A new type of bus route is coming to Greater Victoria.
The flagship Blink RapidBus line will connect the West Shore and downtown Victoria in a way that is faster than ever before.
Beginning April 10th, BC Transit’s ‘Langford-Downtown,’ Route 50, is being cancelled and it will be replaced by the ‘West Shore-Downtown,’ Route 95.
The new Route 95 will travel along the same route but with fewer stops.
Commuters can expect a bus every seven to eight minutes during peak travel times going forward with a maximum of every 15 minutes at any Blink RapidBus stop between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. from Monday to Saturday and 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Sundays.
Route 95 will be able to give bus-goers 21 additional trips per weekday, 11 more trips on Saturdays and 20 more trips on Sundays.
Although the Blink RapidBus will be stopping at fewer stops along this route, all stops except one pair will still be serviced by other bus routes. The Vantilburg stop set will be the only one that is discontinued.
See the map below for details of which Route 50 stops are still being served by Route 95:
An easy way to recognize if the bus stop you catch the West Shore to downtown commute on is still going to be serviced by the new Route 95, is if the signage is changed in the coming weeks to orange branding. Going forward, all Blink RapidBus routes will be branded orange on the BC Transit signs.
The only other route that is directly impacted by the new Blink bus is Route 61 route which connects the West Shore to Sooke. During non-peak travel times, commuters will have to transfer to Route 95 at the Langford Exchange if their destination is downtown Victoria.
The vision of BC Transit in the launch of this new brand of bus is to help transit outperform personal vehicles by giving the priority lanes and improving their routes to maximize efficiency.
The next routes to be upgraded to a RapidBus route will be the Victoria to Swartz Bay and Uptown to UVic routes.
