Opinion: Governments must address overcrowding on TransLink services

TransLink's R4 41st Avenue RapidBus in Vancouver. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Written for Daily Hive Urbanized by Denis Agar, who is the Executive Director of Movement: Metro Vancouver Transit Riders. Before that, he was a transit planner at TransLink for 10 years. He remains a huge transit nerd.

Do you remember when public transit was declared dead? A few years ago, when buses were only serving essential workers, commenters wondered whether the rest of us would ever come back.

Dear readers, if you’ve seen a bus recently, then you already know the answer: We’re back, baby. For me, a transit planner, that’s certainly a huge relief. But a new story is emerging, one of chronic overcrowding, with no money for new buses.

Ridership in Metro Vancouver is now higher than it’s ever been. But beneath that statistic, some really surprising things are happening. Routes like the No. 323 Newton Exchange/Surrey Central Station and No. 335 Newton Exchange/Surrey Central Station, which have existed for decades as low-frequency suburban services, have rocketed past their peers.

You might also like:

TransLink is more reliant on fare revenue than most agencies in North America, and so when that fare revenue dropped off a cliff in 2020, the provincial government of BC graciously pitched in some funds to ensure most of the buses and trains would keep running. The bailout didn’t allow for any expansion, but who would need to expand in a pandemic?

Well, things are different now.

I hear stories of riders being left behind by five full buses in a row on the No. 49 UBC/Metrotown.

The No. 323 has seen so much ridership growth that TransLink simply had to react. It’s now one of the most frequent routes in the region with only six minutes between buses in rush hour. How was TransLink able to boost No. 323 service without funds for expansion? By shifting service from routes where the ridership return wasn’t as strong.

Bus routes like the No. 8 Fraser/Waterfront Station was historically one of the most frequent. Today, it comes every 15 minutes in rush hour, after having been cut to the bone. Crowding has returned to the No. 8, too.

We can’t keep shuffling buses around. Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and SkyTrain expansion will eventually be great, but the people on plain ol’ bus routes need relief now. No one should have to add time to their commute to account for being left behind by full buses.

I used to work at TransLink, and that’s where I learned how dire the crowding can be. Last October, I quit to start a non-profit called Movement with some other concerned riders. Together, we’re pushing as hard as we can for more service, and also better service.

But I’m worried. I’m worried that the three levels of government are going to keep pointing fingers at each other instead of fixing the darn bus.

Last week, we heard from Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West — who is also the chair of TransLink’s Mayors’ Council — that we may actually see service cuts if the province doesn’t fund transit in their upcoming budget. Imagine; cuts! We need funding for transit expansion from every level of government.

What’s the alternative? Can our roads handle the strain if some of the one million transit riders switch to driving? Can we widen a street like 49th Avenue in Vancouver to accommodate more cars? Ask the residents what they think about that. Oh, and ask our friends in Los Angeles if road-widening really achieves anything.

You know as well as I do that bus riders are doing us a favour. They’re the reason why we don’t have an additional 30,000 cars on 49th Avenue every day. Buying enough buses to reduce crowding is a bargain compared to the alternative.

This is the message we’ll be bringing to the federal government, the provincial government, and the municipal governments of Metro Vancouver: Address overcrowding urgently.

Our next opportunity to do that is with the provincial budget on February 22. We need to get messages to MLAs in any way we can. This budget needs to fix overcrowding.

So why not have some fun with it? This past Sunday, we launched the MLA Little Transit Video Challenge. We’re challenging at least 10 MLAs to shoot a fun video with us. We promise it’s not a trap — we know a lot of MLAs support transit! We just want to make sure they don’t forget about the dire overcrowding situation when setting their priorities.

Help us! Contact your MLA, tell them about your transit experience, and tell them to make a fun little video with us. You can reach out to them by phone, e-mail, or by using our easy letter generator. We already have a commitment from Michael Lee, from Vancouver-Langara to shoot a video with us.

You might also like: