Driving a car in a Douglas Street bus lane any time of the day or night could soon result in a $109 ticket.
Construction is effectively completed on the bus lanes that now run along Douglas Street in both directions between Fisgard and Tolmie avenues, said Brad Dellebuur, Victoria assistant director of transportation.
When the extended lanes officially open next week, the buses-only rule will be expanded from just rush hours to 24 hours a day, Dellebuur said. Dellebuur doesn’t expect compliance to be an issue, noting that motorists are, as a rule, already adhering to the regulations.
Motorists will still be able to use the bus-and-bike-only lanes to make right turns or to pull into and out of a driveway.
“But if you get into the lane at The Hudson here at Fisgard or Herald and you don’t turn right until Hillside, you’re going to get a ticket,” Dellebuur said. “You can’t just put the right turn signal on [and drive].”
Greater Victoria Transit Commission chair Susan Brice said the 24-7 rollout will begin with an education campaign before enforcement kicks in.
“I know staff are looking at much more definitive markings so that it’s very apparent that they are for buses and cycling only,” Brice said.
“Once the people are aware of the markings, ultimately, down the road you have to factor in enforcement but that would certainly come after considerable public education,” she said.
The bus priority project has been done in stages beginning in 2014. Plans call for the lanes to extend both north and south from McKenzie Avenue into Victoria by the time the McKenzie interchange is completed in late 2019.
Since their introduction in 2014, bus-and-bike lanes have been in force only during morning and afternoon rush hours on weekdays — from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. southbound and 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. northbound.
“What we’ve been operating on for the last few years while these have been built has been to get people used to the idea of bus priority lanes in the early morning and early afternoon high frequency times. But definitely the expectation has always been that they would be 24-7,” Brice said.
B.C. Transit is in discussions with View Royal and Colwood about next best steps — priority lanes and queue-jumping at traffic lights, for example — to give Island Highway buses an edge from Goldstream Avenue to the Trans-Canada.
The idea is to allow B.C. Transit buses to get around slow-moving traffic, and to stay on schedule. Buses move 40 per cent of the people travelling the route at peak times, while accounting for only three per cent of the traffic.
Government statistics suggest that the Douglas Street corridor has up to 1,700 vehicles per hour during peak travel times.
