Eastern Busway Extension

It was announced yesterday (14/07/2011) that there will be 100,000 extra seats per week created on new, enhanced, or re-routed bus routes through the Eastern Busway when it opens later this year. After the disaster that was the extension of the Inner Northern Busway to RBWH (i.e. 7 month delay in extending the route 66 to RBWH), it is good too see TransLink actually planning to run extra bus services on new busway infrastructure from its opening. Hopefully TransLink haven't forgotten that there is still a chronic full bus problem in the am peak on the Inner Northern Busway in the outbound direction that needs to be fixed! Another surprise is the high frequency bus route 590  from Garden City to Number One Airport Drive which will run via the Eastern Busway. The 222 will now be a high frequency bus route via the Eastern Busway with buses every 15 mins off-peak and every 10 mins during the peak. A few more peak only buses P217 and P205 will add peak capacity, and also add to the confusion of unconsolidated bus routes. BrizCommuter also assumes that this 100,000 extra seats will be taken from this financial year's (yet unannounced) 310,000 ish extra seats per week, which seems to decrease the likelyhood of 15 min off-peak rail services further.