I’ve lived in a few major cities in Canada and all had one thing in common; reserved bus lanes.
Large urban centres understand the importance of having reserved bus lanes in outlying communities to get people out of their cars and onto a bus.
Those cities build large parking lots outside the city centre with free parking and bus services every four to five minutes. Buses then proceed to a reserved bus lane and happily roll down the highway, unobstructed by traffic at 80 to 90 km/h. This reduces commute times by more than half.
In Montreal, I lived on the South Shore and had the option of either taking the bus (20 minutes to downtown) or my car (90 minutes). Passengers are more relaxed and save wear and tear on their vehicles. Transit riders grin at the folks stuck in bumper to bumper traffic.
In Victoria though, it seems more important to build bus lanes in order to get buses moving South of Uptown. We spend countless amounts of money telling taxpayers that their money was used to buy new buses and hire drivers. In my mind, a bus stuck in traffic is pretty useless. The best sales pitch for a transit system is when you can give users more time at home with their families and allow them to fly past traffic.
Get a reserved bus lane in on Highway 1 so that we can also grin at those poor folks stuck in that morning and afternoon commutes.
Sacha Menard
Langford