On February 4, Vancouver City Council’s standing committee on city finances and services rejected a motion to prioritize snow removal at transit hotspots. The motion, which was brought forth by OneCity Vancouver councillor Lucy Maloney, was defeated 6–2. COPE Vancouver councillor Sean Orr was the lone member who voted with Maloney on the proposal.
Maloney’s motion called for the City to collaborate with the Coast Mountain Bus Company to discover areas in the region where buses have struggled during snowy events. The proposal also calls for prioritizing clearing these areas during extreme weather conditions and revising the City’s snow removal and ice treatment policy.
The Peak corresponded with councillor Maloney, who explained why she introduced the motion to Council. “Transit reliability during snowstorms is important because of the people it affects. A bus losing traction during a snow event doesn’t just affect its own passengers and the buses left behind — it can have knock-on effects that cause delays through the entire network,” she said. “This makes it even more crucial than usual that buses keep moving.”
Transit in the region has historically struggled during extreme weather events. In 2017, a group of students travelling to UBC attempted to push their bus as snowy conditions prevented movement. In 2020, approximately 15 buses were stuck on the Granville Street Bridge as snowfall pummelled Vancouver. Though steps have been taken to address the challenges that harsh weather systems could pose to transit, the risk to transit users and the public remains at large, according to TransLink.
Members who voted against the motion cited the fact that the City already named certain roads used by transit as “first priority zones.” These are zones that have to be cleared in a timeframe of 12 hours when snow hits the region. This led councillor Sarah Kiry-Young of the ABC Vancouver party to call Maloney’s proposal “redundant.” The councillor highlighted how TransLink was already taking steps to address extreme winter conditions, such as giving 70% of their bus fleet winter tires. The Peak reached out to counsellor Kiry-Young and all other counsellors who voted against the proposal for further comment on this issue. None of them responded by the specified deadline.
The proposal’s failure sparked backlash from the organization Movement: Metro Vancouver Transit Riders. The organization is a non-profit advocating for transit reforms in the region; they assisted Maloney in creating the resolution. The Peak spoke with Michelle Scarr, Movement’s director of operations and strategy, to further understand the proposal and the need for transit reform.
Scarr said she could not believe that the motion was voted down. She theorized that warmer-than-average weather conditions experienced by the region this winter could have been a factor in the Council’s rejection of bus lane priority during snow removal.
Still, she mentioned how inadequate the current measures are in case of an extreme snow event. “Right now, how the City operates is that there’s only two priority levels for snow removal on roads. Priority one includes all the arterial roads, and priority two is basically all the side streets.” Scarr said the City’s decision to only have two priority designations was ineffective. “We know that when everything is a priority, nothing ends up being the priority”
“The motion really sought to make sure those pain points were taken care of to prevent the transit network from collapsing.”
— Michelle Scarr, director of operations and strategy at Movement
With the motion’s failure, Scarr said that Movement would alternatively like to see the City implement a “snow backup plan” that would have a predetermined detour route for buses in the case of an extreme weather event. The City’s snow and ice treatment policy does not include this.
