LAKE LOUISE – Parks Canada’s traffic management team will review the shuttle services to Lake Louise and Moraine Lake and evaluate possible changes for 2024.
“Those changes will be announced early in the new year,” said James Eastham, a spokesperson for Lake Louise, Yoho and Kootenay.
This year was the first year of the personal vehicle restriction on Moraine Lake Road.
In addition to the Parks Canada shuttles, an average of 108 commercial vehicles carrying 1,900 people travelled the Moraine Lake Road each day this summer. In total, 114 commercial operators were licensed to drive buses to the iconic location in Banff National Park.
At the end of last month, Lake Louise RCMP with help from Alberta RCMP Traffic, Alberta Sheriffs, and Parks Canada, inspected commercial vehicles operating in the Lake Louise area over a two-day period Sept. 28-29.
Police say more than 50 commercial vehicles were inspected as part of the operation, which aimed to ensure commercial vehicles were in safe working order and in compliance with all provincial and federal legislation
Of those 50 commercial vehicles, 33 passed inspections, 14 were put out of service, six were identified as requiring immediate attention, and 52 tickets were issued.
Sgt. Susan Richter, detachment commander of the Lake Louise RCMP, said traffic safety is a priority for Lake Louise RCMP.
“In this operation, we aimed to enhance public safety by focusing on three things – safe vehicles, safe drivers, and safe roads,” she said in a press release.
“This initiative was one way we have used education and enforcement to ensure our roadways are safe for everyone using them.”
Parks Canada’s shuttle services to Lake Louise and Moraine Lake for the 2023 season came to a close on Oct. 9 at the end of the Thanksgiving long weekend.
Eastham said this year has been the shuttle service’s busiest season ever, with almost one million trips made – a 63 per cent increase from 2022, the next highest year of ridership.
He said 338,750 unique riders took 966,000 trips on the Lake Louise and Moraine Lake shuttles, with 87 per cent of those riders visiting both lakes.
“The increase is a result of buses running at capacity for the vast majority of the season, rather than an expansion of capacity within the system,” he said.
This year, traffic volumes in Lake Louise between May and October were down 17 per cent from 2022 and down 28 per cent from the pre-COVID-19 pandemic year in 2019.
Despite this significant reduction in traffic, Eastham said there were still heavy volumes of vehicles and considerable congestion on long weekends.
He said three phase 2 traffic diversions were required – once each on the July, August and September long weekends.
“A phase 2 traffic diversion temporarily restricts access to the community of Lake Louise to residents, registered hotel and campground guests, commercial vehicles and emergency response vehicles,” he said.
Parks estimates the number of visitors accessing Moraine Lake by shuttle was 2,650 per day, by Roam route was 370 per day, by commercial bus 1,900 per day and by hiking and biking 30 per day.
The numbers indicated 2,270 visitors a day went to Lake Louise lakeshore by shuttle, 3,675 by car and 750 a day via Roam public transit.
