New Burnaby Heights bus rapid transit route divides community

A proposed bus route through a northern Burnaby neighbourhood has residents and businesses at odds.

A riders group has launched a petition claiming the opinions of local businesses don’t align with what residents want.

The new bus route would travel from North Vancouver through Burnaby Heights and end in Metrotown.

The Heights Merchants Association, which represents hundreds of businesses in the neighbourhood, argues the route shouldn’t go through the area because it would negatively impact businesses and the neighbourhood itself.

But the executive director of Movement, Denis Agar, denies this will be the outcome and says many locals they spoke to are excited to have the new service.

“We had almost no one turn down signing our petition. So, we think that there’s a big disconnect between what the merchants are saying and what the residents of Burnaby Heights really want,” Agar said.

Agar says the proposed Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) would replace the current 222 route, and slow transit even further if it’s re-routed away from Burnaby Heights.

Many of the people Movement spoke to, Agar says, explained the buses in the neighbourhood are overcrowded, like the 222 from the Phibbs Exchange to Metrotown.

“By the time it gets to the Heights, it’s already full and it leaves them behind, and they told us they have to take $20 Uber rides,” he said of the feedback Movement has received from riders.

“I understand that merchants are hurting and that their expenses are way up. I think the real solution to that is to attract a whole bunch of new residents to the community. And the best way to attract residents that are really going to be loyal to your local businesses is to have really good transit,” Agar asserted.

The HMA says it doesn’t want the route to go through their neighbourhood as it could impact accessibility for shoppers.

“The BRT is designed to move large numbers of people long distances as quickly as possible,” said Isabel Kolic, executive director of the HMA. “The mandate of the Merchants Association is to make it as easy as possible for local people to shop locally. And so accessibility for a wide diversity of clients is really paramount for us.”

“It’s the old guy with the walker, the shopper with MS [multiple sclerosis]. It’s the mom who has a four-year-old and a one-year-old trying to get seven grocery bags home on a bus. It’s those people that we are really trying to be a convenient district [for.]”

Kolic believes the region is catering transit towards “big shopping malls” and not to local districts that serve local people.

The HMA adds that Hastings Street already has six existing routes that serve the community, which they have been lobbying TransLink to add frequency to the services

“If we had more busses — the 129 should not be half an hour apart. The 222 should not run only in the mornings. The thing is, if you improve the bus frequency, the speed would take care of itself and you wouldn’t need the BRT,” Kolic asserted, adding the HMA is not against transit.

The HMA says the proposed bus route should travel down Boundary Road once it gets off the North Shore, serving both Burnaby and East Vancouver in the process.

“The reason we like that is because the electrical towers on Boundary are slated to go underground. … And that wide boulevard is more than ample to carry the infrastructure of a BRT without disrupting a community’s character, or disrupting local shoppers’ access to local businesses,” Kolic explained.

“It passes about 150 businesses. … It’s not correct to say that it should go down Hasting Street because of businesses — there’s businesses on both routes, but the businesses on Hastings Street are far, far more vulnerable to the loss of parking than the businesses on the boundary alignment.

“So, from a community sustainability standpoint, it’s far more pragmatic, to have a station at Boundary than to have one station at Willingdon.

“The neighbours, they think our neighbourhood works and they’re really afraid that having infrastructure in the middle of the street that will divide the street, make Hats Off Day — our biggest street festival — render it not possible. That’s a worry.”

–With files from Cole Schisler

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify this article is referring to Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), not RapidBus.