B.C. Transit wants Victoria to take another look at its 40 kilometre-per-hour speed limits.
James Wadsworth, senior transit planner for B.C. Transit, said the agency has sent a letter to Victoria council asking for a reconsideration of the 40 km/h limits to speed up transit times.
In 2014, councillors voted unanimously to lower speed limits on a number of streets, mostly to 40 km/h from 50 km/h.
Richmond Road, Quadra Street, Gorge Road, parts of Bay and Cook streets and several downtown streets were affected.
“We are just asking [city councillors] to consider the changes and maybe review some of them,” Wadsworth said Thursday.
“Maybe they might consider changing the speed limit back or maybe they might consider doing something else that helps transit move faster.”
Wadsworth said buses are now moving slower throughout the region and having trouble keeping to their schedules. The result is a loss of about 30 bus trips per day from a total of 3,000, a reduction in service of about one per cent.
“We are moving slower on some routes, so we are doing less trips,” he said. “And the buses are getting more crowded because at the same time, we have ridership growing.”
Wadsworth said the slowdown is not just caused by reduced speed limits, citing increased region-wide traffic congestion, road changes and increasing ridership, which is growing annually by about one per cent.
The most notable daily choke points for B.C. Transit include the Trans-Canada Highway to the West Shore, and McKenzie from the University of Victoria in the afternoon.
Mayor Lisa Helps said councillors reduced the speed limit to improve quality of life, noting the maximum now matches limits in Oak Bay and Esquimalt.
But Helps said she would be happy to sit down with B.C. Transit officials to discuss the speed limits and how the city might help buses move more efficiently. “If there are some serious impacts to transit travel, then yes, we need to look at the speed limits,” she said.
“But what I would like to know is specifically what sections of what routes they would like to see the speed limits go back up.”
