BC is a vast province, stretching from the metropolises of Vancouver and Victoria in the southwest, to the Peace River region in the northeast. Everything in BC is far from everything else, and usually separated by mountains and water. If you drive, getting around takes ages and can be really dangerous.

…but if you don’t drive? Getting around can be downright impossible.

BC has a rich history of intercity travel. The province was built around the passenger rail lines which twisted their way from the east through the mountains to Vancouver. The Canadian Pacific (now CPKC) and Canadian Northern Pacific (now CN) railways spawned Vancouver and the Lower Mainland; the Okanagan sprung up around the Kettle Valley Railway; and the E&N railway on Vancouver Island even helped British Columbia enter confederation!

It wasn’t just a network of trains which built this province, it was also ferries. Many of the early ferries were actually operated by railways to integrate with their respective train networks. Large passenger ferries even operated on the inland lakes, like Okanagan Lake and the Arrow lakes. Among other competitors, rail companies also operated ferries between the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.

When the automobile arrived, BC had already grown around its rail-and-sea skeleton. Where rails led, highways followed, and by 1940, British Columbia had its first full east-west highway. With highways came buses. The company which eventually became Greyhound Canada was started in 1921 providing service between Nelson and Willow Point.

Over the years, Greyhound Canada grew and grew, first fighting American Greyhound for the name, then being purchased in 1941. By the 60s, Greyhound was an empire, having acquired many smaller stagecoach companies and operating a well-used, year-round, Canada-wide network.

As the world marched into modernity, it left Greyhound Canada behind, and by the 2010s, the company was shedding customers. This was the start of a decline which ended with Greyhound pulling out of Western Canada in 2018, and eventually Canada altogether in 2021.

Greyhound wasn’t the only intercity transportation organization to betray British Columbians. The federal public railway, VIA Rail, had its budget slashed by Pierre Trudeau in 1981, and again by Brian Mulroney in 1990. Neglect and underinvestment has turned VIA Rail into a shell of the transportation powerhouse it once was. Ultimately, BC lost the Malahat between Victoria and Courtenay in 2011.

The Province of BC was also keen to dismantle public rail, and against Gordon Campbell’s own promise, it sold off BC Rail to Canadian National amid a corruption scandal for $1bn in 2003. Until 2002, it operated passenger service between Squamish and Prince George. Under CN, passenger service disappeared, and an environmentally disastrous derailment took place.

With CN in charge there was little hope for passenger service returning, but recently CN has initiated the process to abandon the line, which would return it to the provincial government.

In the same year and under the same government, BC Ferries met the same fate when it was turned into a quasi-private company. The province still retains ownership through a complicated three-part ownership structure. Over the years, this has resulted in service cuts and increasingly frustrating capacity problems.

It’s impossible to discuss the history of transportation in BC without acknowledging the harms done to Indigenous peoples. Settler transportation infrastructure was built by cutting through and expropriating Indigenous lands. To make way for it, colonial and provincial governments forcibly relocated Indigenous peoples off their own territories. As time went on, Nations became increasingly isolated and disadvantaged. This isolation presents an ongoing and pressing transportation concern, as Nation residents who cannot drive are left at the mercy of long distances.

The apathy of the provincial and federal governments towards solving these problems has contributed to deaths and disappearances along a stretch of Highway 16 known as the Highway of Tears. Since 1970, as many as 50 people have disappeared or been killed over this stretch of road—a disproportionate number of whom were Indigenous women. Among the many overlapping crises causing this tragedy is a lack of cheap public transportation; many of the victims were last seen hitchhiking, stuck with no other recourse.

Intercity transportation in BC is a shadow of what it used to be. After decades of public underinvestment and the downfall of private companies, Greyhound pulling out was the last straw in the collapse of intercity transportation in BC.

In Greyhound’s wake rose a number of private companies. While they cover many of the same places that Greyhound did, some communities are still left without service. With the collapse of Greyhound also came the collapse of integrated ticketing, timed connections, and a single source of information for intercity travel. While connections between companies are possible, it can only be done through third party sites, and requires separate tickets and sketchy connections.

For example, to get from Vancouver to Fort St. John, it requires three tickets for three buses from three different operators, AND an overnight layover in Prince George.

BC’s permitting system precludes competition between operators too: private bus companies are not allowed to operate wherever they want. They must apply for a permit from the Passenger Transportation Board, which has strict stipulations on where and how you can operate service. We will cover the oddities of the Passenger Transportation Board in a future article (stay tuned!), but the gist is that only one company can operate service in a given area.

Ebus and Rider Express are the only companies which operate Greyhound-style networks that run across the province. Both companies also run service between Vancouver and Calgary.

Regional bus companies include Island Link, who exclusively serve Vancouver Island; Mountain Man Mike’s in the Kootenays; and BC Bus North up north (more on that later).

Service levels of private companies vary greatly depending on the corridor. Vancouver to Squamish is serviced by a headspinning 150+ trips a week operated by 4 companies, but Kelowna to Nelson only gets 2-4 trips a week operated by a single company.

These companies and services can appear and disappear on a whim. In 2021, Kamloops to Edmonton had a couple trips a week operated by Thompson Valley Charters; now all that remains is a banner atop their website that reads "Pleas Note: We no longer service the highway 5 corridor dedicated route”. The cancellation of such an important service doesn’t even get the attention of a properly spelled notice.

BC Bus North is BC’s only publicly managed intercity bus service*. After Greyhound pulled out, the province stepped in to offer barebones service on Highway 16 as a public safety measure. It operates four routes, three out of Prince George, and one between Fort Nelson and Fort St. John.

Although the province directly administers this service, it does not directly run any buses. Previously the operator was EBus (which also has its own network), but now it’s Tahltan NST—a charter company owned by the Tahltan Nation.

The province does not plan or advertise BC Bus North as a “public transit” service. Tickets are priced similarly to private companies, frequency is bad, and bus stops are still relegated to gas station parking lots. Since it was launched in 2018, there have been no meaningful improvements to service.

BC Bus North is not actually BC’s only publicly managed intercity bus service. There’s also Northern Health Connections, a division of Northern Health. Although it’s advertised as a “health transportation service”, they nevertheless operate scheduled intercity bus service in Northern BC alongside private operators and BC Bus North.

But… there’s a catch. As a division of a Health Authority, they are only allowed to operate these trips for “medical” reasons. Thankfully, the good folks at Northern Health Connections do their best to accommodate the widest possible range of health reasons, and include health-care workers and students. Most people could book a trip on a Northern Health Connections bus if they get creative.

While they are as accommodating to the general public as they can be, Northern Health Connections’ true purpose is to provide transportation service for people with pressing health concerns, and as such they prioritize those riders.

The service they provide is lifesaving.

In the absence of government run transit service, some communities have taken to operating service themselves. While not intercity transit, the most successful example of this is the wonderful GERTIE on Gabriola Island. Starting with a yellow school bus named “Thomas” in 2013, the organization has come a long way and recently won a federal grant to purchase new electric buses.

Having started in 2025, Kimta Transportation Society is following the community-run model to operate service between Mackenzie, BC and Prince George. Intercity travel is extremely important for a community’s social health, and these homegrown organizations can be the only providers.

“[...] we’re really improving the quality of life for a certain segment of the population. If they can’t drive, they can get to Prince George to see a specialist, they can see a dentist, they can see an optometrist because none of these things are in Mackenzie. For a certain segment of the population, they were foregoing all of that.”

“We’re helping Mackenzie be less isolated”

- Mark Robillard, president of Kimta Transportation Society

Services like these demonstrate the power of community to solve challenges, but they’re also volatile. Kimta relies on grant applications to operate, something which sucks up limited resources to apply for, and something which can dry up stochastically. Organizations like these rarely appear in transportation aggregators like Google Maps or Rome2Rio, and can be hard for out-of-towners to find or use.

Ferries are critical to how British Columbians get around our province. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, BC Ferries operates the largest coastal ferry system in the world. For coastal and island communities, these ferries are a lifeline, and sometimes the only way to travel.

While there are many ways it could be better, BC Ferries ultimately runs good service. In many places, the ferries integrate with the local bus network, making car-free travel between coastal communities a lot more possible than you might think. But… it’s clear car-free travel is not remotely a priority of BC Ferries.

BC Transit is the umbrella transit agency for places outside Metro Vancouver. From Kelowna to Kitimat to Kamloops to Kaleden to Kaslo to Kimberley, BC Transit can be found providing surprisingly good transit service. While their focus is on local and urban transportation, they sometimes also provide regional service between cities. In small communities, these regional bus routes are more common.

Examples of this service include the South Okanagan—Similkameen system’s route 70, which provides a handful of trips between Kelowna and Penticton, or the Clearwater system’s route 10, which makes the 125km drive between Kamloops and Clearwater twice a week. Many of these services are quite new, appearing in the last 5-10 years.

There’s even an entire regional bus network on Highway 16!

While it’s amazing that many of these routes even exist, service is not nearly as good as they should be. Too many routes run only on a handful of days each week, and there aren’t many with regular all-day service. BC Transit doesn’t have the funding to improve these routes, especially not when competing with service improvements for local routes.

Aside from boats and buses, British Columbia also houses a number of airlines and a public railway.

VIA Rail technically provides service in BC through the Canadian and the Skeena. Both of these trains only run twice a week. The Canadian makes a legendary multi-day journey from Toronto to Vancouver and, as such, does not provide great service within BC. It can be useful (and beautiful) for getting to and from the Rockies, but it is pricey. The Jasper-Prince Rupert train is in a similar boat, although it is a lot more useful given that it runs (almost) entirely within BC.

Neither of these services is particularly useful for transportation.

Alongside WestJet and Air Canada, BC is also home to Pacific Coastal Airlines, Central Mountain Air, Air North, Harbour Air (and other seaplane airlines), and Iskwew Air. WestJet and Air Canada fly between major cities and larger regional hubs. With its fleet of small planes, Pacific Coastal Airlines provides lifeline air service to smaller communities like Trail and Port Hardy. In case it needed to be said, flying is expensive and bad for the environment.

Despite growing frustration and election promises, expanding intercity travel options does not seem to be a priority for the province.

The Public Transit Alliance of BC are trying to change that! Sign up for our newsletter to stay informed on what we’re up to.

Photos by me (Abby Ivison) except where noted.

Special thanks to Emma Victoria Byron for the image used in the cover photo, and James Ward for being such an amazing friend to explore and photograph BC with.

I've always wanted to crayon a intercity bus system for BC. As someone who doesn't have a license, getting between cities here is way harder than it needs to be. On a recent trip to Trondheim, Norway, I was inspired by their comprehensive intercity bus system for a similarly sparse province. In this article, I will lay out the pieces to create an intercity public transit network in BC.

Why don't we have one already?

BC is unlike many populated places in the world with its geography: smaller population centres are spread out over a province filled with mountains and forests. Compare BC to another province like Ontario or Québec, or a region like Central Europe where large cities and towns are laid out in straight lines over farmland.

Of course none of this makes building an intercity transit network impossible, but it raises the bar for implementation, requiring more inertia to get a proper network off the ground.

Looking at a population density map however, you can see that there are nice some linear corridors that we can take advantage of. Additionally, these corridors follow existing highways. Good examples of this are the Highway 1/19 corridor between Victoria and Courtney/Comox, and the Highway 97 corridor in the Okanagan. North of Kamloops, Highway 97 becomes of one of the only clusters of density in the north half of the province, along with Highway 16.

Trains or buses?

Buses often get forgotten when it comes to intercity or regional travel. Most people tend to think of trains when it comes to longer trips, but just like in urban transit, buses can be the secret workhorse of a system. Buses are extremely flexible, require little to no new infrastructure, and can be easily scaled up or down to meet demand.

In the case of intercity transit in BC, buses have two secret superpowers over trains:

• Density in BC rarely strays far from highways
• Buses don't have many stops to make, making them more time-competitive with driving.

Of course like any other urbanist I love trains, but in our case I believe the best move is to start running buses as soon as we can. In Vancouver we have a history of building transit ridership with buses to justify rail expansion, and we should continue this practice with our intercity and regional transit as well.

What do we have to work with?

BC actually already has a surprisingly good intercity "public" "transit" network... if you want to cross a body of water. BC Ferries runs routes all over coastal BC, including between our two most important cities – Vancouver and Victoria. BC Ferries also serves other important destinations, such as Nanaimo, Powell River, the Sunshine Coast and Prince Rupert. Additionally, they provide lifeline service to smaller indigenous communities, such as Ocean Falls, Klemtu, Haida Gwaii and Penelakut Island. Almost all of the places served by BC Ferries are only accessible by boat or plane, so including them in a vision for intercity transit is essential. Unfortunately BC Ferries has a notorious reputation in BC, stemming from a whole host of problems which is a topic for another day.

The province actually does operate public intercity bus service in the north under the brand "BC Bus North", between places such as Prince Rupert, Fort Nelson, Dawson Creek and Prince George. Service was introduced here as the highways in the north have become notorious for being extremely dangerous for hitchhikers. Highway 16 - which runs between Prince Rupert and Fort Nelson – was even dubbed the Highway of Tears for its history of violence. As many people in these communities cannot or do not drive, this service was introduced as a public safety measure. However, the service here is bare minimum and intended for people who don't have any other choice.

In some communities, BC Transit provides regional and intercity bus service. The most successful example of this is the 66 FVX, which connects Metro Vancouver with Abbotsford and Chilliwack. The 66 is regularly overcrowded and often leaves people behind. Other examples include the (other) 66 connecting Victoria and Duncan, the 90 connecting Vernon and Kelowna, and the 11 connecting Terrace and Kitimat. However, service on these routes is usually very limited, and is mostly commuter-oriented.

Finally, private bus companies provide the only bus service between many cities. While service can be good, private bus companies rely on market forces to provide service, meaning they can have high fares, fail to serve communities that would be unprofitable, lack a cohesive network and branding, and can disappear at any time – like Greyhound did in 2021 when it pulled out of Canada completely. Below is a visualization of some of the existing private intercity bus services in BC by u/bcl15005.

A quick rundown on transit jurisdiction

• The province is responsible for:
  • capital funding
  • operating funding (for BC Transit only)
  • provincial highways and roadways
  • BC Ferries (kinda)
• Regional districts (if you don't know what that is) are responsible for:
  • operating funding*
• Municipalities are responsible for:
  • capital funding
  • operating funding
  • local infrastructure and roadways
• BC Transit is responsible for:
  • service planning
  • service operation

*Regional districts are weird, and where there are no municipalities, they can assume the responsibilities. Certain regional districts like Nanaimo and the Sunshine Coast actually directly operate service instead of contracting operations out.

There's exceptions to all of these rules, especially when it comes to TransLink, this is more meant as a generalization.

What?

Yeah – it's a mess. You may notice that "operating funding" is listed under three levels of government. How do they decide who pays for what and how much? Well that can be a total mess and it can involve cost sharing agreements.

Take Route 66 Cowichan Valley Express (CVX) in the Cowichan Valley system, connecting Victoria and Duncan. From Duncan, you can catch Route 70 Nanaimo–Cowichan Express (NCX) to Nanaimo. This means technically, it is possible to take a public bus between Victoria and Nanaimo. However, these routes only run a handful of times during the day.

If you wanted to improve these services, you'd have to coordinate between 3 regional districts: the Capital Regional District (Victoria), the Cowichan Valley Regional District, and the Regional District of Nanaimo. Current efforts to increase service on the 66 CVX have stalled because both the CVRD and the CRD want the other (or the province) to pay for the service increase.

“I think we all recognize that using local property taxes aren’t the best way to fund transit”
- Aaron Stone, chair of the Cowichan Valley Regional District

The province can bypass this mess.

An intercity bus network needs to be the responsibility of the province. Instead of letting regional districts negotiate with each other over planning and cost responsibility, the province could plan and operate the system itself. This would also remove funding pressure from regional districts and free up some resources to make much needed improvements to local service.

The province is already responsible for provincial roadway travel, overseeing a network of provincial highways and ferry routes. Intercity buses can be seen as an extension of this transportation network under provincial jurisdiction.

Five Systems

When thinking about a bus network, it's important to think about hubs. Where different lines start, end, and intersect. For passengers, it provides a location to transfer between lines. When operating intercity service, it provides a convenient location to locate operations and maintenance facilities.

In BC, five natural hubs emerge anchoring their respective systems:

• Nanaimo, anchoring Vancouver Island
• Metro Vancouver, anchoring the Lower Mainland
• Kamloops, anchoring the Interior
• Nelson, anchoring the Kootenays
• Prince George, anchoring the North

Let's take a look at how each region could be laid out.

System 1: Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast

The proposed network would allow crossing the island end-to-end in three segments: Victoria to Nanaimo (Route 30), Nanaimo to Campbell River (Route 31), and Campbell River to Port Hardy (Route 33). Additional routes would connect Nanaimo with Tofino (Route 32) and traverse the Sunshine Coast (Route 39). Route 30 would replace BC Transit's Route 66 CVX and Route 70 NCX. Routes 31 and 39 would connect a patchwork of local transit networks which currently lack (consistent) service between them. Intercity bus routes would connect with various ferry terminals along the coast, with connections to Vancouver, the Sunshine Coast, Prince Rupert, and both the North and South Gulf Islands.

System 2: The Lower Mainland

The proposed network would connect Metro Vancouver with the Fraser Valley (Routes 10, 12 and 14), provide service on the Sea-to-Sky corridor (Route 13), and create additional connections between Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Agassiz and Harrison Hot Springs (Route 11). Routes 10, 12, 13 and 14 would run with all day frequent service, offering free transfers to local transit. A handful of trips on Route 10 would extend to Hope, while most turn around in Chilliwack. Abbotsford Airport (YXX) would be served with all-day frequent regional routes to Maple Ridge and Bridgeport Canada Line Station, allowing speedy trips between Metro Vancouver and its second major airport.

System 3: The Interior

Three routes connect the Lower Mainland with the interior (Routes 43, 45 and 47), two routes link Kamloops and the Okanagan (Routes 41 and 42), two routes connect Kamloops to the north (Routes 48 and 49), and Route 44 connects Kamloops and the Rockies. Route 40 traverses the Okanagan, replacing a handful of intercity routes operated by BC Transit. Route 48 would also replace intercity service operated by BC Transit. Kamloops would operate as a main hub for the province's bus network, tying together The Lower Mainland, The Kootenays & The Rockies, and The North.

System 4: The Kootenays & The Rockies

The system in this region would operate in a more polycentric fashion, with regional hubs in Cranbrook and Nelson. Routes out of Nelson would connect to Penticton and the Okanagan (Route 21), Nakusp and Trail (Route 22), as well as Cranbrook and Kimberley (Route 23). Routes out of Cranbrook would connect to Calgary (24) and Golden (Route 25). A limited branch of Route 24 (24a) would operate between Cranbrook and Elkford. Route 26 would run between Revelstoke and Banff, eventually connecting with the proposed Calgary–Banff rail line. These routes would replace a handful of intercity routes currently operated by BC Transit.

System 5: The North

Most service in the North would operate with the same routings as the current BC Bus North service, albeit with improved service (Routes 61, 62, 63, 64, 66). Route 68 would provide additional service between Prince Rupert and Terrace, as well as connect Kitimat and replace the current BC Transit 11. Route 69 would traverse Graham Island, providing public transit service to Haida Gwaii for the first time.

Conclusion

As I am not a transportation planner, the routes in the map below are more meant to be demonstrative of how an intercity bus network could work in BC. Such a system would also need to be well integrated with local BC Transit services to allow residents and visitors to get to and from intercity routes.

If you would like to get involved to make it a reality, there is a group of British Columbians fighting for intercity bus service called BC-Wide Bus. Additionally, fighting specifically for better intercity service on Vancouver Island is Better Island Transit.

If you're curious what intercity service BC Transit operates currently, you can see them pretty clearly over at transit.land.