SomeIslandKid

now entering SA_NOCH!

I was curious about that. They seem to have ended up on the ferry, though I kinda just forgot to check what happened to them after taking this photo lol

There's a bunch of unlisted 26 trips that just appear on the live tracking apps, but not the website. They said in one of the commission meetings that they're doing unlisted service and that the official published schedule is the "minimum" (Lololol) service standard. Lets them deal with the staffing issues, and unexpected demand. There was like a 26 every 6 minutes from Uptown to UVic when I was going to campus yesterday, made for a nice transfer (until McKenzie congestion made the bus like 15 minutes late, should've took the 4...)

Can't wait for the fall when UVic and Camosun are back in person. It'll be some fun chaos. Bonus points, they need to do the normal large increase in service hours to have enough capacity wooooooooo Hopefully all those training buses I've been seeing is a good sign. A month hopefully will be enough time to get more people trained and ready, and presumably less people will be wanting to take time off compared to the summer. Not sure how successful they'll be, but hopefully it will improve substantially. Edit: I wonder how much transit staffing issues can be traced back to the housing shortage/crisis. Stuff's really broken here, it shouldn't be harder to find housing than it is to get a job yet here we are where it is.

From what I recall from the Victoria thread, there's a weight limit on Atkins too eh? Which limits them to smaller buses on the 53 in general. Sad, but oh well haha. As for the 65, a friend of mine who lived in Sooke at the time it was implemented said it's about as fast as the 61, so the route's overall ridership is solid. It also provides peak service into Langford's core like combined 50-61 trips do, while the pure 61 skips that whole area during peak hours. Westhills meanwhile does have other transit services (39, 46, 47, 58). It's about an extra 5 minutes to the nearest 58 stop from the last 65 stop in Westhills, which while not ideal, is more than 2 buses a day. There is fallbacks. Definitely agree the 65 could use more service despite that. I'll also give the caveat I've never rode the 65, but I'd consider it if I needed to get to Langford and it showed up before a 50. Bonus points if it saves a transfer or walk to the 58 or 52. I'll also say that I regularly rode the 48 pre-COVID when it was 2 trips like the 65, and it was well used.

Don't hold your breath for artics in Victoria. Pretty sure they're still planning double deckers, in part because of the constrained block sizes. Douglas street is pretty packed with buses at rush hour even with the bus lanes due to the sheer number of routes travelling it. While I guess you could take off some of the peak only one seat commuter trips, I doubt that's a major consideration considering they just added commuter service to the 53 (and apparently run a 30ft bus on it lol)

From what I've seen from recent transit commission meetings it seems like COVID differed expansions will resume in January for Victoria so long as the province funds it. The Feb 23rd meeting had an annual service plan presented, which includes a mildly longer evening service span on the 3 and 10, and the 46 getting midday and early evening service starting in April, along with June's 53 re-route. I guess hourly service still applies, but at least it's a start. Here's a link to the specific document, and the meeting overall. I'd like to see more expansion than just the deferred hours, but hopefully 2022/2023 will see an acceleration.

Bus wedding! Bus wedding! This is quite sweet. I wish them the best! : D

I was gonna say what CV92 had said. It's the sustainability page that specifically mentions low floor. As for the NYC double deckers, It's an easy to miss historical fact. I only knew about them because some happened to be in the shot of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in these clips of a vacation in the 1930s. 13:45 for those of you who want to skip to them. Otherwise enjoy the 42 minutes of 1930s New York, it shouldn't disappoint.

Where did you find that report? The only information given in the only linked article was that it was a 50. Nothing about the speed of the bus.

Eh there's a lot that a driver could've done to contribute to it. Possible safety measures that could be added. The results could be a big ole meh, but maybe there's a couple small ways to improve the railings, add some padding, or something. Alternatively, maybe the driver hit the gas way too hard, or had to slam on the breaks to avoid hitting something or someone, and it can shine a light on better tactics/the need for better road designs. Or maybe someone threw themselves down the stairs to see what'd happen. Never hurts to investigate and figure out what went wrong, and what reasonable steps to prevent it can be taken in the future.

You should be happy with the plans in the Sooke Local Area Plan. It proposes cutting out Sunriver from the 64 and making it into one of 3 Sooke local routes. The 64 can then better service East Sooke with an additional connection to the Langford exchange via Metchosin, providing service to Beecher Bay. The 63 would also get a redo, cutting Whiffen Spit, while the 61/65/possible new variant would get a frequency boost. Lol if they add a new version and it ends up as the old 61x routing down Veterans. Here's a badly snipped screenshot of the planned local routes, check the real PDF for actually quality and individual route diagrams haha. The local routes would get hourly service 6 days a week, bi-hourly Sunday, 30 min weekday peak, while the rural 63/64 would double from 4 trips a day to 8 or 9 with added Saturday service. Here's hoping they happen since they'd be a great improvement for Sooke.

So yesterday around 2pm I saw the hybrid double decker on Metchosin road somewhere between Painter and Wishart. Going towards Sooke Road, away from Metchosin/Royal Bay. It wasn't in service. Anyone have any ideas why a decker would be there? Never seen one south of Sooke road before with the 48 being the only route that doesn't regularly run Vicinities (though the 52 regularly runs at least one NX40). No depots or anything either. Could they possibly be investigating running deckers to idk Royal Bay or something? I didn't get to see much of where it came from or went after as I was walking and even if I wanted to follow it, I can't run at 50km/h lol.

Most of Belmont Park is military housing too eh? I've seen a gov of Canada couch bus that seem to go between CFB Esquilmalt and Belmont Park at rush hour which would definitely take away a nice chunk of potential ridership, leaving mainly just families. As for John Stubbs, it's an SD62 school which means school buses are a thing unlike all the SD61 schools further limiting ridership potential. Especially as an elementary school with smaller scale enrolment numbers and as parents are generally less willing to let their 6 year old kid ride transit alone than they would a middle or high schooler. So that leaves the few non-military housing units in the area, and families of military members as riders. Many of those families own cars too since I think it's all family housing as well. There's also the case that a decent chunk of Belmont Park is within a 10 minute walk of stops along Sooke Road and Goldstream which further lowers potential local trip ridership as it becomes easier to just walk to Sooke road for the able bodied living on that side of it. 20+ minutes at the far end certainly makes the case for the 43's existence, but as you said it's just nearly impossible to service well without compromising service for the rest of the Westshore.

Not a problem now with Sooke road experiencing far less congestion than before, but the morning runs of the 43 would have been vastly improved by running it the other way so it didn't just get stuck in this mess every morning I mean I guess technically this way Belmont Park residents can get to Royal Roads but idk if enough people need that for it to be worth the empty 40ft bus idling in traffic. Although saying that Ocean Blvd also got pretty bad congestion too, so idk maybe it was a negligible difference time wise Ngl looking back there's a few times I should've just got off the 48 and walked to the preceding 51. (Both 48s were timed to go down Sooke road right after a 51 did. Hopefully the April 48 changes mean it's fixed once the 51 is reinstated) I could've actually made that transfer with how bad this was lol

I just think BC Transit is incapable of lining up transfers well based on how awfully timed Westshore local routes are. Yeah they're totally doing a good job reducing overcrowding on the 50 by making transfers to the 39, 46, and 51 near impossible, and lining up local routes with 50-61s. The 39 especially is awful for Interurban students since at least in the case of the 59 it's a 40-50 minute (pre-COVID at least) wait or doing downtown to transfer and it used to be good before the 59/60 scheduled got moved by 30 minutes ? Oh also another thing, but after the nightly drop from 15 to 30 minute service on the 4 and 50 the downtown bound 4s always got to Douglas just after a Langford bound 50 left making for an extra 30 minutes waiting in a not exactly comfortable for everyone environment. I found the 27/28 and 14(15?) lined up with the 50 better, but those aren't options for a decent chunk of Hillside (never tested the 6) so there's another poorly planned transfer that makes transit just not work nearly as well as it could. Like just move them offset by a couple minutes each and suddenly people visiting friends have a realistic option again. I know there's factors of why including how hard it is to slot everything in with limited resources, and it's a complicated thing to plan, but dang they could make some decent improvements without increasing the number of trips or revenue hours just by lining transfers up well.

Apparently the 19 went between Hillside Mall and James Bay and was killed off in Jan 2018. I found it in the VRTC documents a while ago while trying to figure out what exactly happened with the Westshore changes in April 2018 lol.

Yes I agree they should be available off the bus, however without them being on the bus, it wouldn't have helped me when I've needed it. I'd used my phone to see when my 3 route 2 transfer trip from UVic lined up and got hit with surprise highway traffic after getting on the 50. It was after 9:30pm at that point so most places you suggested would be closed. I had to figure out how to catch a different bus mid-trip, which included being unsure of which exchange to get off at as I had already known the 52 gets me close enough to home, not which time it left which exchange. I left the guide onboard since I only needed it then. There's value on having them on-board, so I only object to removing them from the buses since transfers to an infrequent route don't always go as planned and Google Maps won't give backup options ahead of time. Getting BC Transit to have a perfect 100% on time rate is the only way to prevent that use-case. Another use-case is a regular rider grabbing a new schedule with each service change. Assuming COVID doesn't totally destroy the VRTC's plans of 20,000 expansion hours a year for the near future this will present an on-going need for print guide using riders to get new ones. Having them on-board makes this convenient for people who don't regularly pass through a place where the guides are distributed. I completely agree that every place you suggested would be great, it's just that keeping them on board is also important.

Before I had data I had to use the ones on the bus to figure out what's the best way to get sorta close to my house when the 50 was late and it broke the transfer to the (too early) last bus to my neighbourhood for example. It was figuring out how the 52 worked and walking 20ish minutes, or walking 60ish minutes. So yeah, having rider's guides on board is good. It is a touch point, but like people should've been washing their hands after taking transit since well before the pandemic lol

I wish there was some sorta reverse direction Cowichan Valley service. Like even if it's only one morning trip up and one afternoon trip down it'd open the option to take transit in both directions 6 days a week. Technically it's possible to bus from Vic to Lake Cowichan 6 days a week, but since the Cowichan/Duncan route (plus the 2 little Youbou and Honeymoon Bay connectors) start after the last Victoria bus comes down Saturday is the only time the reverse is possible with thanks to midday 44 service. This goes for a lot or all of the Cowichan Valley local routes. It'd open the Cowichan Valley to some level of daytrips, which would be awesome. I know enough people who drive between the two daily, there's certainly travel demand. Also Shawnigan Lake could have totally been rolled into the Vic system had history gone differently. It's a similar distance from downtown to it as it is to Sooke and Sydney. Also huh never realized the trend of S names on the edge of Greater Victoria lol. The Malahat is sorta a breakpoint but so is highway 14 tbh. Once the Sooke area plan is implemented highway 14 at Otter Point road will receive service under the Victoria system while being a 50km drive from the legislature. I mean it does seem a little more integrated into Mill Bay and Duncan in terms of daily life stuff, but there's been ads on Langford bus stops for some Cobble Hill pizza place so like the connections between the 2 systems could stand to see some substantial improvements. Actually on that note, should the E&N ever get reactivated with say hourly service between Vic and Duncan, the Cowichan Valley would instantly become the next growing commuter suburb. Duncan has the urban core to support some level of it already. Do I think it'll happen? Not really, but who knows the future is uncertain in times like these

Similar to the wild 15, I saw a bus saying "EXTRA BUS" coupled with a "NOT IN SERVICE" today lol. Also a drop off only double decker front door wide open making a turn from Douglas northbound onto Finlayson headed east for some whatever reason. Looked like a maintenance worker driving it, maybe he needed to get back to the depot without making any left hand turns lol. The Rapidbus thing isn't new, it's been planned for a while. Even the current "rapidbus" term vs general rapid transit had a timeline shown somewhere that I can't find now. That announcement fits in with the timeline from what I remember of it. If you look through Commission meeting documents from before ye old pandemic there's mentions of it too. Langford's OCP plan also makes mention of a future BRT system down Goldstream, though the planning for that can probably be traced back to like 2008 when the Douglas busway plans got scrapped because oh no some left turns won't exist and without cars businesses (somehow) go broke, the horror oh no! I'm salty it took over a decade to get curbside lanes in to Uptown in both directions when the original Douglas BRT proposal would've been done in 2010 (or like 2014 because it's the CRD lamo) and been higher quality :< Still 9 minute frequencies would be awesome and I want to see it happen quite rapidly ?

Oh well I guess that's an unexpected goodbye to the Darts. I'm not even sure when the last time I rode one was. Oh well my feelings on them are a bit mixed since I didn't get to ride them that much. I liked the interior more than the Vincinities, but they kinda seemed like they're falling apart. Whatever one they ran on the Triangle Mountain loop had the rear route sign constantly flickering on and off with every bump in the road. Had a simplistic charm to it, that I might be the only to appreciate lol. Now for the Arbocs, finally! The only good thing I can say about them as a passenger is that the radio was cool. But they were brutal running full along Happy Valley rd and probably a source of a lot of lost ridership that won't be recovered without service expansion. Standing on them wasn't really a good time either, which some drivers did despite it being illegal. One guy was like "crouch so the police don't see" and yeah I have no positive feelings towards them. Also they always smelled weird when I first regularly started taking transit in fall 2017. That got fixed, but ugh. And finally the lack of night time bike racks wasn't great especially if say someone gets a flat tire or doesn't have lights. Also with the Westshore having poor or non-existent bike infrastructure, night bike racks help people's mobility. I guess the other plus side was that the Arbocs made talking to the driver relatively easy, though it's not too difficult on the Vincinties nor 40fters, at least without COVID restrictions. The protective barriers will be interesting to see, but oh well safety first.

I hope I get one last chance to ride a D40LF before they're all retired. Haven't been going out much cause COVID, but I always liked the 90s charm to them. The interior at night hits some retro-future big city vibes for me while the Nova's hit some less exciting 2000s vibes. The one time I got on an XN40 it just felt modern, which can feed into a newer sci-fi feel, but it's different. In a similar vein the Vicinities also hit some more modern sci-fi feel at times, but it's not the nostalgic charm of the Darts. Modern emissions standards and lower maintenance requirements are for the best in both cases however.

For speed the answer's memory mainly, it was from the November 2019 meeting so it wasn't that long ago. I usually look at every document, though tend to quickly skim the financial reports lol. They actually run a modified version of the 75 for the Saanich Fair in addition to the normal one that takes Stelly's Cross Road instead of Wallace downtown. Or at least I think they do, I tried catching it last year but the one we wanted never showed up so me and my friend ended up walking to Wallace/Stelly's Cross and a normal 75-31 showed up first so who knows maybe the other came slightly after, maybe it didn't, but whatever I got to have fun people watching on the way back so all's well that ends well. Might've made for a worse transfer to the 50 though, but eh I made it eventually. Personal antidote aside, the difference between Wallace and Stelly's Cross road seems minimal with how the service is set up. Both roads are primarily flanked by farmland, with Stelly's being in the middle and serviced equally well by both. It looks like Stelly's has a paved possibly lit path mitigating some of the problems walking between the 2. The last houses before the fairgrounds along Stelly's Cross road are within a 10 minute walk of the nearest southbound stop and Wallace shorter to Northbound ones. It's a wild service pattern, but also it seems like it kinda just somehow works so it doesn't seem like it's the highest regional priority to fix aside from maybe running northbound service through the Brentwood Loop again, but that requires Brentwood to update some road designs. Not to open that can too far, but does the 85 actually run 40ft buses? Or is it just community shuttles and 30 or 35fters? It also seems like the the kink in the road at Clarke might present problems having a bus whip around it. Also I uh can't find a route that travels down Cromar, the 85 is a street over on both Downey and Wain, which appear wider and with more defined lanes than both Cromar and Hagan. Fair enough mistake to make, but Cromar isn't a sign of any inconsistency re road sizes acceptable for a BC Transit bus.

Some of the problems with the 75 stem from some very poor road design it seems.