City council to debate allowing taxis in bus lanes
On Tuesday, January 17th City Council will debate a resolution permitting taxis to travel – but not stop – in on-street reserved bus lanes. The resolution will be enacted as a pilot program and is aimed at improving the efficiency of taxi services within the City.
Presently, there are 7 streets with bus lanes in the City of Vancouver – the two longest being the right-most lane of Hastings between Howe and Renfrew and the section of the Broadway corridor between Arbutus and Commercial Drive – but the pilot will only be implemented on the existing bus lanes along Pender, Burrard, Granville, Broadway and the HOV/bus/bicycle lane on Georgia. Supporters of this resolution include the city engineering department and the Mayor’s office, but the provincial Motor Vehicles Act requires that a resolution be passed in Council in order to implement the trial project.
The costs of this trial are expected to be $75,000: $60,000 to replace existing signage along the bus routes to include taxis, and $15,000 for the Engineering department to monitor the pilot program.
Find out more about the resolution here.