TransLink upgrades No. 25 UBC/Brentwood bus route to articulated buses

TransLink to upgrade busy No. 25 UBC/Brentwood bus route to articulated bus for more capacity

TransLink articulated bus. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

One of Metro Vancouver’s busiest bus routes — one of the key east-west arterial bus routes across Vancouver — will be getting a major capacity upgrade this month.

As part of the seasonal service changes, starting on April 15, 2024, TransLink will switch the No. 25 UBC/Brentwood Station bus route to the use of the 60-ft, three-door articulated buses — replacing the route’s longstanding use of the regular 40-ft, two-door buses.

According to the public transit authority, this use of a larger bus will provide up to 30% more capacity.

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But there will be some slight frequency reductions on the No. 25 to account for the use of a larger bus. Compared to the current scheduled frequencies, buses in both directions for almost all periods of weekdays and Saturdays will see greater intervals of one to four minutes, such as every 15 minutes instead of every 12 minutes for select periods. Except for the afternoon period, there will be minimal changes to the Sunday schedule.

No. 25 runs between SkyTrain Millennium Line’s Brentwood Town Centre Station and UBC’s main bus exchange, with much of the route running along King Edward Avenue within Vancouver.

It also connects with SkyTrain Expo Line at Nanaimo Station and SkyTrain Canada Line at King Edward Station, and directly serves BCIT’s Burnaby campus, Electronic Arts’ Burnaby headquarters, and Burnaby Hospital.

In 2021, TransLink also performed bus stop balancing on the No. 25, which is the practice of removing select closely spaced bus stops to help improve speed, travel times, and scheduled reliability, and reduce operating costs. About one in eight of the No. 25’s bus stops were removed.

Based on the latest available statistics, in 2022, the No. 25 was TransLink’s fifth busiest bus route out of a total of 203 bus routes across the region. It had 5.67 million annual boardings, with averages of 17,900 per weekday, 11,600 per Saturday, and 9,400 per Sunday/holiday.

This also follows the public transit authority’s move earlier this year to upgrade the busy No. 2 Dunbar Loop/Macdonald/Downtown bus route (via Burrard Street Bridge) to the use of articulated buses. Since the No. 2 began the use of the articulated buses, there has been a general reduction in crowding, and pass-ups due to full buses are now down by 3.5%.

TransLink rarely upgrades the size of buses on a particular route, but some other relatively recent examples include the permanent articulate bus upgrades of the No. 49 UBC/Metrotown in 2016 and the No. 84 UBC/VCC-Clark Station in 2022, and the various regular bus routes that were upgraded to the RapidBus standard or the use of double-decker buses.

Articulated bus in use on the No. 2 Dunbar Loop/Macdonald/Downtown bus route. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

TransLink emphasizes that due to funding limitations, it is not adding service to the overall public transit bus network, but it is redistributing service and resources where there is greatest demand for improved services.

As part of the seasonal service changes beginning later this month, bus services will be improved on 17 bus routes through reallocation to address overcrowding, which is a practice that increases service on other routes at busier times of the day, and reduces service during lower demand periods. More than half of the routes seeing service increases through reallocations are located within the South of Fraser, which is one of the region’s fastest-growing areas for ridership.

A total of 22 bus routes will see slightly lower frequencies during select periods to support better service on other bus routes with greater demand.

Additionally, seasonal service improvements to outdoor destinations will be introduced to 13 bus routes, such as Stanley Park, Grouse Mountain, White Pine Peach, and more connections to BC Ferries.

There will also be extra capacity and service between the English Bay Beach area and SkyTrain stations on weekend evenings, and more pick-up and drop-off options on four routes serving the North Shore.

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