Business owners in Burnaby Heights are worried about how TransLink's proposed changes to the C1 and C2 community shuttle routes might affect their customers.
Heidi Dueck, who works at United Optical Dispensary on Hastings Street, said people have been bringing up the issue when they come in.
"I heard about it first from a customer who is in Seton Villa and relies on the
Seton Villa, at 3755 McGill St., is a non-profit housing complex for seniors. It has its own shuttle, Dueck explained, but it only runs once a week and many residents use the local community shuttles on a day-today basis.
TransLink is considering combining and changing its community shuttle routes and extending service along Hastings Street east to Kensington Square.
Weekday service along the new route would decrease from every 30 minutes to every 60 minutes.
Route C1 currently travels between the Kootenay Loop and the intersection of Hastings Street and Gilmore Avenue, and route C2 travels in the Capitol Hill area to the intersection of Hastings Street and Gilmore Avenue. Dueck said the changes could adversely affect a particularly vulnerable group of area residents: seniors.
Customers are often in need of immediate help, she noted, as they've recently broken their glasses and have difficulty coping without them.
"It's almost to the point of, 'I need to get this fixed now,'" Dueck said. "Just trying to navigate a hallway could be difficult, depending on the type of vision you have."
Dueck said she understands TransLink is limited by its budget and needs to look
at solutions, but she added it would make more sense to examine when and how the shuttles are used, and to keep them running frequently during peak times.
"You can't leave these people without transportation," she said.
Jack Kuyer, owner of Valley Bakery, is on the transportation committee for the Heights Merchants Association.
He is concerned that changes to the routes of the community shuttles could lead to people no longer using the services.
"I've experienced it here at work, people taking buses are shifting back to cars because every three months, transit is changing," he said. "Every time there's a shift, it changes things and upsets the pattern that's existing."
Kuyer said he has had bakers who are accustomed to catching a bus at 7 a.m., who find it hard to continue to do so when the bus stop is moved.
"If you add five or six blocks to your commuting distance, it doesn't sound like a lot but often that's what the difference is between people using cars or the bus system," he said.
Both Kuyer and Dueck were not sure if they would be able to make a public consultation being hosted by TransLink at Gilmore Community School next week because of their business hours.
Isabel Kolic, executive director for the merchants' association, has been in talks with TransLink about the possible changes.
The social and economic benefits of the feeder route are essential to the neighbourhood, she told the NOW.
She would like the province to invest more in community shuttles, not less, as they are key to leaving cars at home, she added.
"Having the shuttle bus was one of the reasons I moved to the Heights," she said.
Decreasing service is not the way increase transit use, Kolic said.
"We're worried that by downgrading the service down to once an hour, we're going to phase the service out because it will become irrelevant to people's lives," she explained. "Life doesn't operate every 60 minutes."
While the two shuttles are in the bottom 25 per cent of performers when compared with other community shuttles, she said, they are in the top of that 25 per cent bracket.
"There's still potential there," Kolic said, adding there is substantial development happening in the area and the local high school, Alpha Secondary, now has a French immersion program and will be attracting more students.
The association has heard from a variety of transit users, including students, she said.
"We've heard from high school students carrying heavy backpacks and musical instruments, and people carrying groceries home up the steep hills of Capitol Hill in the winter time, with the ice and snow," Kolic said.
Kolic would like TransLink to adapt the shuttles to the community that uses them -- focusing on high-use areas, such as the high school, and possibly going north to south through the neighbourhood instead of extending into a completely different neighbourhood near Kensington Square.
While TransLink has released information on the route that indicates the shuttles only pick up an average of two or three people per trip, Kolic and Dueck both said that during peak hours, there are many more people using them.
But Marisa Espinosa, TransLink's senior manager for planning, said the proposed changes are intended to accommodate more people in the area.
"It does have an impact certainly on the frequency but it would reduce where C1 and C2 duplicate other routes on Hastings Street," she said.
There is some overlap with the two routes, she said, and TransLink is looking at how to shift the routes to provide more coverage and also address the low ridership issue.
TransLink is holding a public consultation on the proposed shuttle route changes from 5 to 7: 30 p.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 12 at Gilmore Community School.
Residents can also respond to a questionnaire online at www.translink. ca/serviceop.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story stated the shuttle route would no longer go up Capitol Hill at all, which was incorrect. The proposed route would reduce coverage of Capitol Hill but would still include one street in that neighbourhood.
jfuller-evans@ burnabynow.com
