Runner hit by bus while racing in Vancouver

A man was taken to Vancouver General Hospital on Sunday morning after he was hit by a transit bus while racing in a half-marathon.

It happened around 9 a.m. on Southwest Marine Drive during the 21.5-kilometre Vancouver Fall Classic half-marathon at UBC.

Jon Major, a fellow runner, says the accident occurred 15 metres away from him.

“I didn’t actually see the lead-up to it, but I heard the noise,” Major said. “Right away I looked up and saw the bus slam on the brakes — and I saw him hit the ground.”

The RCMP say the man, who is in his late 50s, was conscious as he was taken away by ambulance and he is being treated for non-life-threatening injuries. His name has not been released.

TransLink confirmed that it one of its buses was involved in the accident, but a spokesperson declined to comment because the incident was under investigation.

The route for the half-marathon, which started and finished along East Mall at UBC, sent runners eastbound along the shoulder of Southwest Marine Drive before they would eventually U-turn just before Shaughnessy Golf & Country Club and had back west along a closed-off eastbound lane. The second eastbound lane, however, was kept open to traffic.

“I’ve never seen a route before that had active traffic right beside a running lane,” said Major. “The only separation between the running lane and the traffic lane was ... some cones along the dotted line in the middle of the road. But the cones were spaced about 40 to 50 feet apart, so it would be really easy to forget or cross over accidentally.”

Eric Chene, the race director with the Vancouver International Marathon Society, said the annual Fall Classic had been an incident-free race in its previous 17 runnings.