If you provide good public transport options, you won't have traffic problems.
- Jaime Lerner
Let’s get a bus up Westport Road.
The 262 Bus should be servicing the communities between Lions Bay and Caulfield, not the passenger-less highway above.
The 262 bus currently moves between Horseshoe Bay and Caulfield Village via Highway 1, completely bypassing the Gleneagles, Eagle-Ridge, Eagle Island and Eagle Harbour communities totalling over 3500 residents. There is a need for kids attending Rockridge Secondary school to have transit available in the morning and afternoons alongside residents who do not drive or who choose not to drive. We need that bus to get people from Marine Drive up Westport Road to Caulfield shopping and Rockridge High School.
The 262 Bus services zero bus stops between Horseshoe Bay and Caulfield Village bypassing the vibrant communities along Marine Drive. Let’s tame the pick up/drop off nightmare at Rockridge, promote independent teens, cleaner air and lower stress levels. We need to make every effort to reduce traffic congestion, Greenhouse Gas emissions and promote an evolved transportation culture here in West Vancouver.
This route edit would also provide Lions Bay residents with car free access to beaches, restaurants and the Gleneagles Community Centre. Everybody hates traffic but we are all traffic.
From the Department of Engineering:
Thank you for your patience while staff have investigated this matter with our colleagues at Translink.
The 262 Lions Bay / Caulfeild is a community shuttle that originates and terminates across the street from Caulfeild Village Shopping Centre, near Rockridge Secondary School. Its main purpose is to connect residents of Lions Bay with services in Horseshoe Bay/ Caulfeild and provide transfer opportunities to the rest of the transit network; there are no other TransLink transit services serving Lions Bay. The 262 also provides a connection for residents of Horseshoe Bay to Caulfield.
In reviewing this request, several criteria were considered including existing service within localized travel markets, resource and financial needs to support the change in service, localized customer impacts and broader customer impacts within the region, as follows:
Existing Service
Residents of Gleneagles / Eagle Harbour, which lies between Caulfeild and Horseshoe Bay, are requesting that the route travel on local roads—Marine Drive and Westport Road—rather than Hwy 1, in order to connect these communities to the commercial amenities at Caulfeild and the adjacent Rockridge Secondary School. Residents in this area currently have access to shopping and services at Horseshoe Bay, Dundarave and beyond via route 250. However, customers must travel to Horseshoe Bay to connect to service to Caulfeild. Refer to Figure 1 below.
Resource Needs
Currently, there are no available excess service hours to increase service in outside of those identified in the 2022 Translink Investment Plan, nor would this request fit within the scope options currently being contemplated for the 2024 Investment Plan; further information can be found at TransLink's 2022 Investment Plan .
Customer Impacts
The proposed routing would add approximately 7+ minutes of travel time for customers travelling through that section of the route. This is a negative impact for customers travelling through the Gleneagles / Eagle Harbour area; in particular, it creates a longer journey for customers in Lions Bay trying to reach Caulfeild.
Changing this route to serve additional destinations, including the secondary school, within current service levels could potentially lead to overcrowding and pass-ups, negatively impacting current customers. Adding service to address this would significantly increase service costs and similarly, adding mitigations to address increased travel times for Lions Bay residents would also add cost.
In closing, as a result of TransLink and West Vancouver Transit’s current financial needs and service commitments, and a high number of competing customer priorities, reallocating resources to this request is not possible at this time without impacting existing customers elsewhere on the North Shore and elsewhere in the region.
Best regards,
Engineering & Transportation Services | District of West Vancouver
engineeringdept@westvancouver.ca | 604-925-7020
