Sea to Sky Transit Corridor Study

BC Transit, in collaboration with the local partners in the Sea to Sky area, has completed a detailed analysis of proposed new and expanded transit service connecting communities on the Sea to Sky Corridor.

This work was undertaken in collaboration with the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, the District of Squamish, the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW), the Village of Pemberton, the Lil’wat Nation and the Squamish Nation. BC Transit also worked alongside the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure and TransLink as part of this project.

Building on the Sea to Sky Transit Future Plan which was completed in early 2016, the study focused on potential ridership, service levels, routes and fares for regional and interregional services. Supporting infrastructure, governance, and funding considerations were also explored. Click the link below to view the final draft of the report.

Sea to Sky Corridor Regional Transit Study Report – PDF

Project Update – 2023

The Travel Demand Study is nearing completion and an update will be shared soon.

Project Update – February 2022

Starting in early 2022, BC Transit, in collaboration with the Ministry of Transportation & Infrastructure, launched the Sea to Sky Travel Demand Study. The Travel Demand Study will investigate and explore quantitative and qualitative data to help define the potential transit ridership markets between key regional centres in the Sea to Sky Region.

Project Update – October 2017

BC Transit, in collaboration with local partners, has completed the final draft of the Sea to Sky Corridor Regional Transit Study Report.

The final draft of the report can be viewed  Sea to Sky Corridor Regional Transit Study

The Province of British Columbia and the Sea to Sky local government partners will now establish a committee of senior officials to review and develop a governance and funding model. Once a governance and funding model is established service implementation work can begin.

If the proposed service is implemented, the study suggests providing approximately 15,000 annual hours of transit service to the corridor. This initial proposed service would consist of six round trips on weekdays and four round trips on weekends between Whistler, Squamish and Metro Vancouver, where passengers would be able to transfer to the TransLink system. The study also proposes adding two new daily round trips to the existing service between the Pemberton Valley and Whistler.

Project Update – June 2017

BC Transit, in collaboration with local partners, has finished summarizing the feedback from the second phase of public consultation. The next step in the project is to finalize the transit corridor study, which will be completed by summer 2017. For more information, please contact us at seatosky@bctransit.com.

Results from the Phase 1 consultation can be found here

Results from the Phase 2 consultation can be found  here

Background: The Sea to Sky Transit Future Plan

Over the past two years, BC Transit has completed a long-term transit strategy (Sea to Sky Transit Future Plan) with the local Sea to Sky partners, citizens and stakeholders.

The long-term transit strategies envision what the community’s transit network should look like 25 years from now and describe what priorities, infrastructure and investment are needed to get there.

Sea to Sky Executive Summary – PDF

Sea to Sky Transit Future Plan – PDF

The Sea to Sky Transit Future Plan encompasses the Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton Valley local transit systems.  It also includes among the region’s strategic priorities strategies to introduce interregional transit services.

As part of the Sea to Sky Transit Future Plan, there were two key regional recommendations for completion by 2020. They include:

  1. Undertake a Sea to Sky Corridor Transit Study. This comprehensive study will include the entire corridor (Metro Vancouver to the Pemberton Valley), and will consider the expansion of Regional and Interregional transit service in detail
  2. Explore the Development of a Sea to Sky Transit Regional Governance Structure. Explore options for a more integrated regional governance structure for transit in the Sea to Sky area. The study would look at the benefits and risks with the goal of streamlining the implementation of Regional and Interregional transit, and enabling more comprehensive system management and performance monitoring.