The Victoria Regional Transit Commission has seen the light and wants to have rush hour bus lanes on Douglas Street. This is something that should have happened a decade ago. The cost is minimal and it will speed up transit meaning the existing fleet will be able to move more traffic. It seems so obvious, but is it really a great idea?
Just by having the bus lanes from about Hillside to Saanich Road should improve the travel times of buses outbound but by how much? If we look to the #30 and see how it does from Douglas and Pandora to Saanich and Vernon, it is 16 to 17 minutes mid day and 19 minutes at peak time. The bus lanes might improve the trip time by three minutes.
Westshore commuting is the worst in this region so how does the #50 do? According to the newest schedule, mid day headed out of town the #50 takes 19 minutes to get from Government and Superior to Douglas and Saanich, at the worst time during the peak hours this takes 21 minutes. The bus lanes would seem to save you about two minutes. End to end the route takes 47 minutes during non peak times and 56 for the worst trips in the afternoon. The majority of the delay are the waits at Tillicum and at McKenzie and not Douglas itself.
I am assuming the BC Transit current schedule is accurate on the website reflecting real travel times. If it is not, we should be told how often the traffic causes the buses to be late on the run.
Painting these lines to make the bus lanes does not seem to offer much in savings so why do it all? It seems to me the real savings comes in speed in connection to Tillicum and McKenzie.The province could step up and take part by making some new bus lanes on highway #1. There is enough space between Saanich road and McKenzie/Admirals to allow for an outbound bus lane all of the way except where it crosses Interurban, that would take another land of bridge to be constructed which would really add to the expense. This should improve trip times by five to seven minutes.
What about looking at Blanshard which is far from overused even at peak times. If BC Transit were to shift the Westshore buses to run up Blanshard I think the traffic there may be light enough and fast enough to allow for some savings, but looking at the schedules I can not be sure. What I do see is that the #70x is faster than the #72 by about three minutes in getting from Government and Superior to Douglas and Kings which I put down to fewer stops downtown but not faster after that. The Blanshard times seem to be broadly similar to the Douglas times but i can not be certain.
In the end, are the bus lanes worth it on Douglas is the potential savings is only likely to be 2 minutes? Is it worth the expense and hassles?
3 comments:
The other thing that should be done is reduce the number of stops - essentially create a B-Line on certain routes. With a dedicated bus lane (and bus drivers being able to exert some control over yellow-light timing), a bus route that ran on Douglas and only stopped at, say, Fisgard, Bay, Hillside, Finlayson, Cloverdale before pulling into an Uptown exchange could get some serious time improvements. Using a similar route to collect people in the Westshore and move them into downtown could improve incoming commute times.
When one looks at the #70x compared to the #72, the reduction of stops downtown makes some difference.
In Victoria I think the best BLine options would be the whole #14 and #26 routes. Though we would need to have the longer buses with three entrances and allow people to enter and leave at all the doors.
Downtown there should be ticket machines at all the major stops and people should be required to have bought their ticket before they board and then allow boarding back and front. If the stopping to pick up passengers can be sped up the buses could run faster
If the provincial government were to cost-share with the City for MacKenzie and Tillicum interchanges, this project might go ahead. The TCH Highway is provincial jurisdiction, but they usually want local governments to help pay (Chilliwack Vedder and Evans Roads, Abbotsford McCallum and Clearbrook Roads) for interchanges. My guess is that the BC Transit Rapid Transit Study was pushed by Fortin and federal and provincial NDP politicians. Dix has probably nixed the lrt because the cupboard is bare. Time to pressure the Liberals to get this baby on the road.
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