Passengers disembarking from BC Ferries at the Swartz Bay terminal will now be able to board a BC Transit express bus to reach the University of Victoria (UVic) campus on select days and times of the week.
Starting on January 6, 2025, BC Transit will operate the No. 76 UVic/Swartz Bay bus route.
This amounts to a reinstatement of the No. 76, which has been suspended since April 2020 upon the onset of the pandemic.
Prior to the pandemic, the No. 76 made non-stop trips on Fridays and Sundays during the regular school year of UVic from September to April.
When the service restarts in January 2025, it will operate only on Fridays, Sundays, and holiday Mondays during the UVic fall and winter terms. This includes departures from UVic bus exchange at 11:37 am and 1:37 pm on Fridays, arriving at Swartz Bay ferry terminal at 12:25 pm and 2:25 pm, respectively. On Sundays and holiday Mondays, there will be departures from Swartz Bay ferry terminal at 5 pm, 7 pm, and 9 pm, arriving at UVic bus exchange at 5:48 pm, 7:48 pm, and 9:48 pm, respectively. In both directions, all trips will make an additional stop at Royal Oak bus exchange.
Each way will have an end-to-end travel time of about 48 minutes. The bus schedule is aligned with BC Ferries’ sailing times for the route between the Swartz Bay and Tsawwassen ferry terminals.
In contrast, the other BC Transit options between the Swartz Bay ferry terminal and UVic require a transfer for a multi-route ride that takes at least 90 minutes, and the car driving time is 40 minutes.
The No. 76 service is specifically designed for the higher volume of UVic students travelling to/from Metro Vancouver over the weekends and extended holiday weekends, such as students who return to their families in the Lower Mainland over these periods.
BC Transit did not reinstate the No. 76 earlier due to “ongoing resource constraints and competing priorities due to increasing ridership, passenger crowding, and travel delay impacts throughout the system,” according to September 2024 board report of the Victoria Regional Transit Commission.
It is suggested that as more vehicles and drivers become available, the No. 76 schedule could be further improved.
In addition to the reinstatement of the No. 76, starting on January 6, 2025, BC Ferries is also making service improvements on these routes:
- 4 UVic/Downtown via Hillside
- 6 Royal Oak Exch/Downtown
- 7 UVic/Downtown via Fairfield
- 8 Interurban/Tillicum Centre/Oak Bay
- 14 Vic General/UVic
- 21 Interurban/Downtown
- 26 UVic/Dockyard
- 27 Gordon Head/Downtown
- 28 Majestic/Downtown
- 95 Langford/Downtown Blink
- 51 Langford/UVic
To better align with school bell times, minor adjustments are being made to trip times for the following routes:
- 25 Maplewood/Tillicum Centre
- 49 Skirt Mountain/Langford Exchange
- 83 Sidney/Brentwood/Royal Oak
Separately, earlier this month, TransLink announced its winter service improvements and changes starting on January 6, 2025, including the launch of the brand-new No. 338 Guildford/East Fraser Heights bus route serving Surrey.