Regional planning mismatches are on display in Saanich with new bus shelters along a redeveloped portion of Gorge Road going largely unused after B.C. Transit made cuts to a 50-year-old bus route.
Route 11 used to service the western side of Gorge-Tillicum before heading southwest towards downtown Victoria.
But a 3.5 kilometre section of the route running down Obed Avenue, Cowper Street, Admirals Road, and Gorge Road put on pause for roadwork in June of last year did not return after work was completed.
Members of the Gorge-Tillicum Community Association say residents were not consulted about the service cut and that the replacement routes — which meander through Esquimalt and come less frequently — are insufficient.
Gorge Tillicum Community Association vice president Phil Lancaster said that the changes are an example of poor governance.
“The current regional system is incoherent,” he said.
“Saanich Engineering has just done extensive, redesigned roadwork on the section of Gorge road that lost its transit service,” Lancaster said.
“They oriented their work to the old bus routing. The new bus route goes in the opposite direction, so the shelters and the islands are on the wrong side of the road.”
Higher density buildings with less parking are being built across Greater Victoria, and “those arguments are usually made on the availability of transit,” Lancaster said.
“If transit has been serving a community like ours for 50 years, where the same route can suddenly be taken away without consultation or notification, then how can you rely on rezoning designs that are built around transit?” he asked.
B.C. Transit said in a statement that the transportation agency balances transit needs of specific areas with the overall demands within the system.
The agency analyzes data and carries out system-wide analysis to determine “optimized use of service hours” by reviewing existing ridership levels on each route, it said.
“Short-term modifications were made to the Route 25 to provide service along Gorge between Admirals and Tillicum, while we work on longer term service solutions for the corridor,” it said. “These were changes B.C. Transit did not make lightly, and we are aware of the concerns of people in this community.”
Mauricio Curbelo, a director of the Gorge Tillicum Community Association, doesn’t want a long, drawn out consultation process before bus service can resume. “It sounds like to take our service away is something that they can very quickly and easily do in a back room at B.C. Transit with no consultation, but for us to get our service back are these months of advocacy.”
Curbelo said that the Route 25 that now services Gorge Road beyond Tillicum Road only runs 21 times a day as opposed to route 11’s 67 daily trips. “Everybody knows that it takes an hour for the 25 [to come] and it goes on this goat trail in Esquimalt.”
Residents packed the Saanich Neighbourhood Place to standing room only last week, looking for answers from B.C. Transit about why a 50-year-old bus route has been cut off from half of their neighbourhood.
Councillor Mena Westhaver, who attended the Sept. 28 meeting, said the B.C. Transit representative there told residents the Burnside-Gorge neighbourhood association was consulted rather than Gorge-Tillicum’s on the route change. “I have complete faith that B.C. Transit is going to recognize that there might have been a miss and are going to reinstate what was working well for decades. The number 11 is quite a staple.”
“I think the community really felt like they were adapting for a short-term [change] while the improvements were being completed,” she said.
Karen Larabee, a Gorge-Tillicum resident, said that it was “quite astonishing” how a long-standing bus route can just be yanked out with little community consultation. “The bus shelters have been improved, bike lanes have been improved, and then the service is reduced to a third.”
Even though the service cuts only affect the last eight minutes of the old 11 bus route, the fact that 70 people showed up at the meeting with just six days notice means that many are being impacted by the change, she said.
Sarah McMillan, another neighbourhood resident, said that two major employers in the area, Craigflower Elementary and Amica on the Gorge, are being affected.
Amica has around 200 employees and the majority rely on transit to get to work, she said, adding that some have to cross into neighbouring Esquimalt for timely bus service.
Seniors living there are also being affected by service change, she said. “It’s just very strange to me that they’re not remedying this.”
Rob Wickson, who moved to Gorge-Tillicum 35 years ago because of its good connectivity, said that transit access in the neighbourhood is now at an all-time low. “Somebody who is down by the Colquitz [now] has to walk all the way over the hill and down to get to a bus.”
Councillor Colin Plant and Mayor Dean Murdock, the two Saanich representatives on the Victoria Regional Transit Commission, both deferred questions from the Times Colonist about the transit route change to Ryan Windsor, the chair of the Victoria Regional Transit Commission.
Windsor said that route changes are presented to the commission as part of budget and operational reports but are not necessarily broken out in “high specificity.”
“Overall operation of the service at the governance level, that’s what we’re concerned with,” he said. “I don’t imagine the commission being in a position to weigh in on very specific matters.”
Windsor said the commission has not made any decisions on the future of route 11 and he did not say when they might make a decision, but the commission is open to hearing concerns from residents.
He is expecting at least one delegation to present on the matter at the commission’s November meeting.
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