These are the 40 most delayed TransLink bus corridors in Metro Vancouver

Westbound bus stop for the 99 B-Line UBC express bus at Commercial-Broadway Station. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

TransLink is reporting that its buses are incrementally running slower with each passing year due to rising traffic congestion.

In a report late last month, Metro Vancouver’s public transit authority shared the added operating costs for bus delays reached $80 million in 2021 — up from $75 million just before the pandemic.

Such congestion-related operating costs for buses go up by $2 million to $7 million each year, and they are driven by the need to deploy more buses and drivers to achieve the same scheduled frequency and capacity when buses are forced to run slower.

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For this reason, TransLink is looking to work with municipal governments, which oversee the design and maintenance of the roads, to implement bus priority measures on the most problematic bus corridors, such as bus-only lanes, traffic signal priority, queue jumps, dedicated turning lanes at intersections (to reduce through-traffic backups), and bus bulbs (sidewalk curb extensions at bus stops to eliminate the need to leave the travel lane).

Such measures are planned for TransLink’s bus service expansion rollout over the next decade of nine new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) routes, and to a lesser extent for the 11 new additional RapidBus routes and seven new Express bus routes. The road design changes planned for many of the new faster bus routes will address the most problematic bus route corridors for delays.

Unsurprisingly, many of the most problematic bus corridors for delays are located in Vancouver.

Here is TransLink’s ranking of the 40 most delayed bus corridors/streets and their primary bus routes, based on the number of people delayed per kilometre, which is a measure that weighs the societal impacts of the delays by accounting for the volume of people who use the various bus services:

Broadway — Vancouver/UBC: 9, 99 B-Line
West Georgia Street — Vancouver: 240, 246, 250, 257
Wesbrook Mall — UBC: 49
Hastings Street — Vancouver: R5 RapidBus
49 Avenue — Vancouver/UBC: 49
Scott Road — Surrey/Delta: 319
41st Avenue — Vancouver: 41, R4 RapidBus
104 Avenue — Surrey: R1 RapidBus, 320, 337
Burrard Street — Vancouver: 2
Marine Drive — North Shore: R2 RapidBus
Granville Street — Vancouver: 10
Willingdon Avenue — Burnaby: 130
72 Avenue — Surrey/Delta: 301, 319, 322, 335
Robson/Denman/Davie streets — Vancouver: 5, 6
Pender/Powell/Dundas/McGill streets — Vancouver: 4, 7, 19, 22, 210
Main Street — Vancouver: 3
West 4th Avenue — Vancouver/UBC: 84
Kingsway — Vancouver/Burnaby: 19
Edmonds Street — Burnaby: 106
Fraser Highway — Surrey/Langley: 502, 503
University Boulevard — Vancouver/UBC: 4, 9, 14, 99 B-Line
No. 3 Road — Richmond: 403
King George Boulevard — Surrey/White Rock: R1 RapidBus, 321
Lonsdale Avenue — North Shore: 229, 230, 232
Lions Gate Bridge — Vancouver/North Shore: 240, 246, 250, 257
Southeast Marine Drive — Vancouver: 100
King Edward Avenue — Vancouver/UBC: 25
Commercial/Victoria drives — Vancouver: 20
6 Street — Burnaby/New Westminster: 106
Cambie Road — Richmond: 405, 410
Garden City Way — Richmond: 405, 410
Queensborough Bridge/Highway 91A — Burnaby/New Westminster: 104, 340, 388, 410, 418
Knight Street — Vancouver: 22
15 Street — North Shore: 240, 255
108 Avenue — Surrey: 335
3rd/Main street — North Shore: R2 RapidBus
Canada Way — Burnaby: 123
Wilson/Shaughnessy streets — Coquitlam/Port Coquitlam: 159, 160, 173, 174
Granville Avenue — Richmond: 404, 406
Bridgeport Road — Richmond: 407, 430, all highway routes

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