I am really wondering what will happen to all the bus service that currently goes past Douglas and Humbolt to either end outside the east side of the Legislature or provide the local bus service in James Bay.   The LRT would seem to be designed to replace all the buses coming from the Westshore and the #30 and #31.    But the LRT route calls for it to end at Douglas and Humbolt.  

The shorter LRT route gives the rail option on paper a three minute time advantage over the current bus service.   This makes the LRT look better but it ignores the fact that there are people would expecting to be able to get to work on the south side of the inner harbour on transit.   I am basing the terminal location on the one used in the report that evaluated the technology options for transit.  In the report they timed the LRT to Douglas and Humbolt but compared this to buses going further.

I am annoyed that the report recommending the LRT option has so many obvious errors or deliberate attempts to mislead people by making the LRT look better than buses.

People will either have to walk an extra eight to nine minutes from the LRT to their work, or they will have to transfer for a short trip.    This assumes there is a local regular bus option.  Even though the money is not there in the budget, BC Transit will have to provide a transit connection from James Bay to Downtown.  Waiting for that bus will take up time.

What will people do?   Many will walk and be really pissed off in the rain.   They will resign themselves to an extra 17 minutes commuting time per day which works out to an extra hour and half a week and to almost 64 hours in a year.   A lot will quit using transit and will change to a car.   There is available parking in James Bay for people wanting to commute that way.  

Once again, I am basing this on what is currently proposed for the LRT.   They might extend the LRT to the Legislature, but this would reduce the peak hour capacity of the LRT by about 300 people both ways, or 150 one way unless they buy more trains.