Non-Partisan Association councillor George Affleck wants to see higher capacity buses added to the Broadway corridor.

Affleck plans to introduce a motion next week for the city to request that the provincial government revise its transit regulations to allow bi-articulated buses on the busy transit route.

“The transport regulations provincially restrict length of buses to 20 metres,” Affleck told the Straight by phone.

“Therefore that makes it impossible to get a bi-articulated bus on the Broadway corridor, so my motion is really about first going to the province to change that rule, and then going to TransLink and pressuring them to give us some bi-articulated buses.”

A bi-articulated bus would have three passenger compartments, as opposed to the two compartments on current B-lines buses.

The first-term councillor said he has heard many accounts of long line-ups and delays at the Broadway-Commercial SkyTrain station.

“I have a staff person [who] lives in Surrey, and she’s so frustrated by when she gets off the train at the Commercial Skytrain station that she often will drive her car,” he said. “I hate it when I hear that, when somebody’s getting out of a bus and getting in a car instead because they’re frustrated.”

Affleck noted he sees the option of bi-articulated buses along the corridor as a “stop-gap measure” until a more permanent solution can be found for the busy street.

“It’s something that we can do quickly and that will solve a lot of problems that we’re facing and will face moving forward with the Evergreen Line,” he said.

The idea of adding bi-articulated buses to the Broadway corridor was also proposed by the Coalition of Progressive Electors during the November 2011 civic election campaign.

Affleck will introduce his motion at Vancouver city council on Tuesday (April 17).