As I posted about last week, the number of people that used transit set a record in 2019. I also noted that the new 503 Fraser Highway Express which has limited stops between Surrey Central and Langley City, and provides local service to Aldergrove, was the fastest growing route in Metro Vancouver. This information is contained in TransLink’s 2019 Transit Service Performance Review.
TransLink has provided information on transit ridership by municipality, sub-region, transit service type, and route. The following table shows the average weekday boarding by municipality in 2019.
| Municipality | Average Daily Boardings | Population | Boardings Per Capita |
|---|---|---|---|
| Surrey | 156717 | 584526 | 0.27 |
| Delta | 11072 | 109490 | 0.10 |
| Langley Township | 10768 | 130924 | 0.08 |
| Langley City | 5921 | 27718 | 0.21 |
| White Rock | 1327 | 21027 | 0.06 |
| City of North Vancouver | 30396 | 57325 | 0.53 |
I took TransLink’s data and combined it with the 2019 BC population estimates to get the boardings per capita. The higher the number, the more people in a municipality choose to use transit. This can be due to access to frequent transit routes; a good mix and number of shops, offices, schools and residents along corridors; and, good walking/cycling access to transit.
In the South of Fraser, Surrey had the most boardings per capita followed closely by Langley City. Delta, Langley Township, and White Rock had less than half the boardings per capita as Surrey and Langley City.
I also included the City of North Vancouver in this table. The City of North Vancouver is 11.8 square kilometers which is similar in size to Langley City. Like Langley City, it is also an urban centre. With SeaBus and bus service, the City of North Vancouver has more than double the boardings per capita as Langley City. This shows that we still have room to improve in Langley City.
Langley City’s proposed draft Official Community Plan is focused around building a city with transit and active transportation in mind. As we grow, I believe that we will continue to see more people choose to take transit.
We are in a pandemic right now, but Official Community Plans last for decades. Once we find a cure for COVID-19, people will continue to choose transit as a preferred way to get around in our region.
1 comment:
These figures are not posted on TransLink web site since they do not want the politicians to know them. You should convert them to rides per capita on an annual basis to compare with other cities that publish proper transit data. Over the entire Metro Vancouver the rides per capita is around 100
( i.e. on the average each person uses Transit 100 times in a year) This figure is similar to Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa but Montreal/Toronto figure is around 200. We need vast improvements in Transit to become the top transit region in Canada that we used to be until 1948.
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