When Greyhound left, it took the last reliable intercity travel option with it for millions of BC residents. Today, if you don’t have access to a vehicle, getting across our province is expensive, unreliable, or simply impossible.
We’re calling on the BC government to honour it’s promises and create a public intercity transit network, connecting communities from Sparwood to Prince Rupert, with affordable fares, reliable schedules, comfy coach buses, and accessible, coordinated service that gets you where you need to go.
Because whether you’re a senior who’s stopped driving, a student getting to school, a disabled person with no accessible transportation, or a rural family travelling for medical care, you must be able to get around your own province on a ticket you can afford.
BC needs a public intercity coach network
Travel without the use of a private vehicle in BC is often impossible or expensive. People take risky alternatives. Many just do without, live in increasing isolation and forgoing the health care or other services they need. Those who do not drive, the elderly, people with disabilities, and youth face real barriers to connecting with friends, family, schooling, volunteering, employment and community opportunities.
The public intercity coach network
The network can be developed in stages, with the main corridors first – Prince George to Kamloops, Sparwood to Vancouver, Kelowna and Kamloops to Vancouver. Connecting routes can be added – Campbell River to Victoria and Vancouver, the Yellowhead, Prince Rupert to Fort St. John, Port Alberni to Nanaimo. Main hub stations could make it convenient with coffee shops, ticket and baggage services.
It would also be important to have connecting routes to Edmonton, Calgary and Seattle.
Modern buses with comfortable seating, accessible spaces for mobility devices, baggage space, and on-board washrooms will make it pleasant and convenient to travel the hours it takes to move across the province.
An essential public transportation service
The BC government has promised to expand intercity bus systems, but little has happened. Current private operators all run below the frequency needed to make bus travel usable for many. Often the different services do not interconnect to allow 1-day travel from city to city. Investing in a reliable, coordinated public bus network is essential to serve the residents and communities of BC and connect people to services.
The lack of affordable travel services impedes economic development and access to jobs, schools, health services and local and regional economies. It’s costly for BC.
The BC Assembly of First Nations’ draft transportation report from 2025 points out that Indigenous people suffer transportation injuries nearly twice as often as other citizens. The report’s first recommendation is to “support multi-modal transportation and improved public transit.” It notes it is the province’s responsibility under the Declaration Act Implement Plan to “implement multi-modal transportation”.
BC should invest now
Why ask for a new public transportation program at a time of financial challenges? Better travel is essential to well-being and encourages economic development. An intercity coach network will also result in savings, including reduced demand on health, social, and emergency systems, and can be largely funded from existing budgets. Connected transportation also supports climate goals, strengthens local economies by connecting people to jobs, education, and services, and makes it possible for more residents to participate in cultural, social, and political life across the province.
Fares are expensive on the current privately-operated intercity buses, putting long-distance travel out of reach for many people living in poverty in BC. A public subsidized network must lower prices so that low-income, disabled, rural, and remote community members can access it. A public service could also serve many more communities. By contrast, for-profit services reduce costs by limiting frequency and sticking to high-traffic corridors, leaving low-income and smaller communities behind. Many communities in BC have NO intercity service of any type.
In a province with high poverty and housing costs, expensive intercity fares make existing inequities even worse, effectively trapping people in place, and deepening poverty.
A one-way trip from Nelson to Kelowna, 341 km, is advertised at $118. From Kamloops to Vancouver, 357 km, it’s $85.
Imagine an affordable, stress-free trip to any place in BC!
Get on the coach in the morning, read and relax for a few short hours. Doze through the Abbotsford-Vancouver nightmare corridor. Arrive at a SkyTrain station and, a short time later, show up at your meeting or visit family and friends. And spend less for the trip than driving a vehicle.
A province-wide transit network will make intercity travel safer and more accessible, particularly in winter and bad weather. Everyone has had a close-call story of winter highway driving in BC. Winter highway travel is hazardous and often highly stressful. Replacing private vehicle trips with public coach trips will reduce traffic, and improve safety. Leave the driving to professionals.