New 555 bus rides over the Port Mann on Dec 1, 2012, and more bus changes coming Dec 3
New 555 bus rides over the Port Mann on Dec 1, 2012, and more bus changes coming Dec 3
A big announcement today! Starting December 1, 2012 commuters in Langley and east Surrey can now ride the new #555 bus over the Port Mann Bridge!
The 555 will take commuters between the new Carvolth Transit Exchange and Park and Ride on 202nd Street in Langley and Braid SkyTrain Station in New Westminster.
The details on the 555
The 555 is planned to operate seven days a week, and will run every 10 minutes in each direction during peak periods—Monday through Friday from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.—and every half hour the rest of the time, with the last bus leaving each terminus at 11 p.m. It’s expected to generate 3,000 to 4,000 boardings per day.
You’ll have several options for connecting to the new service at the Carvolth Transit Exchange and Park and Ride:
- Taking transit: the #388, #501, #502, #509, #590 and #595 will now connect to Carvolth.
- Cycling: there will be 10 bicycle lockers at Carvolth with rack space for 10 more bikes. Locker rental information here!
- Carpooling: 15 designated carpool vehicle parking spots will be assigned through a lottery system; carpoolers must register online at travelsmart.ca by December 7 to be part of the lottery.
- Getting dropped off: 14 spaces have been designated “kiss-and-ride”
- Driving: with 650 regular parking spaces, 14 wheelchair-accessible vehicle spaces and 10 motorcycles spaces.
Please be aware that Carvolth will cost $2 a day to park there, to help provide efficient space. But as an introductory offer, parking will be free for all vehicles until March 31, 2013!
More bus service changes coming December 3, 2012
December 3 also marks the start of our regular winter bus service changes, where we adjust our service to better match demand.
Make sure to read the full list of December 3 service changes here! The highlights include:
- Late-evening trips on the #502 Surrey Central Station/Langley Centre have been heavily used, so two more trips will be added leaving Surrey Central at 9:15 p.m. and 9:45 p.m., extending 15-minute frequency by an additional hour.
- Midday service on the #410 22nd St. Stn/Railway in Richmond will increase to every 10 minutes instead of every 12 between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., Monday through Friday.
- To better match transit ridership with demand, and provide more efficient service, the #153 Coquitlam Rec Ctr/Braid Stn and #157 Coquitlam Rec Ctr/Lougheed Stn will now be served by Community Shuttles on weekends and holidays.
- Midday service on the C40 Port Coquitlam Station/Meridian is being cancelled due to low customer usage.
For more information…
Remember, you can find the full list of December 3 service changes here!
As well, on the go, you can find up-to-date transit information in real time by visiting TransLink’s mobile website.
If you have any questions about your particular trips, feel free to contact our Customer Information line at 604-953-3333.
And please do share this info with anyone who might be affected!
Will the 555 be stopping in Surrey near Guildford at the 156th St HOV ramps, as was detailed in an MOT map of the RapidBus route? You mention that East Surrey riders can use the 555, but Carvolth Exchange is out of the way of east Surrey. Does this indicate that the 555 will stop at 156th to add Surrey connections to the Fraser Heights and Guildford areas, as was promised by the MOT?
Can’t wait for the 555. I already have a list of people who would love to use it. Easy to imagine that all the Park and ride spaces will be snatched up quickly.
This improvement will just overcrowd Broadway Station more though. 3000 more people going through Broadway everyday… I also expect the 3000-4000 estimate to be too low.
I don’t think the #502 will connect to Carvolth.
Thanks Translink!
Unfortunately, I won’t be using any of those, anytime soon, but it’s good to know, since it brings new options to me. I hope that transit users will use it a lot.
I’m glad to see that photo, since I’m hoping that it will hype up the news. This is big, in my opinion. With all the money that we spend, it is important that we hype it up as much as possible, and get the most value out of it. If transit improvements can improve their standing in the community, then more power to them.
Hopefully the new 555 will be a good improvement for Valley commuters…but a minor quibble: the #502 will NOT serve Carvolth Exchange, but the C62 will.
Oh, and good job and bringing back a historic road name, as 200th Street used to be called Carvolth Road (http://www.city.langley.bc.ca/index.php/discover-langley/history-of-langley).
Congratulations, a momentous day
Where will the 555 stop? When I just looked it up online, the only stops listed are at each end, with nothing in-between. That’s also the only info on the full schedule posted. A stop near Guildford is certainly warranted.
Looking at the service changes didn’t give me a huge amount of joy. Of the 15 permanent changes, 5 of them are reroutes to the new Carvolth Exchange, along with the 555 as a new route. Ok, I’m good with that.
Then there’s 1 minor schedule re-gig, followed by 6 downgrades and only 2 upgrades. Maybe some of these are warranted but that’s certainly not enough to begin to make me happy about the fare increase in January.
I only included the permanent changes as the 1 temporary change is only a shuttle between Carvolth Exchange and Walnut Grove Park & Ride for the weekend between the 555 starting up and the rest of the service changes.
The 502 doesn’t stop at Carvolth.
What about the C62 Langley Centre / Walnut Grove? I don’t see it listed anywhere on the service changes page, and it currently stops at the Walnut Grove Park and Ride. It’s an important connector bus for people when the 509 isn’t running – will it go to Carvolth as well?
Looking at the system map and the exchange map, they moved all the buses that used to stop at the Walnut Grove Park & Ride to Carvolth Exchange. The only other route with a bay at the exchange is the new 555.
For the 502 you’ll have to change buses at Langley Centre (either the 590, 501, 595 or C62).
I thought the Port Mann Rapid Bus was supposed at the Lougheed Town Center Station. Why is it sopping at braid Station instead
Gordon:
From what I understand, the terminus at Braid is only temporary, as the HOV ramps still need to be constructed near Lougheed Station.
Even though I doubt I’ll ever be using this new route, it’s exciting for it to finally start running! And as a transit rider in South Surrey, I send my congratulations to anyone who will use this route as it’s running on the Orion coaches (aka most comfy buses ever). You guys will never feel the same riding a regular city bus once you start riding the orion ;)
Speaking of the orions, what was behind the decision to pull them from the 340 and reinstate conventional buses on that route? Just curious.
T, the 340 is a route that doesn’t run on the highway for an extended length and has frequent stops. Drivers at STC do not like Orions on the 340 either. Orions aren’t really meant for routes like the 340.
Will that mean I’ll be able to get from Guildford to Ikea by only taking two buses?!? That would be awesome. Any idea on where the bus stop is gonna be in the Guildford area?
The original MOT map clearly shows that a stop was to be placed in the Guildford area. I’m guessing this could exist on the farside of the HOV ramps at the 156th St intersection. Where is this stop on the route!? Will it be there?
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2326/1491370845_6406605127_o.jpg
Just saying… what the BC Ministry of Transportation says on its project websites and news releases can be different (and sometimes a little dreamy) compared to what TransLink can say and do.
Looking at the plans for the 156th Street HOV ramps, there may or may not exist room for buses to stop and drop off passengers… and there’s definitely no room for them to pull over and let other HOV traffic pass while doing so.
Really excited about this new route. I work at the Township of Langley and live in East Vancouver, so I am hoping to get out of the carpool one or two days a week and bike and bus.
I just tried to look up my route for December 4th on Trip Planner and two things happened:
1. Trip Planner didn’t recognize the address for the Townhsip of Langely’s Civic Facility (20338 – 65 Ave Township of Langley”), nor did it recognize “Township of Langley Civic Facility” as a destination;
2. It didn’t show the 555 as a route I would take on my trip.
Please let me know when the route will be showing up on Trip Planner and if you are able to better recognize the civic facility (effectively City Hall for the Township).
[…] week, the provincial government and TransLink proudly boasted about the impending arrival of the Hwy 1 Rapid Bus – now named route #555 – with […]
Absolutely having this route NOT stop and use 156 Street as a stop to connect to some Surrey routes is a huge mistake in my opinion. This route does not connect to any part of Surrey, and if you are in Guildford, and want to get over the Port Mann, you’re still better off driving than taking a bus all the way back to Carvolth to connect to the #555.
@ Tim
Good point. There should be stops before and after the bridge, because that is where the bottle necks are.
This is true for most bridges and the tunnel.
Stops at 156th Street or anywhere accessible in Guildford are incredibly necessary and in fact direly needed. As a commuter whose daily trip from Surrey to North Vancouver involves at least three transfers, the 555 would make my commute much smoother and cut the number of transfers to two (skipping the Columbia Station shuffle). TransLink, Ministry of Transportation, please make this happen.
Another thought: What of making some sort of connection at the 160th Street park and ride facility?
[…] be serviced by this reduced route. That proved not to be the case when the final route details were announced by TransLink two weeks […]
[…] biggest change is the introduction of the 555 Port Mann ExpressBus, the first bus service over the Port Mann Bridge in 25 years! A number of other routes are shifting […]
I think it would’ve been nicer if they took the picture with a bus that had a destination sign in better repair :P
On the subject of coaches on the #340 route, I suspect the #340’s coaches are the ones that are now being used to run the new #555.
As a #340 passenger I am SUPER glad to see the back of them. Comfy they might have been but they were also totally impractical for a route with frequent stops. If you were travelling from 22nd st all the way to Scottsdale they might have been nice, but a horrible vehicle for people getting on/off midway and having to struggle down the long narrow aisle with inadequate hand-holds.
And I know from conversations with other passengers that I was far from the only person who hated them.
What happened to the station planned for Surrey??? How good it is for Surrey residents when it doesn’t stop here. Not much help!!
Not having a Surrey station is completely frustrating. As a Fraser Heights/Guildford resident, Coquitlam is literally in my backyard, but in order to take transit there, I have to take the skytrain all the way to New West and make the Columbia transfer. The 555 gives me the opportunity to cut my commute in half! I’m optimistic changes for this will be in the near future.
where can i buy a monthly parking pass?