Public Transportation in Vancouver

Public transportation in Vancouver is more complex than in other cities, due to the complicated geography and widespread development in Greater Vancouver. Translink, the Vancouver Regional Transit system, includes: city busses, the SkyTrain and seabusses. It is a well-constructed and integrated public transportation system and relatively cheap. The system contains three zones and is run by the company Coast Mountain Bus.

A ticket can be used on all forms of public transportation within the system, be it SkyTrain, bus or ferry. During weekdays, for a single ticket, one zone costs $2.25, two zones cost $3.25 and three zones cost $4.50. After 6:30 pm on weekdays or on weekends and holidays, a single ticket for all zones costs $2.25. A day pass costs $6.00 for all days and times. A Fare Saver batch of 10 tickets costs $18.00 for one zone, $27.00 for two zones and $36.00 for three zones. You can also buy a month-long bus pass called a “Fare Card”. It costs $69, $95, or $130 depending on whether you buy for one, two or three fare zones. Fare Cards also allow up to two adults and four children to ride on a single adult Fare Card on Sundays and holidays.

There are ticket concessions for children, senior citizens and the handicapped on all types of tickets. Wheelchair accessibility is good, particularly for newer busses. Bicyclists can also park their bikes in the front of the bus. Busses require exact change, but SkyTrain takes change and bills up to $20 (but not pennies), as well as debit and credit cards.

Busses can be slow due to the number of stops and the heavy traffic in the city, a common problem for public transportation in any city, let alone Vancouver. But, you can get off and on as much as you want. The system tries for at least one bus at each stop every ten minutes, seven days per week for up to twenty hours per day. There are also faster B-Line Rapid Transit busses, Emission-Free Trolleys, NightBusses, Community Shuttles and Express Coaches. The system is integrated so that the same ticket will get you a transfer to a Seabus or SkyTrain. But, you also have a time limit of an hour and a half in which to use the ticket and/or reach your destination before it expires. Keep your ticket as proof of payment in case of spot checks.

The SkyTrain is technically a subway, though it only begins underground. The rest of the time, it travels above the street in a system similar to a monorail. As public transportation, the SkyTrain is much faster than the bus, arriving every four minutes, though it doesn’t go everywhere in Vancouver that the bus system does. That said, the SkyTrain system is expanding all of the time.

Seabusses are catamaran ferry taxis across Burrard Inlet between Waterfront in downtown Vancouver and Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver. The trip takes 12 minutes. North Vancouver has no SkyTrain like Vancouver, but it does have a system of busses on the North Shore. The Seabus operates between 6:16 am and 12:46 pm (11:16 pm on Sundays). Monday to Friday, a Seabus leaves every 15 minutes between 6:16 am and 6:46 pm and every 30 minutes between 6:46 pm and 12:46 am. On weekends, it only leaves every 15 minutes between 10:16 am and 6:16 pm on Saturday and between 1:31 am and 6:31 pm on Sundays. The rest of the time, it leaves every 30 minutes. The Albion car ferry also connects the north and south sides of the Fraser River.

The greatest benefit of Vancouver’s public transportation system is its inclusivity. You can get one ticket that will take you just about anywhere in the area, by various means of transport. While the specific time limit is inconvenient for longer or delayed trips, you can get a day pass or month pass that circumvents this problem. The ability to move so comprehensively within the system also makes the trip cheaper and more convenient than other cities where you have to pay separately for separate types of public transportation. Also, because they are all part of the same system, these different types are more or less in sync with their schedules. All in all, Vancouver has a remarkably good public transportation system, especially for a North American city its size.