Calls for bus-only detour as Vancouver Broadway shutdown snarls service

Buses backing up, riders waiting, and traffic crawling.

That is the new reality on one of Vancouver’s major arteries just days into the shutdown on Broadway between Main and Quebec, and transit advocates are now calling for change before gridlock becomes the norm for the next four months.

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Denis Agar is the executive director of the transit advocacy group Movement.

He says Movement: Metro Vancouver Transit Riders and Vision Zero Vancouver monitored rush-hour traffic on the first day of the closures and noticed that congestion quickly became a problem.

“We’re talking about a few hundred cars that are totally jamming up for nearly 50-thousand [bus riders] who use that route every day,” Agar told 1130 NewsRadio.

Agar says buses on the detour were frequently stuck behind vehicle traffic, leading to bunching and cascading delays on some of the region’s busiest routes.

“There’s about 46,000 trips taken every day on the 9 and the 99 buses.”

Agar adds that those delays do not stay confined to the immediate area either.

“They ripple outward because it holds up the 9 and the 99 from getting to Commercial-Broadway, to UBC, to Boundary Road and beyond.”

Movement and Vision Zero Vancouver are now calling on the province to restrict the detour to buses only, while maintaining local access for businesses.

Agar believes the change would be relatively simple to implement.

“All it really takes is signs and paint,” he said, pointing to examples from other cities, like Toronto’s King Street bus route, that show transit priority can coexist with business access.

But, the province doesn’t quite see it that way.

In a statement to 1130 NewsRadio, B.C.’s Ministry of Transportation and Transit says “there are currently no plans to make the detour transit only,” adding that bus priority measures are in place, such as bus queue jumpers, signal priority, and dual turning lanes to help mitigate delays while buses are detoured via 8th Avenue.

“The efficient movement of transit serving the corridor is a top priority, along with maintaining access to area businesses, services and residents,” the ministry stated.

The Broadway closure between Main and Quebec is expected to last about four months and is the first phase of a series of closures that will move along the corridor as Broadway Subway Project construction continues.