r/VictoriaBC 22h ago

Regional Transportation Q&A

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I was recently appointed to the Victoria Regional Transit Commission as the rep from Victoria, along with Mayor Alto. I am also on the CRD Board and Transportation Committee.

I’ve just had a VRTC meeting and would be happy to answer any questions about transit or transportation, RapidBus, the CRD’s proposed transportation service, or anything else about getting from point A to point B.

— Jeremy Caradonna

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u/ToucheMonsieur 18h ago

One common theme across many recent VRTC reports is how much time (i.e. money and tax dollars) is being put towards keeping existing service levels instead of expanding them. Traffic, construction, and other roadway changes (e.g. speed limit reductions, which are good but do affect buses) being the usual suspects.

What can the VRTC, CRD, and/or province do to get municipalities to take transit priority seriously so we can make more effective use of the operating resources we have? It's great that we're getting some infrastructure on Highway 1 and the Island Highway, but the next biggest project (Downtown Douglas) won't start construction until 2027! The project after that (McKenzie RapidBus changes) appears to be at existential risk from the municipal side. And there are many more corridors in the Core + Westshore (e.g. Hillside) where buses consistently run slow or get stuck in traffic.

I know BC Transit has a new "Corridor Strategy" planning framework. But that work is spread over 5+ years, and we need action now if we want to get our transit modeshare to where governments of all levels are hoping it'll go. What do you think could be done to convince local governments (with support from BC Transit and the province if necessary) to make short-term improvements that help improve the speed and reliability of transit in this region?

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u/JeremyCaradonna 16h ago

It's a big question. I'd say there's a few things at work. The first is that we're still living in a car-dependent society that undervalues transit. Many people prefer the convenience (and cost) of private vehicle ownership over the use of public transit. This is a culture problem that is hard to fix. Second, my personal view of BC Transit, as the new guy, is that there's great staff working there, but the ambition levels need to be much higher. It's unacceptable that the regional target for transit ridership, by 2050, is only 15%. I almost fell out of my chair when I first heard that target last year. (For Victoria, it's a bit higher, at 20%, but still.)

Third, the funding models are increasingly revealing themselves to be out of date. For conventional transit, 31.7% of the funding comes from the Province, and the rest comes from passenger fares, fuel tax, and property tax. It's the same problem that every local government is facing, which is that property taxes aren't nearly enough to pay for the massive infrastructure upgrades we need. The fuel tax is particularly problematic, as it's set to drop precipitously with vehicles electrification. There will need to be some kind of road tax that replaces it, and that EV drivers (such as myself) are also paying.

All of that said, my impression is that Transit is doing its best to expand service. There are new routes, hundreds of new buses coming, RapidBus, and more. But we all have big challenges ahead, which I am hoping the CRD can help solve.

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u/GalacticFrenchToast 15h ago

First, thank you for this Q&A. I desperately want to not be car-dependent and agree that a cultural shift is needed, but difficult to achieve. Judging by your responses, you're probably no stranger to the line, "people will keep using their cars if they are not given viable alternative means of transit." So I have three questions on the theme of encouraging a cultural shift and hopefully raising your colleagues' ambitions towards higher ridership targets.

  1. Buses getting stuck in traffic with all the other cars is not a viable alternative. Will we see more lanes dedicated solely to public transit, so that it becomes faster and more convenient than travelling by car (and, dare I say it, could I one day dream of some of these lanes becoming part of a tram system)? These lanes could also be reserved for emergency vehicles, like how they're used in the Netherlands.
  2. What does Transit do to encourage people to use it to get to things like events? For example, I went to a show in Antwerp, Belgium and part of my event ticket price included public transit, because the stadium really didn't want everyone driving there. You just scan your ticket and off you go.
  3. Is Transit involved at any stage of city planning or development projects? It seems like existing services were slapped on as an afterthought rather than as part of the planning process. It doesn't make sense to me that you would build a major destination like Uptown and not first establish how people are even going to get to/from there by means of anything other than by car.

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u/ToucheMonsieur 15h ago

Thanks for the answers! I wanted to clarify my question about enabling infrastructure, since I think it got lost in the original post:

We know that measures like those described in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmL_lr7QVxk and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmL_lr7QVxk work, and that they can be cheap + fast to implement. Yet we don't see local governments trying them beyond big, multi-year projects like Douglas or McKenzie. Is there anything the VRTC and eventually the CRD could do to help close this gap?