While normally TransLink’s Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation meets monthly, the first public meeting of the Mayors’ Council will happen on April 30th. The heavy lifting for the Mayors’ Council happened last year as we moved towards approving the 2025 Transportation Investment Plan; the next Investment Plan must be approved in early 2027. Currently, the focus is on advocating to the province and the federal governments to increase funding for transit in our region and start delivering that funding as soon as possible.
Last year was an interesting year for population growth in Metro Vancouver. While we typically seen a 2% growth rate, in 2025 there was essentially no population growth. Of course, this isn’t evenly distributed. The City of Vancouver saw about a 1% population decline, whereas typically high-growth areas like Surrey saw only a 2% growth rate.
Overall, the transit system experienced a 1.5% decline in transit journeys in 2025 compared to 2024. Bus ridership declined 2.5%, and Expo/Millennium lines declined 2.6%. Canada Line ridership increased 1.1%, SeaBus ridership increased 3.8%, HandyDART service increased 6%, and West Coast Express ridership increased 11.2%. Over 60% of transit journeys are by bus. TransLink attributes the decline to fewer young adults in our region, resulting from changes in federal immigration targets, young adults leaving Metro Vancouver, and a smaller overall Gen Z population compared to millennials.
When you look at subregions, the largest decline was in the South of Fraser, though transit ridership there is still significantly higher than before the pandemic.
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| Annual Ridership Growth (First Number) between 2024 - 2025 & Share of System-Wide Boardings (Second Number) by Sub-Region in 2025. Select the map to enlarge. |
Population growth will likely return to a stable growth rate in the near future, and transit ridership will likely resume growth as a result. There is no indication that transit is in a permanent ridership decline.
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