In November, the Mayor’s Council on regional transportation approved a $2 billion transit improvement plan for Metro Vancouver. Part of that plan, funded by the region, will go in to service improvements on Bowen Island. Those improvements will see extended hours in the weekday bus service on-island. David Hocking, chair of the Bowen Island Municipal Transportation Advisory Committee (BIMTAC) says this is an important step towards a system of public transportation that works better for Bowen Islanders.
“Last June, the ITMP (Integrated Transportation Master Plan) working group held a workshop with a cross-section of more than thirty community members to find out some of the key measures that could improve transportation on the island,” says Hocking. “Extending the service of the Bowen blue-buses heading to Eagle Cliff and Bluewater was one of the main recommendations. For commuters dependent on a bus in Snug Cove to get them home, knowing that the last run was at 6:30 would add stress to their commute.
Hocking says that at that workshop, TransLink did not seem enthusiastic about the idea, insisting that any new service would have to be offset by equivalent reductions elsewhere.
However, a report written for TransLink by the consulting company Stantec, re-enforced what people had said at the workshop: extending the service hours for Bowen’s buses on weekdays should be a top priority, they said.
“Now TransLink has shifted on this issue,” says Hocking. “They definitely deserve credit for listening to the people who gave up a sunny Saturday in June to talk about transportation. This is just one piece of the transportation puzzle here on Bowen. If, over time, we can get all the pieces, then we can have a system of transit and active transportation that works really well here.”
