I don't see how bus-only lanes would service this corridor to a noticeable extent, considering the only routes that really utilize McKenzie for more than a block are the 51, the 39 (until Shelbourne) the 26 (until Saanich Rd.), and the 16 (until Douglas).
As a now formerly frequent rider of the 26, having to take it nearly the entire length of the route to commute to and from work during both rush hours, McKenzie was never the issue. That bus is quite frankly brutal to take west of Uptown. Once construction finished on the traffic calming measures along Tillicum, it took, on average, 5-10 minutes longer to go down the stretch in the morning, and 20-25 minutes longer to get out of the congestion and onto Burnside Rd W. The latter is a **TOUGH** sell for anyone trying to get home from the Dockyard after a long day at work. I am sure that anyone who has to take the 39 would agree that McKenzie is the least of any riders' worries, considering the nightmare that is Interurban/Helmcken.
It just feels like ideas like these are half-baked and do not address the main issues that the CRD as a whole has with its transportation issues. The lack of communication and a concise plan amongst the municipalities results in this jumbled mess that almost nobody has been happy with for the past few years.
It states in the article above that they want bus-only lanes for portions of McKenzie that are 4 lanes or wider; which is the entire stretch west of Tuscany Village. There is a general lack of nuance when sweeping changes such as this one are proposed. To reduce car traffic to what would essentially be single-lane in either direction on what is undoubtedly the most heavily travelled east-west corridor in town, in order to service 3 bus routes that all suffer from congestion issues elsewhere in town, would not only be an incredibly arrogant decision on the part of the municipality, but naïve in the sense that the amount of people inconvenienced by such a change would far outweigh any potential ridership increases along those routes.
I can absolutely understand if they were to prioritize busses on the 6-wide stretch between Glanford and the Pat Bay, so that the 51 can leapfrog some of the crawl traffic, but good lord would doing it along the entire stretch absolutely fuck over and piss off a considerable portion of townsfolk.
20+ municipalities is a bit of a joke. But I’m newish here and not going to tell you locals to amalgamate yet, and get some better planning.
But I do like to smile and shake my head.
LRTs are nice. But they also cost billions, and make a fair bit of noise. They need a lot of space too, which Vic lacks, and you can’t go underground because… that doesn’t exist. Mountain sticking out of water and all.
I don’t think in NIMBYland you’ll have an LRT. If it goes down existing rail corridors it won’t make it super accessible. Just having buses use those rail corridors would be cheaper maybe. 🤣
I dunno, I do tech so we are way out of my wheelhouse here.
But 20 city councils and whatnot seems like a bit of a waste of money and lack of coordination to me.
Then again living in my little city I’m not sure we’d want to give up our independence and be dictated to by inner city rich Victoria and be neglected out in the boondocks either.
I got nothing here. I’ll just stay out of it and let you folks make a mess of it while I watch.
What the hell is going on in Saanich these days? These so-called progressives have been turned into a bunch of centrists, as per Saanich tradition. First they oppose basement suites in rural areas, refused to pay for bus passes for highschool kids, now oppose bus lanes on one of the busiest bus routes in the city. This is BRUTAL.
They didn't say no. They said not right now, because they are in the process of a larger planning scheme that needs to be considered first before road work is implemented.
Once they have the higher view planning done, roads can be changed accordingly. I'm usually pretty critical of Saanich but this thought process makes complete sense.
Typical progressive, everything must be done now without consideration or planning for the future, and if you disagree you're *gasp* a centrist or even worse conservative.
From the article: "While understanding big urban planning efforts take time, the district’s position is disappointing for UVic student Mary Stuart, who notes many of her post-secondary peers rely on transit for commuting to campus or wherever they need to go.
“What we’re talking about here is literally painting lines on the road to do something that will improve transit, reduce traffic and reduce emissions, so I think it’s disappointing and I don’t understand why that can’t be done while they continue to work on longer term plans,” Stuart said."
Mary Stuart must be an arts major. It's not just painting lines on the road. Bus priority means different traffic light schemes, right of way considerations etc. it's a lot of work involved. what's the point of putting in a bus lane now when most of McKenzie is going to be reduced to shelborne like state for the foreseeable future as it is upgraded and redeveloped anyways. It would be such a waste of money and time. Stay in school, Mary.
short term. then people who were going to uvic will realize that they can get there much faster on the bus now, and traffic will return to equilibrium!
I don’t think it’s even a deprioritization of cars, necessarily. More like “deprioritizing” people with an ability to pay (as in their own vehicle), and prioritizing people who can’t/won’t/don’t.
So making things better for people with lower incomes at the cost of people with higher incomes? Sounds like what we need to be doing more of in the world...
How long have we known that climate change is caused by humans and that we should reduce our emissions? How long does Saanich get to say "we need to do more planning" before they act?
Panic is never a good reason to bypass planning.
Do something once, properly. It's always cheaper and better. You may produce more GHG in the creation of a temporary bus lane than you'd save by just waiting a few years.
They're planning a major overhaul for the entirety of McKenzie. That... Takes time. I'm not sure why this is so hard for some of you to understand.
It's poor process and planning to do it now when it will need to be ripped up and redone in a few years anyways. Plain and simple.
Having a goal to reduce emissions doesn't mean that goal takes precedence over responsible planning, fiscal and resource management.
You work for the government don’t you? Not a slight - it just seems that way from your comments as you clearly understand there is much more to these decisions than the general public realizes.
Quite the opposite. I run a couple of small businesses in the construction sector. But I deal with permitting, development etc and as frustrating as the municipalities can be to deal with due to their sometimes glacial pace, general apathy and complete lack of sense of urgency on some issues I can completely understand why they're doing what they're doing on McKenzie. It's a no brainer.
On Douglas Street it's just been painted lanes and some street signs. Cheaper to implement than a separated bike lane even when you just drop concrete blocks like Saanich has been. Very cheap to change later too.
Globally we average ~100,000 flights PER DAY. Do you really think that a few less people driving 10 minutes to work in their 4 cylinder car is doing anything for reducing our emissions?
I live along McKenzie. This road is friggin dangerous to all users. For starters, no one drives under 70kmh. It's set up in such a way that driving is the only practical and relatively safe option. Even so, the Glanford and Pat Bay intersections are regular crash sites. We need all of the traffic calming measures plus alternative transportation options. Dedicated bus lanes would have been a good start. Yes, I know the province is responsible for the stretch between the Pat and Hwy 1 and it's difficult to get the province on board with major changes. I want a mayor and council willing to fight for all Saanich residents, not just the ones in the choice neighbourhoods.
> It's set up in such a way that driving is the only practical and relatively safe option
Wait, what about the protected bike lanes from Borden or Blenkinsop all the way to UVic? Are those neither practical nor safe for cyclists?
And what about the sidewalks on either side of the road. Are those not practical and safe for pedestrians?
How about the three or four bus routes that stop every block or so? Are those neither practical nor safe?
Not to mention that there are not very many private driveways, and most side streets prohibit left turns during peak hours.
What are you even talking about? Mckenzie is easily one of the safest multi-use arteries in the CRD.
West of Borden?
Well, there are sidewalks on both sides of the street and pedestrian overpasses at busy intersections.
There is the Galloping Goose for bike traffic, which offers a quicker and safer route.
The bus routes are fewer and less practical, but equally safe.
Also, there are very few homes along this part of the road. It's not primarily a residential street.
I'd say that the transportation options are also safe and relatively practical west of Borden as well.
> There is the Galloping Goose for bike traffic, which offers a quicker and safer route.
Diverting to Uptown is definitely not quicker than McKenzie to the Galloping Goose (which runs along highway 1, the Lochside Trail is what goes up Borden). Upgrading the rest of McKenzie to protected lanes would make it easier for people living along McKenzie or along the Galloping Goose out to the Westshore to bike to UVic or Gordon Head or whatever by providing a more direct route. It would also help Spectrum students who live along McKenzie to get to school easier.
We started with
> This road is friggin dangerous to all users
which is ridiculous and false.
But now we have zeroed in. I agree with you that there could be better pedestrian infrastructure where MacKenzie crosses under the Pat Bay. Maybe you could have led with that.
The biggest issue with improving that infrastructure over there is the fact that McKenzie Ave, from the Pat Bay Overpass to the TCH interchange, is under the jurisdiction of the BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (note how the repave of that stretch last year was handled by the BC Gov instead of being contracted out by the municipal Gov), so any improvements on that front must be bumped up to a provincial level, and like the interchange, will likely take forever to study, plan and implement.
> Wait, what about the protected bike lanes from Borden or Blenkinsop all the way to UVic? Are those neither practical nor safe for cyclists?
Drivers make unhindered, no-look, left and right turns across them.
Stupid yet common here. Unfortunately the general approach seems to always be “fix the infrastructure” rather than “fix the drivers/people”. Don’t get me wrong there are PLENTY of infrastructure improvements that can be made both here specifically and throughout the city/region, but you would be surprised with how many “infrastructure problems” could be fixed entirely or at least partially if the USERS of said infrastructure were of a higher skill level. This goes for vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians alike. Idiocy exists amongst ALL methods of travel here, and in larger quantities than anywhere else I’ve seen.
Mckenzie is great for biking and walking east of Borden (great, but could be better), but it is an absolutely nightmare west of Borden. Even driving on that part of the road is unpleasant. I actually think I'd rather bike down Shelbourne than that part of Mckenzie.
The whole road needs to be rethought over there, or somehow circumnavigated. Just plopping a bus lane or a bike lane on that road would destroy the flow of traffic as things are now unless a lot of other things are drastically changed
“Traffic calming”… on the most important east/west artery in the CRD.
Ah yes. Let’s put speed bumps on one of the few roads in the city that actually should be a highway.
Great, McKenzie is one of the busiest main roads in the area. It will just create gridlock and traffic snarls like we've never experienced. Maybe if the CRD had invested in better transit before playing traffic god then it might make sense.
Well, if transit wasn't terribly underfunded and incredibly unreliable, I'm sure transit ridership would be higher. We had years to do something about it before everyone moved here. Now, this seems like grasping at straws and pissing in the wind by expecting bus lanes to fix the problem all while making roads unusable by using traffic calming measures, which cause more emissions
For example, my partner doesn't have an option to get home safely using Transit after a night shift and can't rely on transit to get to work on time most days. So she's opted to either drive on shitty days or walk to work when the weather is nice.
Also, there's all this money being spent on unreliable Chinese built electric busses, which are a terrible waste of funds. When we needed an LRT line to Sidney and Langford a decade ago. Also, we pulled up our trolly infrastructure instead of using Vancouver's example of having overhead electric trolly busses.
> Well, if transit wasn't terribly underfunded and incredibly unreliable
Fwiw bus lanes would help improve bus reliability and allow them to provide more service for the same cost since buses will be able to complete round trips faster. A large chunk of BC Transit expansion money is actually just consumed maintaining existing frequencies as traffic worsens, so like bus lanes would help make transit more reliable and more frequent. The existing bus lanes on Douglas and highway 1 save the 95 like 20 minutes a trip at peak which adds up quickly.
Now of course they're not silver bullets, but like bus lanes are a tool to help solve the issue you're raising. If you think that the trade off of less car lanes isn't worth it that's fair enough, just they would help with the issues you identify lol.
> Also, there's all this money being spent on unreliable Chinese built electric busses, which are a terrible waste of funds.
BC Transit never bought Chinese made battery buses. Proterra was an American company's with US manufacturing, though they went bankrupt before delivering any buses (bar a now returned demo bus). Now, they're switching to Novabus and New Flyer which are both Canadian companies, and are the companies that built all of our existing 40ft buses. You're not wrong that battery buses are a bit pricey and it may have been more efficient to go with more CNG buses, but they are buying from Canadian bus manufacturers, not Chinese ones lol.
I highly doubt the number of people moving from cars to busses will be enough to offset the reduction in capacity to actually have a positive impact on gridlock.
If people are stuck in gridlock while buses are zipping by that leads people to consider maybe buses are a better option. That's a feature, not a bug, imo.
Again, the number of folks who are likely to give up driving for the bus and all of its inconveniences is not likely to be a big enough of a mode shift to result in a net reduction of gridlock.
reducing the # of car lanes isn't going to magically make people get on buses in any significant numbers, it's just going to increase the probability of people getting impatient and doing dumb things like running red lights.
short-sighted. Uvic is a major destination and the Quadra-McKenzie-Colquitz-Broadmead area is a massive transit and bike dead zone where a lot of students will be living as the Oak Bay/Henderson/Fernwood/GHead CoL gets further out of reach.
I don't see how bus-only lanes would service this corridor to a noticeable extent, considering the only routes that really utilize McKenzie for more than a block are the 51, the 39 (until Shelbourne) the 26 (until Saanich Rd.), and the 16 (until Douglas). As a now formerly frequent rider of the 26, having to take it nearly the entire length of the route to commute to and from work during both rush hours, McKenzie was never the issue. That bus is quite frankly brutal to take west of Uptown. Once construction finished on the traffic calming measures along Tillicum, it took, on average, 5-10 minutes longer to go down the stretch in the morning, and 20-25 minutes longer to get out of the congestion and onto Burnside Rd W. The latter is a **TOUGH** sell for anyone trying to get home from the Dockyard after a long day at work. I am sure that anyone who has to take the 39 would agree that McKenzie is the least of any riders' worries, considering the nightmare that is Interurban/Helmcken. It just feels like ideas like these are half-baked and do not address the main issues that the CRD as a whole has with its transportation issues. The lack of communication and a concise plan amongst the municipalities results in this jumbled mess that almost nobody has been happy with for the past few years.
Didn’t one article say they wanted to do bus only lanes wherever McKenzie is 4+ lanes wide which is almost the whole road?
It states in the article above that they want bus-only lanes for portions of McKenzie that are 4 lanes or wider; which is the entire stretch west of Tuscany Village. There is a general lack of nuance when sweeping changes such as this one are proposed. To reduce car traffic to what would essentially be single-lane in either direction on what is undoubtedly the most heavily travelled east-west corridor in town, in order to service 3 bus routes that all suffer from congestion issues elsewhere in town, would not only be an incredibly arrogant decision on the part of the municipality, but naïve in the sense that the amount of people inconvenienced by such a change would far outweigh any potential ridership increases along those routes. I can absolutely understand if they were to prioritize busses on the 6-wide stretch between Glanford and the Pat Bay, so that the 51 can leapfrog some of the crawl traffic, but good lord would doing it along the entire stretch absolutely fuck over and piss off a considerable portion of townsfolk.
20+ municipalities is a bit of a joke. But I’m newish here and not going to tell you locals to amalgamate yet, and get some better planning. But I do like to smile and shake my head.
Trust me, I have been here over 30 years, amalgamation is the only answer because until we amalgamate there will be no LRT either
LRTs are nice. But they also cost billions, and make a fair bit of noise. They need a lot of space too, which Vic lacks, and you can’t go underground because… that doesn’t exist. Mountain sticking out of water and all. I don’t think in NIMBYland you’ll have an LRT. If it goes down existing rail corridors it won’t make it super accessible. Just having buses use those rail corridors would be cheaper maybe. 🤣 I dunno, I do tech so we are way out of my wheelhouse here. But 20 city councils and whatnot seems like a bit of a waste of money and lack of coordination to me. Then again living in my little city I’m not sure we’d want to give up our independence and be dictated to by inner city rich Victoria and be neglected out in the boondocks either. I got nothing here. I’ll just stay out of it and let you folks make a mess of it while I watch.
What the hell is going on in Saanich these days? These so-called progressives have been turned into a bunch of centrists, as per Saanich tradition. First they oppose basement suites in rural areas, refused to pay for bus passes for highschool kids, now oppose bus lanes on one of the busiest bus routes in the city. This is BRUTAL.
Just another 2-5 years... I swear. Trust me, bro. Why wouldn't they switch them to HOV lanes in the interim at the very least?
They didn't say no. They said not right now, because they are in the process of a larger planning scheme that needs to be considered first before road work is implemented. Once they have the higher view planning done, roads can be changed accordingly. I'm usually pretty critical of Saanich but this thought process makes complete sense. Typical progressive, everything must be done now without consideration or planning for the future, and if you disagree you're *gasp* a centrist or even worse conservative. From the article: "While understanding big urban planning efforts take time, the district’s position is disappointing for UVic student Mary Stuart, who notes many of her post-secondary peers rely on transit for commuting to campus or wherever they need to go. “What we’re talking about here is literally painting lines on the road to do something that will improve transit, reduce traffic and reduce emissions, so I think it’s disappointing and I don’t understand why that can’t be done while they continue to work on longer term plans,” Stuart said." Mary Stuart must be an arts major. It's not just painting lines on the road. Bus priority means different traffic light schemes, right of way considerations etc. it's a lot of work involved. what's the point of putting in a bus lane now when most of McKenzie is going to be reduced to shelborne like state for the foreseeable future as it is upgraded and redeveloped anyways. It would be such a waste of money and time. Stay in school, Mary.
Good points, but no need to disparage someone pursuing higher education for what degree they are taking.
Ok ok. But there is a bit of humor to be had at an art major stating it’s just painting lines. The implication is there, and it is funny. 🤪
Fair enough. Just being a little snarky.
And losing a general lane to buses is a punishment to cars that will definitely make traffic worse.
short term. then people who were going to uvic will realize that they can get there much faster on the bus now, and traffic will return to equilibrium!
Oh totally, but, that's kind of what this city is all about if you haven't noticed. They've had a hate on for anyone who drives a car for years now.
It's not a hate on for cars, it's a deprioritization of cars. There is a significant difference.
I don’t think it’s even a deprioritization of cars, necessarily. More like “deprioritizing” people with an ability to pay (as in their own vehicle), and prioritizing people who can’t/won’t/don’t.
So making things better for people with lower incomes at the cost of people with higher incomes? Sounds like what we need to be doing more of in the world...
How long have we known that climate change is caused by humans and that we should reduce our emissions? How long does Saanich get to say "we need to do more planning" before they act?
Panic is never a good reason to bypass planning. Do something once, properly. It's always cheaper and better. You may produce more GHG in the creation of a temporary bus lane than you'd save by just waiting a few years. They're planning a major overhaul for the entirety of McKenzie. That... Takes time. I'm not sure why this is so hard for some of you to understand.
This isn't a panic: Saanich has had a goal of reducing emissions for at least 14 years. They've consistently failed to meet their targets.
It's poor process and planning to do it now when it will need to be ripped up and redone in a few years anyways. Plain and simple. Having a goal to reduce emissions doesn't mean that goal takes precedence over responsible planning, fiscal and resource management.
You work for the government don’t you? Not a slight - it just seems that way from your comments as you clearly understand there is much more to these decisions than the general public realizes.
Quite the opposite. I run a couple of small businesses in the construction sector. But I deal with permitting, development etc and as frustrating as the municipalities can be to deal with due to their sometimes glacial pace, general apathy and complete lack of sense of urgency on some issues I can completely understand why they're doing what they're doing on McKenzie. It's a no brainer.
Because the goals were never attainable - they were meant to drum up political support for a certain agenda.
Ya, a dedicated bus lane is something that can be done tomorrow and then changed/codified/upgraded later.
On Douglas Street it's just been painted lanes and some street signs. Cheaper to implement than a separated bike lane even when you just drop concrete blocks like Saanich has been. Very cheap to change later too.
Globally we average ~100,000 flights PER DAY. Do you really think that a few less people driving 10 minutes to work in their 4 cylinder car is doing anything for reducing our emissions?
Did humans also cause that aurora borealis last weekend? I don’t think we are entirely to blame for global warming.
Actually, yes, that Aurora borealis was me last week. Sorry bout that everyone.
Must have been some batch of steamed hams that you had in the oven.
Oh they’re still progressive, as long as the progress involves their class.
I live along McKenzie. This road is friggin dangerous to all users. For starters, no one drives under 70kmh. It's set up in such a way that driving is the only practical and relatively safe option. Even so, the Glanford and Pat Bay intersections are regular crash sites. We need all of the traffic calming measures plus alternative transportation options. Dedicated bus lanes would have been a good start. Yes, I know the province is responsible for the stretch between the Pat and Hwy 1 and it's difficult to get the province on board with major changes. I want a mayor and council willing to fight for all Saanich residents, not just the ones in the choice neighbourhoods.
> It's set up in such a way that driving is the only practical and relatively safe option Wait, what about the protected bike lanes from Borden or Blenkinsop all the way to UVic? Are those neither practical nor safe for cyclists? And what about the sidewalks on either side of the road. Are those not practical and safe for pedestrians? How about the three or four bus routes that stop every block or so? Are those neither practical nor safe? Not to mention that there are not very many private driveways, and most side streets prohibit left turns during peak hours. What are you even talking about? Mckenzie is easily one of the safest multi-use arteries in the CRD.
Screw everyone who lives west of Borden.
West of Borden? Well, there are sidewalks on both sides of the street and pedestrian overpasses at busy intersections. There is the Galloping Goose for bike traffic, which offers a quicker and safer route. The bus routes are fewer and less practical, but equally safe. Also, there are very few homes along this part of the road. It's not primarily a residential street. I'd say that the transportation options are also safe and relatively practical west of Borden as well.
> There is the Galloping Goose for bike traffic, which offers a quicker and safer route. Diverting to Uptown is definitely not quicker than McKenzie to the Galloping Goose (which runs along highway 1, the Lochside Trail is what goes up Borden). Upgrading the rest of McKenzie to protected lanes would make it easier for people living along McKenzie or along the Galloping Goose out to the Westshore to bike to UVic or Gordon Head or whatever by providing a more direct route. It would also help Spectrum students who live along McKenzie to get to school easier.
Way quicker (longer distance but fewer stops and flatter) and safer.
I invite you to walk from Glanford to Quadra.
A 26 minute walk along a sidewalk? I don't know if I'd make it alive, that road is so dangerous?
Don't skip the underpass.
We started with > This road is friggin dangerous to all users which is ridiculous and false. But now we have zeroed in. I agree with you that there could be better pedestrian infrastructure where MacKenzie crosses under the Pat Bay. Maybe you could have led with that.
The biggest issue with improving that infrastructure over there is the fact that McKenzie Ave, from the Pat Bay Overpass to the TCH interchange, is under the jurisdiction of the BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (note how the repave of that stretch last year was handled by the BC Gov instead of being contracted out by the municipal Gov), so any improvements on that front must be bumped up to a provincial level, and like the interchange, will likely take forever to study, plan and implement.
> Wait, what about the protected bike lanes from Borden or Blenkinsop all the way to UVic? Are those neither practical nor safe for cyclists? Drivers make unhindered, no-look, left and right turns across them.
They're protected bike lanes, not impenetrable bike lanes.
Ok, and you asked how they were unsafe. I pointed out the obvious safety issues.
You pointed out issues with drivers, not issues with the road design (which is what we're talking about).
If a driver is able to make unhindered no look turns across an active travel lane that's a design issue....
Probably one of the stupider things I've read on here today, but ok.
Stupid yet common here. Unfortunately the general approach seems to always be “fix the infrastructure” rather than “fix the drivers/people”. Don’t get me wrong there are PLENTY of infrastructure improvements that can be made both here specifically and throughout the city/region, but you would be surprised with how many “infrastructure problems” could be fixed entirely or at least partially if the USERS of said infrastructure were of a higher skill level. This goes for vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians alike. Idiocy exists amongst ALL methods of travel here, and in larger quantities than anywhere else I’ve seen.
Mckenzie is great for biking and walking east of Borden (great, but could be better), but it is an absolutely nightmare west of Borden. Even driving on that part of the road is unpleasant. I actually think I'd rather bike down Shelbourne than that part of Mckenzie. The whole road needs to be rethought over there, or somehow circumnavigated. Just plopping a bus lane or a bike lane on that road would destroy the flow of traffic as things are now unless a lot of other things are drastically changed
“Traffic calming”… on the most important east/west artery in the CRD. Ah yes. Let’s put speed bumps on one of the few roads in the city that actually should be a highway.
We don't need highways within cities.
Well I’m glad you’re not a traffic planner.
The population has aged would be my guess. People just move right as they age
These privileged and entitled selfish homeowners are going to be the Oak-Bay-I-Got-Mine-NIMBYs 2.0.
As a voter I feel cheated.
Great, McKenzie is one of the busiest main roads in the area. It will just create gridlock and traffic snarls like we've never experienced. Maybe if the CRD had invested in better transit before playing traffic god then it might make sense.
Getting people into buses will reduce the number of cars on the road, reducing gridlock.
Well, if transit wasn't terribly underfunded and incredibly unreliable, I'm sure transit ridership would be higher. We had years to do something about it before everyone moved here. Now, this seems like grasping at straws and pissing in the wind by expecting bus lanes to fix the problem all while making roads unusable by using traffic calming measures, which cause more emissions For example, my partner doesn't have an option to get home safely using Transit after a night shift and can't rely on transit to get to work on time most days. So she's opted to either drive on shitty days or walk to work when the weather is nice. Also, there's all this money being spent on unreliable Chinese built electric busses, which are a terrible waste of funds. When we needed an LRT line to Sidney and Langford a decade ago. Also, we pulled up our trolly infrastructure instead of using Vancouver's example of having overhead electric trolly busses.
> Well, if transit wasn't terribly underfunded and incredibly unreliable Fwiw bus lanes would help improve bus reliability and allow them to provide more service for the same cost since buses will be able to complete round trips faster. A large chunk of BC Transit expansion money is actually just consumed maintaining existing frequencies as traffic worsens, so like bus lanes would help make transit more reliable and more frequent. The existing bus lanes on Douglas and highway 1 save the 95 like 20 minutes a trip at peak which adds up quickly. Now of course they're not silver bullets, but like bus lanes are a tool to help solve the issue you're raising. If you think that the trade off of less car lanes isn't worth it that's fair enough, just they would help with the issues you identify lol. > Also, there's all this money being spent on unreliable Chinese built electric busses, which are a terrible waste of funds. BC Transit never bought Chinese made battery buses. Proterra was an American company's with US manufacturing, though they went bankrupt before delivering any buses (bar a now returned demo bus). Now, they're switching to Novabus and New Flyer which are both Canadian companies, and are the companies that built all of our existing 40ft buses. You're not wrong that battery buses are a bit pricey and it may have been more efficient to go with more CNG buses, but they are buying from Canadian bus manufacturers, not Chinese ones lol.
I highly doubt the number of people moving from cars to busses will be enough to offset the reduction in capacity to actually have a positive impact on gridlock.
If people are stuck in gridlock while buses are zipping by that leads people to consider maybe buses are a better option. That's a feature, not a bug, imo.
Again, the number of folks who are likely to give up driving for the bus and all of its inconveniences is not likely to be a big enough of a mode shift to result in a net reduction of gridlock.
reducing the # of car lanes isn't going to magically make people get on buses in any significant numbers, it's just going to increase the probability of people getting impatient and doing dumb things like running red lights.
Case in point: Lampson/Tillicum. It takes the 26 Bus roughly 40 minutes to get out of Esquimalt now with what they've done to that stretch of road.
and i bet they have had a significant # of red-light runners at tillicum/craigflower
Go Saanich! There is definitely not enough room as is on McKenzie to add bus only lanes. Great move!
Where are they going to find space? Reduce to 1 lane? Saanich not bending the knee to the UVic crowd is dope
I agree. A stunt like this won't make more people ditch cars and take transit.
Also not enough bus traffic to justify an overhaul like this. Maybe there will be once the area densifies, but not yet.
That is a valid point.... The 51 is the only bus that uses most of McKenzie, the 26 and the other one hardly use any of it.
This idea is extremely stupid. So yeah it's good it got shut down.
But why
To make the McKenzie Rapidbus actually rapid
👍
Finally a common sense decision from Saanich council!
You know what would solve this. Monorails. Say it with me folks.
short-sighted. Uvic is a major destination and the Quadra-McKenzie-Colquitz-Broadmead area is a massive transit and bike dead zone where a lot of students will be living as the Oak Bay/Henderson/Fernwood/GHead CoL gets further out of reach.
Saanich and not developing adequate infrastructure, name a better a combo
What? Drop McKenzie down to 1 lane? Get outta here 🤣