“Sorry Bus Stop” Contest’s Last Elite Eight Matchup: Beverly Hills vs. Vancouver

Lougheed Highway is a major arterial linking Vancouver's exurbs with its inner-ring suburbs. It is also one of the most dangerous in British Columbia — ranking second in the entire province with 33 fatal crashes over the 10-year period between 2004 and 2013. Translink, Vancouver's well-respected transit agency, has been investing a lot of service in suburban areas, with impressive ridership growth. The routes that serves Lougheed Highway — the 701 and express companion, the 791 — together provide service at least every 15 minutes or better, seven days per week, serving over 8,600 trips on an average weekday. Bus stop 61452 [pictured above], located in the westbound direction of Lougheed Highway and Old Dewdney Trunk Road, is a major safety hazard. At that point, Lougheed Highway consists of four lanes in each direction (one of which is a bus lane), with speeds of 50 mph or higher. The bus stop pole is located atop a jersey barrier, which serves as a buffer between speeding cars and the edge of the roadway. Transit riders are forced to either a) wait on the other side of the jersey barrier, and then climb over it when the bus arrives, or b) wait on the highway side of barrier, directly exposed to traffic. Riders in wheelchairs must wait on the highway side of the barrier. The roadway can also be slick; that part of British Columbia's Lower Mainland receives nearly 58 inches of precipitation per year, most of it concentrated during the dark winter months. This bus stop is a disaster waiting to happen. In my three decades of riding transit, I have never seen a bus stop designed like this. During my journey on the 701 less than two weeks ago, I saw a group of people climb over the jersey barrier to get on the bus. They appeared to be non-English speakers who were carrying buckets of berries they had harvested, captive riders who could easily have become the latest victims of speeding cars along Lougheed Highway.