McKenzie could finally get bus lanes—if transit riders stand up

During rush hour, transit riders make up more than half of the traffic on McKenzie, but currently get none of the road space. Saanich is trying to change that, in the face of opposition.

The Tl;DR: Saanich wants to add bus lanes to McKenzie, but some residents are pushing back, hard. Bus lanes would make a big difference to transit riders, reducing their commute by as much as 15 minutes each way. Transit riders need to rally in support of these lanes, and can help by emailing Saanich (email template below), filling out the survey before the end of the month, and coming to the open house this Tuesday Nov.5.

Locals crowded a tense Saanich open house and webinar earlier this week to comment on a new plan from the District of Saanich that seeks to add bus lanes to McKenzie, the key east-west road in Saanich. Many objected to the plan, particularly to the bus lanes (as well as to increased density). While the bus lanes would make busses faster and more reliable on one of Greater Victoria’s busiest transit corridors, where car traffic frequently causes delays, motorists were concerned that they would be left stuck in traffic.

Congestion is worst at rush hour, when transit riders actually make up the majority of travellers on McKenzie. Busses on McKenzie carry more than 2000 riders an hour at the busiest times of day, more than the number of vehicles on the road.

This is despite being stuck in traffic, traffic that seriously delays busses. Without traffic, a bus takes around 10 minutes to go from Saanich Road to the University of Victoria, the main destination along McKenzie. During rush hour, that same trip often doubles to more than 20 minutes, according to location data made accessible by BC Transit.

With delays this significant on one of the region’s busiest routes, bus lanes would seem a no-brainer to many, as speeding up transit reduces congestion and gets more people on transit, a key part of provincial and municipal climate goals. A petition with 500 signatures called for immediate bus lane implementation back in March, and was endorsed by a collection of local climate action groups.

Still, opposition is fierce, with motorists showing up in number at Saturday’s open house and at Saanich’s other events. Victoria’s pro-car media also hasn’t hesitated to jump in. Transit riders need to step up and speak out. 

You can email Saanich at council@saanich.ca using the below template (or write your own letter in support!), or fill out the survey (you can also come say hi at the open house Tuesday Nov 5).

The case for bus lanes, with maps

The rest of this article is dedicated to the nerdy details of why this corridor is absolutely perfect for transit improvements. Feel free to use this information in your letters to council.

The McKenzie corridor is one of the few corridors in the CRD where a majority of travellers are using transit during rush hour. The only other rapid transit corridor in this club is Douglas, which already has bus lanes. Perhaps surprisingly, it also sees a similar number of riders during rush hour (peak) to the Westshore-Uptown corridor, which already has dedicated bus lanes as well.

The number of riders during rush hour would likely be even higher if bus service was more reliable and frequent. The BC Transit schedule reveals that they budget an additional ~10 minutes at rush hour for bus journeys, but analysis of BC Transit real-time data from September-October (as well as this author’s personal experience) shows that trips at rush hour can take an extra 15-20 minutes if your bus gets stuck in traffic at lights, particularly at Quadra and McKenzie. Bus lanes will speed up commutes and make transit a more attractive option.

A quick sum of time wasted

Looking at the time cost of delays for transit riders on McKenzie, assuming a 3 hour rush hour in the morning and evening, you get:

AM

1200people/hour x 3 hours x 10 minutes delay
= 25 days of delay

PM

1000 people/hour x 3 hours x 10 minutes delay
= 21 days of delay

Or a cumulative total of 46 days of wasted time, every day.

Reliability is also an issue off-peak (not at rush hour). The McKenzie corridor is one of the busiest transit corridors in terms of overall daily ridership. it sees more overall daily riders than the Westshore-Uptown corridor. Adding bus lanes will benefit the more than 14,000 riders that use the corridor every day.

While ridership data at the route level is not publicly available, Victoria has already recovered and grown beyond pre-pandemic service levels, according to their year end report, and the internal data I’ve seen shows a 5% increase from pre-pandemic (despite a decline in service caused by a fleet shortage). The high and growing ridership on the McKenzie corridor, which already warrants dedicated bus lanes, will only increase with new housing projects along the McKenzie corridor that are already under construction, particularly at Shelbourne and Uptown. In contrast, vehicle numbers have not increased along McKenzie over the last decade, as the densification of Saanich pushes more residents to cycling and transit.

Comparing ridership and bus frequency, we can see that the McKenizie corridor punches above its weight in terms of ridership, especially during rush hour:

This leads us to another reason to want higher speeds on McKenzie—the relationship between speed and frequency. If a bus can finish its route faster, it can do more runs of the same route per hour. Currently, BC Transit can’t add busses to routes to address frequency issues or overcrowding, because they don’t have enough busses.

In fact, service on one McKenzie-bound route, the 26, now fails to meet the BC Transit standards for frequent transit (arriving at a 15 minute frequency or better) on much of its route, because they have had to move busses to other routes. This reduced service extends to the whole McKenzie corridor in the summer, due to a lack of busses.

Speeding busses up is now the only immediate way to get more busses per hour on each corridor. It also lowers costs over the long term for BC Transit, as they can run more frequent transit at a lower cost. This is a real issue for anyone who rides the bus at rush hour and who knows how crowded busses can get. If we want to avoid the fate of the “SORRY BUS FULL”, we need to speed busses up.

A look at intersections

We’ve already discussed that busses are seriously delayed on McKenzie, but it’s worth discussing where those delays mostly happen. Here’s two maps showing average bus speeds at Quadra and McKenzie and Shelbourne and McKenzie. Keep in mind that this is the average speed all day, so busses move much slower in these places at rush hour when it matters the most.

As you can see, the intersections are by far the worst places for congestion, particularly at Quadra. Busses often get stuck at this intersection for multiple red lights during rush hour, because of car traffic. This kind of problem is exactly what bus lanes are designed to fix.

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that McKenzie no longer met BC Transit standards for frequent transit on weekdays year round. This is not true.

Sources:

BC Transit Winter 2023 Finances
BC Transit Winter 2023 Ridership
Saanich Quadra-McKenzie Plan Webinar
Quadra-McKenzie Draft Plan
BC Transit RapidBus strategy
Mark Edwardson’s Bus Speed Map