By Nigel Malkin
The B-Line is now stopping at Park Royal and will be staying there for now. At last a good signal for the huge maority of residents who have fought TransLink and the district since early December. We hope this will keep the B-Line out of Ambleside – Dundarave until the next election and if those on council want to push for it then make it an election issue.
From the day this was rolled out it was very clear that the B-Line along with all the bus priority measures was not going to work for Ambleside – Dundarave. I think more worrying was the fact that it ended up with some on council bringing in outside influences in an obvious attempt to sway the decision. To see in the end that even the manipulated consultation results still so strongly opposing the bus lanes, parking loss and articulated buses passing Park Royal shows how flawed the concept was to begin with. Of particular interest was that the report originally only included correspondence during the dates of the public feedback period.
Only after seeing that outside influences had sent in lots of correspondence after the consultation process was over did the district count all correspondence. Again, a flawed process in an attempt to change the outcome and quite frankly another insult to the community. This was a consultation process that only started after a massive outcry from the residents of West Vancouver and the most correspondence that Mayor and Council have ever had on any issue.
So, the B-Line ends at Park Royal, but of grave concern is the fact that some on council continues to look for options past Park Royal. Moreover, the concerns there are over the preliminary traffic consultation reported on by Ray Fung that again has parking loss for 1400-1500 bocks of Marine Drive for left hand turn lanes to speed up bus travel through the business district of West Vancouver.
There was no mechanism to make a comment and not one of the TransLink reps had so much as a business card to communicate with them. I asked Ray Fung of the District of West Vancouver how many buses used the bus lanes per hour and he claimed there were 60 buses per hour during rush hour and had no idea how many during in non rush hour times. The following morning I counted the buses and the actual number was 34 and did not change much during the rest of the day, he had overstated by over 40%. There were two more meetings for the general public at which I arrived with handouts including the bus count, again not even a comment card from TransLink.
Contrary to any rumor there maybe I am not, nor do I have any aspirations to be a politician. The past four months have been an interesting visit into municipal politics, and, I am horrified by what I have seen. Not just from our mayor and some on council but also our paid municipal staff who have worked so very hard against the residents of the community on an issue that they knew in early December was not going to fly. Also, at play was TransLink who are an all powerful and a truly terrible Dis-organization.
The B-Line was never discussed with: School Board, Police, Fire, Seniors, residents, Businesses or even Irwin Park School where the Terminus was supposed to be. After we organized Stoptheroadclosures we were never approached by TransLink to discuss or look at options it was a take it or leave it approach because they knew best. We have proven that they do not know best yet they tried to force this project upon us without ever putting boots on the ground shows us all how TransLink operates.
With all transportation systems there are hubs, airlines do it, ferries and even Skytrain does this. I would like to point out that the North Shore currently has three Transit Hubs, Phibbs Exchange, Lonsdale Quay and Park Royal. Dundarave never was a terminus in any way shape or form and was only a place that the 250a bus turns around to become the 250 bus. The fact that TransLink wanted to park not one but two articulated buses directly in front of Irwin Park School and they even had the nerve to put the drivers washroom in front of the kindergarten without speaking to the school board. Astounding…..
But before I go into the facts behind the B-Line it is always best to start at the beginning of the story. In June 2018 there was a meeting of businesses at which it was announced that the parking lane on the South Side of the Marine Drive would be taken in the mornings and the North side parking lanes taken in the afternoons for bus lanes during rush hours. I tried to interject but we had to sit through a presentation for nearly half an hour about this before I was allowed to speak and explained that the parking spaces were too small to fit their 102” wide bus and the TransLink rep then questioned me saying “You mean to tell me you measured the parking spaces?” my reply was “you mean to tell me you have not, Shame!”
He left and I thought that was the end of that. On November 26th my life changed as I went to a meeting at municipal hall at which it was announced by District and TransLink staff that they would be removing 25 – 31 parking spaces from Marine Drive and turning the inside traffic lanes from 1300-2300 blocks into bus lanes 24 hours a day (Lets not worry about the fact that no buses will run 24 hours a day in W Van, even the B-Line). The business group were all told that this was a “done deal” and that “there is nothing you can do about it”.
There was no mechanism to make a comment and not one of the TransLink reps had so much as a business card to communicate with them. I asked Ray Fung of the District of West Vancouver how many buses used the bus lanes per hour and he claimed there were 60 buses per hour during rush hour and had no idea how many during in non rush hour times. The following morning I counted the buses and the actual number was 34 and did not change much during the rest of the day, he had overstated by over 40%. There were two more meetings for the general public at which I arrived with handouts including the bus count, again not even a comment card from TransLink.
Also, we were informed that this was a “done deal” and that there was “nothing we could do about it”. Well for the first time in my life I decided not to be the silent majority as I always have been and to take a stand so now the story begins.
I had a meeting with Mayor Booth and the districts CAO that lead nowhere and thus the start of Stoptheroadclosures. This started with myself going along marine drive delivering out sheets of paper with information on it about B-Line to all the businesses along Marine Drive. Soon there was a group of business people and concerned residents that joined together to stop the bus lanes and parking loss. We held meetings and slowly became organized, until now I had no idea how to be an activist but that is what was starting. Within a week we held a protest on Marine Drive that was picked up by all the local media and we were gaining some visibility. Our next step was to request ridership data from TransLink to understand the need for the B-Line to Dundarave. To date the actual data requested has never been provided to support the B-Line passing Park Royal.
What can you do when you are stonewalled by TransLink and the district, we just did things ourselves. We got volunteers to count people in buses at 1300 and Marine and 25th and Marine so that we knew who arrived in Dundarave and who were on the bus at 13th. This was done in both directions all day long and although only for one day and only observational research it was the best we could do and I will say a lot better than TransLink who only last week said to council “maybe we should have put some boots on the ground in West Van”. We also used some of TransLinks own data due to the amount of time it takes to do manually as we never had access to any tap on data or real APC data.
To go on through the steps of ridership is about as painful as sitting through the past 10 council meetings so I will give out a Coles notes version. On March 6th we counted the buses and the totals are Westbound 3,081 and Eastbound 4,488 so a grand total of every passenger going through Ambleside – Dundarave being 7,569. Now we know where the fake 8,000 passenger count that TransLink comes up withc. It is every single passenger that goes near the area not the boardings and allightings they claim.
This number needs to be subtracted is the 257 bus as this is the Horseshoe bay Express bus that has no benefit from B-Line so we take away 1,939 passengers. Next, we take away the ridership West of 25th and this is another 1,161 so we are left with a total ridership in the Ambleside – Dundarave corridor of 4,469 or 56% of TransLink’s FAKE 8,000 number.
Next look at the West Vancouver to North Vancouver side of this number to create the volume for B-Line. This time we will use TransLink’s own data and from the paragraph above we would have to assume the numbers I am now quoting are high, but we will use them anyway. The total volume of passengers in both directions going from Park Royal to North Vancouver on both routes is 4,024 passengers. For the 239 bus 2,337 and the 255 bus 1687. The 255 bus west of 11th has a total of 1,087 (Our Count was 771 or 30% less than TransLink’s number) passengers so 35% of the ridership for it gets on and off at Park Royal.
Assuming that the same number transfers from the 239 bus to another bus (this number is very conservative because it is far less. to continue past Park Royal that would take the 239 passengers down to 1,520 for a new total of 2,607. Now we need to remove ridership west of 25th because the B-Line would end at 25th. Our best assumption is that 35% will go past 25th so this number drops 2,075.
How important is the 255 bus and the fact that it goes to Lionsgate hospital and directly to Capilano University? So, of our 2,075 passengers how many will remain on the 255 bus? The new route with B-Line will remove the Lynn Valley routeing so the bus will take 45 -50 minutes to reach Capilano University (the same amount of time it would take on B-Line). Of our 2,075 passengers we will have to assume that most of the current 1,087 riders will remain. Also from the 239 bus of our assumed 988 passengers that are from Ambleside – Dundarave how many will want to get off at a specific stop and not one that could be up to half a kilometre away? Some will want the more frequent stops of the 255.
By best estimates the B-Line will start with a total of at best 1087 passengers and will more than likely start with around 800. To make these numbers even worse is this is ridership in each direction so we are talking about 400 to 545 people in total. How can we have a bus service with a capacity of over 25,000 passengers per day that will actually have so few passengers. It would average out to about four passengers per bus.
While in Surrey last weekend I was approached by a lady who asked if I was Nigel Malkin “the person against the B-Line in West Van”. She said that she lived in Norgate and that a huge majority of them are against the Main – Marine B-Line also. This went against all that I have head so asked her to continue. She explained that most people in Norgate drive downtown because all the buses going to the city are full by the time they get to Pemberton Ave. She then went onto describe that the 239 and 255 buses (what would be the B-Line route) are almost always half full or less. The question now arises, what is the Main – Marine B-Line accomplishing and why? From the ridership data it is not needed between North and West Vancouver at all. Is there a bottleneck between North and West Vancouver? No, but there are problems with Lionsgate and Ironworkers bridges.
Today the City and District of North Vancouver announced a B-Line crossing the Ironworkers bridge and after talking with others in Norgate and Pemberton heights it would appear that this is what was needed on the West Side of North Vancouver. The Main- Marine B-Line should have gone over the Lionsgate bridge and West Vancouver should have had a few more 250 buses (which we are getting soon anyway) to do the same thing. The Main – Marine B-Line was nothing more than a political decision that does not serve anyone well, was poorly planned and should not be implemented at all. What is needed is methods of getting passengers across the bridges more effectively because they are the source of almost all the transportation problems on the North Shore. As with West Vancouver almost 80% of the bus passengers going along the marine corridor go to Vancouver. One of the first rules of business is the 80/20 principal and you want to do business with the 80%.
The Main – Marine B-Line was a political concept to please the North shore that gives a lot to TransLink and gets little in return. The problem is that this political agenda had no business plan whatsoever and no reason to go past Park Royal. In fact, B-Line would have served the North Shore better not going to West Vancouver at all but going downtown where the majority of the ridership west of Lonsdale. As it is West Vancouver is getting more 250 and 257 buses in the coming weeks that will very much help the busy route to downtown.
I would like to say that our biggest concern was the outside influences that got involved. Force of Nature were a very visible part of the debate although very few were residents of West Vancouver. The environmental movement did not want the B-Line to go away even though it made no sense by adding 25,000 additional passenger capacity to an area that is already very well served makes no environmental sense at all. For today West Vancouver managed to keep the status quo and keep things as they are. What the future holds with the likes of Nora Gambioli stating that she will not vote for any measures that will help the single occupancy vehicle or our mayor who happily invited outside influences into the debate I do not know.
What I do know, is that the usually very silent majority of West Vancouver spoke out and we did not end up stuck with something we did not want or need. A very small victory for those of us that are usually happy to just go about our lives thinking that government is doing what is best for us all. This was a wake up call for me and I hope for everyone that we need to pay attention, especially to municipal politics where some feel they can do whatever is on their agenda. Well in West Vancouver this is no longer the case.
Nigel Malkin is a West Vancouver resident and businessman.
Vocal minority, you mean.
Thank you for bringing this into the spotlight. I for the first time, watched an entire council meeting online – I was appalled at what I saw. I definitely know who I will and will note vote for next election! You got the whole community engaged so thankfully we didn’t get some awful thing we didn’t need or want shoved down our throats. With this thankfully behind us… I’m thinking we should now all focus our attention to the ridiculous amount of high density buildings that are being approved left right and center…
(1) The silent majority did not participate ( for or against) the proposed B line & road use changes.—Self selecting surveys reflect the organizing ability of special interest groups not the public – Why whine about having to sit thru a half hour presentation before asking a question?….. It is rude to interupt!. -.(2 His count of 34 buses an hour excluded the proposed 12 B line buses an hour — Both Ray Fung & Nigel Malkin missed by the same margin.