Granville Street as it heads up the hill from 6th to Broadway
- Broadway from Boundary Road to Rupert Street
- This is the route that 99 buses take to start their day, leaving from the Burnaby Transit Centre. A lost traction event here can be catastrophic.
- West 4th from Cypress Street to Arbutus Street
- West 49th Ave from Southwest Marine Drive to West Blvd
Giving snow clearing priority to the small segments that cause problems for bus traction can make a huge difference in reliability for transit throughout the entire city. It’s important to note that a bus stuck on a slope can no longer serve the rest of the city. People waiting for a bus far from a slope can end up with hour-long delays, because the impacts of lost-traction events ripple throughout the city.
The motion calls for city staff to consult with Coast Mountain Bus Company (CMBC) to identify and prioritize known problem areas where the delayed removal of snow and ice has caused operational problems for transit buses in the past, and for staff to take immediate steps to prioritize transit reliability during snow events and report back with proposed revisions to the City of Vancouver Snow and Ice Treatment Policy in accordance with recommendations from CMBC.
A map of steep slopes in Vancouver can be found here.
Some past stories about this issue:
- Vancouver weather: Why can’t buses make it up snowy hills? | Vancouver Sun
- TransLink says it is ‘preparing for the worst’ this winter | CBC News
- Passengers tried to push a TransLink bus stuck on a hill. It did not go well, says UBC student – BC | Globalnews.ca
- More than a dozen buses stuck on Vancouver’s Granville Street Bridge | Urbanized
Quotes
“Every time it snows in this city, transportation comes to a halt and people become stranded. Prioritizing transit routes is a common sense solution and it means that even if you can’t move your car out, you still have a guaranteed way home.”
Denis Agar, Executive Director at Movement
“There have been a few times where my bus, and many other buses, were stuck on the hill up to UBC and I had to walk home up the hill, through the snow and ice. It sucked and it took hours to get home. This is so preventable!”
Michelle Scarr, Director of Operations and Strategy at Movement
Movement: Metro Vancouver Transit Riders is a non-profit that represents our region’s one million transit riders. We’ve often been left out of the conversation, and we’re here to speak up for faster, more reliable, more abundant transit. We’re focused on the growing number of bus routes where riders are left behind by full buses, day after day, primarily in Surrey and South Vancouver, as well as the urgent need for bus lanes that cost almost nothing but massively improve commutes for hundreds of thousands of people.