page_title: The Vine (bus rapid transit)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: The Vine (bus rapid transit) / History
caption_attribution_description: C-Tran bus 6009, a 2016-built New Flyer XDE60 (60-foot-long, articulated, hybrid bus) in service on "The Vine" service. It is westbound on E. McLoughlin Blvd., having just pulled away from the westbound Marshall/Luepke Community Center station.
context_page_description: The Vine is a bus rapid transit route in Vancouver, Washington that is operated by C-Tran. The 6-mile-long line runs from downtown Vancouver to the Vancouver Mall, serving 34 stations primarily on Fourth Plain Boulevard. It opened on January 8, 2017, becoming the first bus rapid transit system in the Portland metropolitan area.
  The corridor was identified as a possible BRT route in 2005 and was originally named the Fourth Plain BRT Project. The routing was approved for BRT development in 2012 by C-Tran, the Vancouver City Council, and the Federal Transit Administration and construction began in August 2015. The $53 million project is primarily funded by a Federal Transit Administration grant that was secured in late 2015. The Vine replaced two bus routes that carried over 6,000 trips daily. A second line in The Vine system, running on Mill Plain Boulevard, is planned to open in 2023.
context_section_description: The Southwest Washington Regional Transportation Council (RTC) began studying high-capacity transit for Vancouver and Clark County in 2008, and determined that bus rapid transit would be viable on four main corridors: Highway 99, Fourth Plain Boulevard, Interstate 205, and Mill Plain Boulevard. C-Tran, the county's transit agency, adopted a 20-year long-range plan in 2010 that recommended building the first bus rapid transit line on Fourth Plain. The Fourth Plain corridor had been served by local routes 4 and 44, the two busiest in the C-Tran system, which continued to northern Portland, Oregon.
  Design concepts for a Fourth Plan bus rapid transit service were presented in 2011 and 2012, and a locally-preferred alternative was adopted by C-Tran, the Vancouver City Council, and RTC in 2012.
  On November 6, 2012, C-Tran placed a 0.1 percent sales tax increase on the general election ballot to fund a light rail extension from Portland to Downtown Vancouver via a new bridge, as well as operating costs of the Fourth Plain bus rapid transit project. While the ballot measure was rejected, the bus rapid transit project moved forward and was granted Federal Transit Administration (FTA) funding in 2014. Opponents of the project filed a lawsuit in the Clark County Superior Court in 2014 to prevent C-Tran from receiving federal funds, arguing that the project did not meet the definition of "high-capacity transit" as required in the ballot measure language. The suit was dismissed in 2015, with the judge ruling in favor of C-Tran.
  The project was named "The Vine" after a public naming contest in 2014, beating out other candidates by "evoking greenery, leaves and branches". A groundbreaking ceremony was held on August 24, 2015, kicking off construction of the $53 million project. The FTA confirmed its $38.5 million commitment to the project in September; the rest of the project is funded by C-Tran, and grants from the Washington State Department of Transportation and RTC.
  In October 2016, C-Tran announced that The Vine would open on January 8, 2017. C-Tran held a community celebration on January 7, 2017, including a street fair and preview rides attended by 200 people. Service began on January 8, 2017 using 40-foot (12 m) buses in place of the service's articulated buses, and stopping at route 4 stops rather than stations, due to a winter storm. The articulated buses, which lack drop-down tire chains that would allow for operations in winter conditions, debuted the following day instead. In its first year of service, The Vine carried 45 percent more riders than Route 4 and operating costs decreased by 21 percent.
  The Vine was the first bus rapid transit system to open in the Portland metropolitan area, and will be followed by the Division Transit Project in Portland. In February 2018, the C-Tran Board of Directors approved a design contract for a potential bus rapid transit project on Mill Plain Boulevard, an east–west corridor to the south of The Vine's Fourth Plain Boulevard. The Mill Plain line is anticipated to begin construction in 2020 or 2021 and open in 2023, costing approximately $50 million. Half of the anticipated costs will be covered by a grant from the Federal Transit Administration that was announced in May 2020.
caption: The paint scheme used exclusively for the Vine buses features the large V logo and thin, vine-like wavy lines.
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