Douglas Street Busway BRT

A letter submitted to the Times Colonist by a Victoria resident:

Two bus lanes down the centre of Douglas Street? Get real! Let’s get it right for the next 100 years. Here are some suggestions: Purchase Town and Country Shopping Centre and put in a clover-leaf junction. This will serve Blanshard Street, Douglas Street, the Pat Bay Highway, the Trans-Canada Highway and numerous other streets in that area. Below the junction, put a transit centre for trains and buses. This would allow Saanich to develop a town centre around this facility with excellent links to the rest of the island.

Widen Blanshard Street and the Pat Bay Highway all the way to the ferries, reclaim the Galloping Goose Trail from Town and Country all the way to Sooke, then lay two railway tracks down the centre of Pat Bay Highway, and retrack to Sooke, with a connection at Langford to service up-Island.

Purchase the old Hudson Bay building to use as a transit centre for all bus companies. Knock down the existing carpark, and build 10 floors (five up, five down), with two floors for buses and trains, leaving eight floors for car parking. Service the downtown area with mini-buses and remove the large transit buses from this area, allowing traffic to flow smoother at rush hours. These smaller buses would service the new transit centre. If developers want to develop on the lower Island, they should pay a levy to cover water, sewage and transit expansion, not the people who already live here. If you want people out of their cars, build a system that works. This is not rocket science. It’s common sense. I would be happy to make some suggestions on how to raise funds for this project. Jim Smith, Victoria.

Wow, that kind of degrades anyone else that has ever written anything intelligent into a newspaper. Why did they print this? To make all transit people seem like whackos?

If developers want to develop on the lower Island, they should pay a levy to cover water, sewage and transit expansion, not the people who already live here.

Also this is already the case. Why do people think that developers don't pay for this stuff?

This is not rocket science. It’s common sense.

Yeah buddy. Common sense. *ding dong*

Ol' Jimbo lost me at "...purchase Town and Country..."

The new residents at Short Street will LOVE that one...

Billions of dollars to accomplish what, exactly? Trimming a couple of minutes from the commute into downtown?

Keep taking those meds, Jim!

Oh, Lord, that's rich....

Hmm...perhaps I'm being too critical. After all, Vibrant Victoria is supposed to be a forum where people holding diverse views can feel free to debate the form our city will take. I appreciate Jim's plans for transit and will direct his ideas to the place where they will do the most good.

I think a lot of people are missing the point behind the reasoning for putting bus lanes down the middle of Douglas Street. The centre bus lanes will be built to accomadate proper roadbed for the future LRT route. So if the proper fundation is built now, all that has to be done down the road is throw on the rails.... and DONE!!! It does actually make sense. Richmond has this centre only bus lanes on No. 3 Road for the 98 B-Line and it has proved very successful.

Is the CRD ready for LRT??? Our population base is too low, but our georgraphy and lack of infastructure (roads) between the core and the west would allow for an LRT to be built and be successful. Right now we have three roads that connect - two one-lane roads, and the TCH (which we all knows has its problems - McKenzie, Tillicum...). You will notice to that most of the high-rise approvals, proposals for the westshore are close to the future LRT plans. Could it be we are starting to think things out?

I am all for the BRT lanes down Douglas. Though they seem to be a long way from actually appearing. It may spur some growth at places like Mayfair etc...

Here's a good pic of streetcars on Douglas Street:

That is a great pick. I think the long term plan for street car/LRT on Douglas south of Caledonia is for the outside lanes to be used and then once at Caledonia would cross over and continue up the center as shown here.

What a future LRT line is density along the route. At-present, and for the foreseeable future judging by zoning and proposals, there will be virtually no density between downtown and Langford centre (or whatever we call it). Tillicum, Admirals and other portions near the Goose are virtually void of any sizable density to fill up stations.

There's virtually no regional planning on density nodes so Saanich is focusing everything in the UVic/Shelbourne areas.

Any word on the Douglas Street busway plan? All of a sudden things have become very, very quiet on this issue.

The last transit commision meeting was cancelled so perhap that is why it has been extra quiet.
Also could be a funding issue. The busways are supposed to cost 3.3 million so that money has to come from somewhere.

At last night's Dowtown Plan meeting they did mention the Douglas Street Rapid Transit Corridor so it hasn't fallen off the radar completely.

Perhaps just the funding which I think was partially covered by the Federal liberals Urban Infrastructure program. Whether the Conservatives will carry through may be the question.

The busway doesn't start until Herald Street.

Aren't the bike lanes north of Herald, too? I might be wrong but I think they are.

Yeah, new ones go way past--to Bay Street at least.

I biked down it one night and because there were no cars parked on the street at that hour I felt like I was riding in the middle of the street (which I was!) and it felt very unsafe.

Just because the City now gives me permission to ride down the middle of Douglas at 10 P.M. doesn't mean I'm going to take advantage of that offer.

Ah, that's what I thought. Thanks for clarifying.

In any case, its sort of odd how those lanes just appeared out of nowhere. So are we going to pay the bill to have the lines removed and repainted once the busway goes in? Seems silly to paint the lines on the even of the busway.

Yeah, new ones go way past--to Bay Street at least.

I biked down it one night and because there were no cars parked on the street at that hour I felt like I was riding in the middle of the street (which I was!) and it felt very unsafe.

Just because the City now gives me permission to ride down the middle of Douglas at 10 P.M. doesn't mean I'm going to take advantage of that offer.

What concerns me about the lanes is that other users use them too. I was walking north on Douglas oe afternoon between Johnson and Pandora, and there was this senior citizen on a scooter just motoring along in on of the lanes, one of the double decker buses slipped into the the stop just on the right of the guy...

Bike lanes in downtown of some European cities are similar (with traffic on either side of the lanes), but it felt different there.. maybe becuase the cars are smaller?