I've never taken the bus in the Comox Valley.
Which should tell you everything you need to know. As someone who has a specific interest in transportation systems and how we get around, me never taking the bus in the four years that I've lived here is saying something.
That's not a specific comment on the local transit system either. In the past decade or so, I've lived in nine different communities, and I can probably count the number of bus trips I've taken on one hand. Generally, and I'm loathe to say this, bus systems in North America are woefully inadequate, compared to what they could be. I'm sure the BC Transit system in Courtenay is relatively good, especially compared to similarly-sized communities outside of B.C. But I don't know for sure, and that's the main problem.
This morning I tried to figure out how I could get to work by bus. A caveat here is that I need to have access to a car for my work, which means this is all hypothetical, but I still wanted to see what the process would be like. I live in Courtenay East, in the area around Glacier View Secondary School. I work downtown at the Comox Valley Record office. These two locations are about two kilometres apart, give or take. There is no bus service on my street, which has multiple apartment buildings and condos. If I wanted to take the bus from my house to work in time to start at 8:30 a.m., I would have to leave at 7:45 a.m., walk to the nearest bus station (about a five to ten minute walk), and then take the bus for 25 minutes to arrive at the downtown exhange at the Native Sons Hall. I'd then have to walk the remaining three blocks to my office. I'd arrive at just after 8:10 a.m. While my boss would be thrilled about me being so early, the whole idea of taking the bus kind of falls apart when I realize that walking from my house would only take five minutes longer than taking the bus would.
So, according to Google, the most efficient way for me to take the bus to work would be to walk to work.
The Comox Valley Regional District and BC Transit are aware that there are some inefficiencies to mass transit within the valley. The two groups put out a Transit Future Plan, that acknowledges the need for "an affordable, efficient and convenient transit network with routes that connect transit users with neighbourhoods and other transport modes, and contributes to a vibrant and equitable quality of life in the Comox Valley." Under the plan, the system should be attracting new riders and integrating with existing modes of transportation. These goals are good, because I think more people should be using the bus.
The plan also has a goal to get the transit mode share up to three per cent by 2038, going from 626,043 trips per year to 2.7 million trips per year. Considering that, according to a 2006 study by Statistics Canada, driving has a mode share of 85 per cent, getting to three per cent is honestly not even close to adequate.
It's also worth noting that the Transit Future Plan is now a decade old, and is supposed to be in place until the late 2030s.
See, I think that the bus should be really good. It should be a no-brainer to use the bus. You should be able to just walk up to a bus stop, wait a minute or two, and then get on a bus heading to a place you need to go. Bus stops should be all over the place too, and they should be easy to walk onto, and to access if you have a wheelchair, mobility aid or even a bicycle. But in the valley, like many other places in North America, that is not the case.
In my ideal world, the bus shouldn't be considered the third option. The bus — and other similar transit vehicles, like trams, trolleys, LRT etc. — should be the main way we commute. The amount of people who drive to pretty much the same place as each other every day at the same time is astounding. If we, say, put all of them into the same vehicle it would be a lot more efficient.
In 2013, the former Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia Enrique Peñalosa said during a TED Talk that "an advanced city is not one where even the poor use cars, but rather one where even the rich use public transport." I completely agree. We all commute, and we all tend to do it en-masse. Why we've decided to do it in our own separate steel cocoons is beyond me.
I completely understand why the bus system isn't what I want it to be. Namely, it's because of money. Buying a bus, training and paying a driver, doing the maintenance and improving the infrastructure is expensive, and for the most part, the politicians and donors who have the power to allocate that money see figures like three per cent modal shares and think there is little demand for it. But there's no demand because of how mediocre the service is on the funding it currently sees. If it takes less time for me to walk to work than to take the bus, I'm not going to take the bus. Especially if I'm able-bodied and can choose other things like riding my bike, or — as I am required to for my job — drive my car. If we stopped the shadow-subsidies on car ownership (free parking shouldn't be free, but that's a whole other column), maybe we could put a bit more money into the bus system. Maybe it would even stop being delayed from getting stuck behind cars.
Until the bus is more convenient than the car, it'll be at best the third-best option, which is really too bad.
