In August the Union requested CMBC provide the vehicle requirements necessary to service the September 08 Sheet at all depots and received the information in the chart below from the Planning and Scheduling Department. The important numbers relevant to our campaign for 'More Buses Now' and the claim that we are 500 buses behind are the totals of the am and pm peak period vehicle requirement for all seven depots. Those totals indicate 1003 conventional buses and 105 Community shuttle buses are the maximum numbers on the road during the am rush hour for a total of 1108, while the pm rush hour maximum in service is 1004 Conventional Buses and 103 Community Shuttle Buses for a total of 1107 buses. TransLink's first mid range Plan called the 5 Year Strategic Plan that was approved by the GVRD Board and TransLink Board calculated the Region would require a bus fleet of 1600 buses, approximately 1500 of which would be conventional buses, by 2006.
Even when one considers the less than 40 buses operated by West Vancouver Transit, and the two small private Community Shuttle contracts operated in New Westminster and Langley/Aldergrove which combined would be less that thirty vehicles, we are still 430 buses less than the 1600 proposed in the 5 Year Plan. But considering we are two years past the date when we should have had 1600, we are still 500 behind when one adds two more years of ridership growth and bus expansion that should have occurred in 07 and 08 even if the 1600 target was met. The 500 figure may even be a conservative estimate when one considers the annual growth and ridership projections used to calculate the 1600 figure from 2001 through to 2006 were all below those actually realized, and by a considerable margin. Those growth projections did not include the introduction and impact of U-Pass or the unprecedented rise in the price of gasoline. Ridership on our bus system grew by over 30% from 2002-06 while almost all other major systems in Canada saw, until recently, stagnant or declining ridership.
The Issues
