Buses Return to Granville Street This September
byAs of September 7th, trolley buses will be returning to their Granville Street routes that have been inactive for almost half a decade.
The affected bus routes are: 4, 6, 7, 10, 15, 16, 17, 20, and 50 [download a PDF map here]. Note, the 5 will continue to be re-routed (via Smithe, Burrard, Pender) as there Robson Square redevelopment will still be underway.
The bus-only lane on Seymour will be also removed so all traffic may have full use of the street. Since Granville will be maintaining a pedestrian-only feel certain days of the week, night buses will continue to run along Seymour (North) and Howe (South) on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays after 9:00pm. Translink says they will be posting signs on the bus stops during their weekend detours.
Granville 1946 – Vancouver Archives Item# CVA 586-4619 Photographer: Don Coltman
Trolley buses have traveled down Granville since for 100 years so it will be great to see them return. However, looking at some of the comment on The Buzzer Blog, many have become accustomed to the Seymour re-route.
6 Comments — Comments Are Closed
Thanks for the update. It has been a little surreal not seeing any downtown transit on Granville …
I look forward to this! It takes so much longer getting anywhere with the buses going down Howe rather than Granville. Just wish they’d change the 4/7 to go back to Gastown rather than Pender, too.
Drew here, from TransLink … one of the reasons why the plan has always been to bring the buses back to Granville is that it’s more centrally located than the Seymour-Howe configuration, with access to all three SkyTrain lines (Granville and Vancouver City Centre Stations are all oriented to Granville St).
*sigh* Goodbye only pedestrian street in the entire city, it was nice knowing you. (Personally, would rather keep a Granville a pedestrian space and walk the 1 block btwn skytrain station + bus stop.)
I’m glad the buses are returning to Granville. If you changed your mind and wanted to go in the direction that you just came from, all you had to do was cross the street. Since the hated change to Seymour and Howe, you would have to walk at least 3 blocks to do the same thing.
It’s about effing time! Yay!
Personally, the part that kills me is that it reverts to Seymour and Howe on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. I wonder who thought it was a good idea to make the most confusing time to catch the buses the time when the most drunk people are wandering around downtown…
I miss the pedestrian space.