New bus lanes in the City of Vancouver since July 24th, 2024:
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Vancouver is missing nine bus lanes, but you, dear reader, can help us find them. Read on to solve the mystery and get all the bus lane updates as they come in.
In 2023, Councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung brought forward a motion to bring bus priority to four corridors, and in 2024 Councillor Christine Boyle brought forward another motion, which built off the original one to add five more corridors to the list. These corridors are some of the most congested in the city, where transit riders experience over 7,000 cumulative hours of delay – every day!
Last summer we “celebrated” a year of inaction on bus lanes with our Bus Lane Motion Anniversary Picnic, and today we’re still waiting on a single new bus lane to actually be installed. Progress is finally underway on Granville but the others are in the planning and consultation phase.
Click this link to see how much time you and your fellow bus riders have spent delayed by traffic on each of the corridors identified in the 2024 motion since it passed. Last we checked, there was over 432 years of cumulative delay!
We know bus lanes can be delivered quickly – sometimes in a matter of days.
So why is it taking so long for these bus lanes to be planned and installed? Signs and paint don’t cost all that much! The delay is primarily due to lack of political courage and a fear of upsetting local business owners who overvalue parking and overestimate the number of customers driving to their business. This is why it’s so important for city council to hear from transit riders instead of just transit priority naysayers.
Read below for the status of each of these corridors.
Broadway
Broadway carries the busiest bus route in Canada and the US, with ridership high enough to justify SkyTrain. However, that line still won’t open until 2027. In the meantime, Broadway still has no dedicated all-day bus lanes. The city recently added some extra hours to the existing bus lanes, but our ask to make them all day hasn’t been actioned upon.
Hastings Street
The city’s plans for Hastings are extremely disappointing! Our campaign for better bus lane plans on Hastings drops soon. With the amount of buses that go through this corridor on a daily basis, having bus lanes along the corridor would speed up tons of riders’ commutes and improve reliability for SFU Students.
49th Avenue
If you’ve taken the 49, you know the struggle. Long stretches of slow moving traffic with frequent stops and packed buses, it’s not fun for anyone. The city is planning to extend bus lanes on 49th in 2026, and it’s something that is long overdue for such a vital corridor with countless schools and destinations along the corridor. In the meantime, we’re trying to call upon the famous Langara College grad Hudson Williams to appeal to city council for bus lanes.
Main Street / Kingsway
Main Street/Kingsway is home to frequent stops and tons of traffic, and home to the second slowest routes in the city. The city’s plans for this corridor are only speeding up trips times by 3%, so we’re asking them to do better. The 3, 8 and the 19 would benefit from having bus lanes, as they all travel quite a long distance.
Granville Street
Marpole has some of the highest transit ridership in the region. Despite this, the city’s initial plans for bus priority faced major pushback from local businesses. We fought to keep strong bus priority in Marpole, but it was rolled back. Consider sending a follow up email!
West 4th Avenue
West 4th had bus stop balancing and right turn pockets completed in 2022, which helped make trips faster, but nothing new has been done since then.
Downtown to the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge
We haven’t seen any plans for the bus corridor between downtown and the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge.
King Edward Avenue
We’re keeping an eye out and petitioning for improvements for King Edward Avenue and “The Amazing 25“, as there is nothing announced yet for this corridor. King Edward avenue is prone to construction related delays, and the 25 is a really long route, which makes every minute of delay unbearable
SE Marine Drive
Frequent riders of the 100 and the 80 will know, it is heavily prone to traffic delays along Marine Drive, causing the ride to get longer when it already takes too long to get from one end to the other. Bus lanes for the 100 and 80 are anticipated in 2026. But they can’t come soon enough.