Car Free Days reroutes, service to the Dragon Boat Festival and Lions games, and more: Sat June 19 – Sun June 20
Car Free Days reroutes, service to the Dragon Boat Festival and Lions games, and more: Sat June 19 – Sun June 20
Car Free Days, the Dragon Boat Festival, and the start of the B.C. Lions’ season kick off a weekend filled with events for our region! Check below to see the bus reroutes and other service in store due to these festivals and more.
Routes affected include the 3, 5, 6, 17, 20, 99, 228, 229, 230, 239, 316, 320, 321, 326, 341, 502, C43, and C47.
Saturday June 19
From 8am to 12 noon, Surrey will be hosting Whalley Community Festival on 102nd Ave between City Parkway & University Drive. Roads in the general area will be closed and the following routes will be detoured: # 316, 321, 326 & 502.
From 8am to 12 noon, Langley will be hosting their Annual Community Day Parade. The parade will assemble on Fraser Hwy between 200th & 201A Streets then proceeds via Fraser Hwy. to 207th Street for dispersal. The following routes will be detoured: # 320, 341, 501 & 502.
City of Vancouver will be hosting their annual Point Grey Fiesta from Blanca & 16th via Blanca, 10th, Discovery to Trimble Park. The following routes will be detoured: # 17 & 99 B-Line.
Please note: The Haney Farmers’ Market previously scheduled 7am to 4pm on Spirit Square has been cancelled. All buses will NOW remain on regular route.
Sunday June 20 – Car Free Day
From 10am to 8pm, the City of North Vancouver is hosting their first Car Free Day on Lonsdale between 3rd Street to Esplanade. The following routes will be detoured: # 228, 229, 230 & 239.
From 9am to 8pm, City of Vancouver will be hosting Car Free day on;
— Denman between Davie & Robson Streets. The following routes will be detoured: # 05 & 06.
— Main between 12th & 33rd Avenues. The following route will be detoured: # 03.
From 8am to 8:30pm, City of Vancouver will be hosting their Commercial Drive Community Fest (also Car Free) between 1st Avenue & Venables. The following route will be detoured: # 20.
On Sunday, June 20, the B.C. Lions also open their home season at Empire Fields. It’s an outdoor field at the site of the former Empire Stadium, near the PNE Fairgrounds. See the B.C. Lions transportation page to see the many service options you can take to get there, including:
- #10 from downtown or Kootenay Loop
- #135 from Burrard Station or Burnaby
- #28 from Phibbs Exchange in North Vancouver, or from Gilmore SkyTrain Station
- #16 from downtown or 29th Ave. SkyTrain Station to Hastings Renfrew
Additional “special event” trips will be provided as required, and shuttle buses will operate after each game to 29th Ave. Station. As well, to make it easier for fans to get right on the bus after the game, return tickets may be purchased in advance at King George Station and at the south entrance to Empire Fields up until the end of half-time.
You can also visit Jack Bell Ride Share’s Events page to find a carpool partner to get to the game. And remember, you can plan trips online at tripplanning.translink.ca!
Saturday June 19 and Sunday June 20 – Dragon Boat Festival
The Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Boat Festival reaches its final competitive days on Saturday June 19 and Sunday June 20. You can take the Expo or Millennium Lines to reach Main Street-Science World Station in time for the opening races at 8am each day. Bus routes #3, #8, and the C23 Community Shuttle also connect to the festival.
A reminder to everyone that you can find further detail on these incidents at the TransLink Alerts page. Or just call Customer Information at 604-953-3333!
Great to hear that you’ll be improving service for events at Empire Field. Given the success during the Olympics of combining event tickets with transit fares, has TransLink given any thought to working with the City and the Province to develop some sort of either voluntary (ideal) or mandatory (bylaw) instrument that would result in any event with more than 5,000 or 10,000 tickets being required to include transit for the day of the ticket (and maybe valet/secure bike parking too)? For most such events, tacking on an extra $2 or $3 service charge for transit (collected by the ticket vendor and passed on to TransLink) wouldn’t be a deal-breaker and it certainly seemed to work during the games. If this was always applied to every large event and combined with service enhancements (such as shuttles to Empire Field/PNE and SkyTrain frequency increases), it might help to create a culture where transit becomes the default option for getting to events in Vancouver…
D: Thanks! Well, besides the Olympics, we haven’t done any large scale partnerships as you’ve suggested — but we have always been very very open to them. Here’s what our marketing manager has said before about it:
With the Lions, we did do a partnership to try to get season pass holders a transit pass, so that’s a bit of a start. But you are absolutely right, this kind of partnership where transit is folded into ticket prices is definitely something we want to do more, to encourage people to ride!
I don’t see the point in getting rid of the trolleys on Commercial Drive. It is called “Car Free” and if you take the buses off Commercial as well it is almost impossible to get to unless you have a bike. To make it long-term sustainable it would make a lot more sense to run the trolleys down the 2 center lanes and add one or 2 lanes to the sidewalk. Much like Granville Street used to be. This would bring in hundreds of people an hr straight from Broadway/Commercial stations. This could be done all the time.