NEWS

NEWS Transit advocate keeps up the fi ght for improved bus service

by Carlito Pablo

Activist Nathan Davidowicz thinks that TransLink shortchanges Vancouver residents in providing bus service because Vancouverites make up 50 percent of regional transit users. Photo by Mstar.

Nathan Davidowicz estimates that Vancouver needs about 50 kilometres of additional bus service. e longtime transit advocate Davidowicz turns 70 in December, and his transit activism goes back a long way. It started when he was a math and statistics student at UBC some 50 years ago. explained that this would put every resident in the city within ve minutes by foot to a bus stop. “ at’s what accessibility is,” Davidowicz told the Straight in a phone interview.

Davidowicz noted that Vancouver riders make up 50 percent of regional transit users served by TransLink, so he believes that the city should have the best bus service in the region. It’s because buses are the most e cient way to move people around the city. is means lling gaps in the grid so bus stops are within a ve-minute walk, or a distance of 400 metres. In addition, buses should be arriving every 10 minutes or better, and hours of service should be improved as well. “We used to have 18 latenight buses, but now only 10. In 2016, there were 12,” Davidowicz said.

With reference to the ve-minute walk, the transit advocate didn’t pluck that standard out of thin air. It was used by Vancouver when it worked for a decade on its Greenest City Action Plan. One of the city’s targets was to have every resident living within a veminute walk of a park, greenway, or other green space by 2020. In a 2021 nal progress report, sta noted that the city achieved modest improvement in this area.

Instead of getting better bus service, Davidowicz said, Vancouver has seen bus routes cancelled over the years. He mentioned East 1st Avenue, Grandview Highway, and 16th Avenue east of Cambie Street as examples of where buses have disappeared. e advocate also pointed to cancellations of bus stops in many parts of the city.

“Many of these bus stops with shelters and benches existed in the same location since the 1950s,” he noted. He said there were only three bus routes to the university during his time in the early 1970s. (Now there are 13.) “I started asking questions, why there is no more bus service and so forth, and that’s how I got involved,” Davidowicz said. One of the campaigns he was part of was the push for a UBC bus on 49th Avenue. “We had a successful 30,000-name petition in 1973 and 1974, and then the bus started in March of 1975,” Davidowicz said about the old route that started in the east at Kingsway and Nelson Avenue in Burnaby. Today, the 49 bus connects Metrotown Station to UBC. During the 1980s, he chaired a transit advisory committee formed by city hall. Vancouver has the fortune of having Davidowicz as a tireless advocate for transit because of its mild weather. He was 15 years old when he and his family moved to Canada from Israel, where he was born. ey settled rst in Montreal. However, his parents didn’t like the weather in the east. “It’s too cold. It snows, so we came here a er four years,” Davidowicz recalled. He recently participated in the city’s virtual open house regarding plans for Broadway. Davidowicz asked if a bus service will be provided on Arbutus Street north of West Broadway, where a new subway station will be located. He told the Straight that city sta informed him that TransLink doesn’t intend to operate buses there. “How do you expect all the people in Kitsilano north of Broadway to get to that station unless there is a bus on Arbutus?” Davidowicz asked. “Not everybody can walk or cycle. ere are many seniors in Kitsilano and many disabled people I see all the time.” g

November 25 - December 2 / 2021

9 COVER

East Van Panto: Alice in Wonderland offers families a chance to return to the theatre over the holiday season. By Martin Dunphy Cover photo by Tim Matheson

4 COMMENTARY

The Mounties are able to arrest Indigenous land defenders on unceded West’suwet’en traditional territory due to the application of private law. By Charlie Smith

6 REAL ESTATE

BMO described the overheated housing market as a “towering inferno” in the spring, noting that a “fire still burns” in autumn. By Carlito Pablo

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