Reroutes for the 5, 17, and N6 from Aug 3 to Sept 6
Reroutes for the 5, 17, and N6 from Aug 3 to Sept 6
Watch out, downtown trolley riders!
Owing to construction at Granville and Robson, there will be reroutes for the 5, 17 and N6 for about a month: Monday August 3 to Sunday September 6.
Instead of trying to describe the route changes in words, here are some reroute maps kindly provided by CMBC to help you visualize what’s going to happen.
Here we go!
5 Robson/Downtown reroute
You can see the route has changed between Thurlow and Homer, but the rest remains the same. Click the photos to see larger images of these maps. You can also download the PDF maps here:
17 Downtown/Oak/UBC reroutes
Looks like the downtown path is just a little bit shorter.
Edit: Important note here — after 8 p.m., the #17 is now being rerouted further into town because it was discovered by TComm and the Transit Supervisors that there would be no additional cost in vehicles to route the #17 further into town after 8 pm. The after-8:00pm routing is Seymour, Pender, Homer, Hastings, Howe to regular route. (Sadly our map expert is away at the moment, so I don’t have a map on hand!)
Click the photos to see larger images of these maps. You can also download the PDF maps here:
N6 West End/Downtown NightBus reroutes
Like the 5, the N6 has some changes between Thurlow and Homer, but not for the rest of the route. Click the photos to see larger images of these maps. You can also download the PDF maps here:
Edit: Also, I just wanted to add a statement from CMBC here, to give all these changes a bit of context.
The CoV is currently working at a torrid pace to finish projects around the City, such as the Granville Mall. CMBC does its best to accommodate these construction projects, but it is not always an exact science. This is especially true with trolley buses as our reroute options are limited to roadway with existing trolley overhead. We appreciate our customers’ patience during these construction caused reroutes as we try to provide consistent detours with the least amount of impact. Please also note that the priority for all of these reroutes is to ensure the safety of our customers and Operators.
The reroute of the #5 is interesting in that it utilizes trolley wires along Burrard that hasn’t seen regular service after the #15 and #17 routes were moved to Granville several years ago. And as far as I know, the wires along S/B Thurlow – E/B Haro-Smithe – N/B Burrard hasn’t been used at all in recent memory.
I’m concerned about the #17 being cut far back to Davie Street; it’s way too far from the downtown core and would be very inconvenient for riders entering or leaving downtown. An alternative routing to consider would be N/B Seymour, E/B Hastings, S/B Richards, W/B Pender, S/B Howe, then regular route. Existing trolley wires would be used in this reroute proposal.
Hey Alex, I passed your note over to CMBC’s planners and in fact, it looks like you were all thinking along the same lines. Here’s the reply:
Whie we’re on the 17 – when will the wires on Cambie Bridge be reinstated and the 17 routed back over Cambie?
Will there be any changes on the N17?
Answers from CMBC!
TOH should be re-installed on Cambie Bridge by mid-2010, once
it is re-installed the 17 will be rerouted back down Cambie.
No.
Is there still going to be 6 Downtown and 5 Robson service during the construction?
For the 5 Downtown, will the succession of stops be Robson & Bute –> Burrard & Robson, or will there be any stops in between those two?
Meraki: the 6 should be unchanged — only the routes listed in this post will be affected. Meaning the 5 Robson will still be operational, just rerouted a bit.
Triple 5 Soul: The rerouted 5 will be using all local stops along Burrard Street and Pender Street.
Might be jumping the gun a little here, but post-Sept. 6, will buses be running down Granville Mall when Canada Line starts operations? And if that is the case, will we see both the 4 UBC and 17 UBC on Granville? Or will they be on separate streets approaching the Granville Bridge?
Robert, here’s the answer from CMBC:
Why is the trolley overhead not going back until mid-2010 when all of the construction will be done late this summer?
Also, I’ve heard that there will be further route changes once the 17 is sent back to Cambie, including the 10 getting to go down 10th once again. Is this true?
PLEASE REMOVE THE TERMINUS FROM DENMAN AND DAVIE. IT IS ILLOGICAL TO HAVE IT THERE. WHY NOT HAVE ONE TERMINAL SOMEWHERE OTHER THAN THAT AREA?
IT RUINS WHAT COULD BE ONE OF THE NICEST STRETCH OF STREETS IN THE CITY.
Wednesday morning, I boarded the detoured 5 Robson, if only to experience a trolley on Burrard again. I noticed that the next-stop display and annunciator called out the stops (eg. “Burrard SkyTrain Station”) on the detoured portion.
From my experience, during a detoured segment, the next-stop board will display the next stop after the detour has ended; in other words, no stops on the detour are announced. A recent example would be the 25 on Kingsway between King Ed and Fraser.
So did something change in the programming of the annunciators for the detoured 5 Robson?
Derek: here’s what CMBC planning has told me.
The construction of the Granville Mall is scheduled to be completed in November/December 2009. Therefore, due to other high priority scheduled TOH projects and the construction freeze during the Olympics, the installation of TOH on Granville will not begin until Spring/Summer 2010.
There are no current plans to reroute the #10 in coordination with the #17 returning to Cambie Street.
[…] the first thing I did, of course, was to tweet this information and that’s when the trusty Buzzer Blog chimed in with the pertinent details of this route […]
I waited forever on Pender at Howe for the 5 today and not a single one came. :(
Well after a week of playing ping pong between all sorts of different departments both at Coast Mountain Bus Company and The City of Vancouver I am finally pleased to announce the true cause for the re-route of the #5.
After having been told by CMBC that the city didn’t want the buses going through there first due to the width of the buses and then because of the weight of the buses, and after the city getting irked that CMBC was blaming them, it turns out that CMBC wanted someone(the city) to pay to have someone standing there dropping and replacing the poles as the buses went the the ‘dead’ area where power has been removed from the grid.
A tip to CMBC, if you’re going to say that wide vehicles aren’t allowed through the intersection, try to insure that the person your talking to on the phone isn’t standing there watching ‘Airporter Express’ buses, Semi-trailers, concrete mixers and other extra wide vehicles drive through the intersection in question.
Thanks CMBC, it’s always so much fun to be a passenger
on the bus system that really wishes that it didn’t have to deal with passengers.
I tried to catch a #17 Oak yesterday at Seymour & Davie, saw no signage regarding the detour to indicate it would stop there, so I went up to Granville & Davie, still no signage, but luckily a #17 pulled in right then so I didn’t have to wonder.
On the way home, I took the #17 back into downtown, and it went straight down Seymour all the way to Pender! I thought the driver had made an error, but a little while later I saw the next #17 do the same thing. So… what exactly is the detour supposed to be, and does it change from time to time during the day? And could Translink please put up some “temporary change” bus stop signs wherever the detour is supposed to go? Thank you.
Reva: answers from CMBC! I’ll put this into the main post too.
Thanks for looking into that Jhenifer!