The one lynchpin missing is southbound 7 to northbound Ion, I think. A southbound 7 stop at Willis/ the square should be doable, no tracks on that side.
Completely doable, though I'm wondering how many people would be willing to "backtrack" on a southbound 7 to hop on a northbound ION. I would feel more inclined to take a northbound 7 then transfer to a crosstown bus.
(12-05-2016, 06:47 PM)D40LF Wrote: [ -> ]Completely doable, though I'm wondering how many people would be willing to "backtrack" on a southbound 7 to hop on a northbound ION. I would feel more inclined to take a northbound 7 then transfer to a crosstown bus.
Yeah, if you're north of Ethel's, then you almost certainly want to take something other than ION to get to your destination. If you're going to the University, then you'd go north to University Ave or Columbia. Lakeshore is the only area where ION is preferable, but the station placement is kinda terrible for actually accessing the neighbourhood. You may just want to take the 7 to the mall, and then #9 into Lakeshore.
This just went up on GRT's YouTube channel. Still a bit early given what we know of the rollout schedule, but cool to see it in action.
Well isn't that special! My first reaction is that I hope that it works faster in practice. But then again, what proportion of people pay cash fare anyway?
How do passes work? Does the driver still push a button?
Will the QR codes work if the transfer is bent, folded, spindled, and/or mutilated? Or dropped in the snow?
When are the EasyGo cards coming? And will I ever be able to just tap my phone?
So many questions! :-)
(12-07-2016, 10:41 PM)timc Wrote: [ -> ]How do passes work? Does the driver still push a button?
The video is showing a temporary transition state while they're installing the fare boxes and haven't launched the cards yet. I'd even guess that in the interim, drivers just check the pass and record nothing, as I don't think the new fare boxes are designed for the driver to do that.
(12-07-2016, 10:41 PM)timc Wrote: [ -> ]When are the EasyGo cards coming? And will I ever be able to just tap my phone?
The quoted time in regional reports is "spring 2017" for EasyGo cards - which will handle passes and regular fares.
If you want to be able to pay by tapping your phone (e.g. Android Pay or Apple Pay) or tapping a regular credit card, you need to ask your councillors for that. The technology supports it, but I have not seen any actual plans for the Region to set up that functionality.
John Shortreed is presenting to the budget committee next week. He's asking for all 2017 GRT improvements to be put off.
To read all of his thorough analysis, including why London's transit system will forever remain superior to ours, as well as revisiting unrealistic LRT "streetcar" ridership projections, how the "streetcar" will reduce frequency of service, and reminding us how much the "Grandlink" contract costs see:
http://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/region...pdf#page=4
I agree that more data would be nice.
I am getting mighty tired of listening to that fossil.
I find his assertion that the aging of the population will result in a decline in transit demand to be very interesting, because I would assume the exact opposite impact. He says that retired people will take less transit trips than "economically active" [he should say "employed": obviously retired people are economic actors], which may be true. But older people are more likely to suffer health problems that result in them losing their driver's licenses, and could then rely on transit almost exclusively if walking becomes impractical for the same reasons.
(12-10-2016, 12:33 PM)MidTowner Wrote: [ -> ]I find his assertion that the aging of the population will result in a decline in transit demand to be very interesting, because I would assume the exact opposite impact. He says that retired people will take less transit trips than "economically active" [he should say "employed": obviously retired people are economic actors], which may be true. But older people are more likely to suffer health problems that result in them losing their driver's licenses, and could then rely on transit almost exclusively if walking becomes impractical for the same reasons.
There must be studies out there that show how this plays out, but those losing driver's licences for health reasons are relatively few and by the time it happens (or they decide to stop driving for whatever reason), the elderly are simply not going out as much, whatever the means of transportation. This could change in coming years as the boomers hit their "golden years", I suppose. It seems to me, however, that students and daily commuters are the only real drivers of the numbers, although I will defer to those who may know more.
It's just my anecdotal evidence, but the number of Boomer-aged rush hour commuters on the buses is a very small. Certainly seems like a below-average percent of the ridership.
If 99% of Boomers currently drive, and 1% use the bus, then you don't need many of the drivers to switch to using the bus, even just occasionally, to make up for the loss of the regular commuters.
(12-10-2016, 01:29 PM)panamaniac Wrote: [ -> ]There must be studies out there that show how this plays out, but those losing driver's licences for health reasons are relatively few and by the time it happens (or they decide to stop driving for whatever reason), the elderly are simply not going out as much, whatever the means of transportation. This could change in coming years as the boomers hit their "golden years", I suppose. It seems to me, however, that students and daily commuters are the only real drivers of the numbers, although I will defer to those who may know more.
This
Profile of seniors' transportation habits from Stats Can suggests you're exactly right:
Quote:Seniors do not use public transit more often as their main form of transportation as they get older. Nor does occasional use increase with age. Rather, the proportion who had used public transit at least once in the previous month declined with increasing age (Table 3). For example, 25% of women aged 55 to 64 had used public transit at least once in the previous month, compared with 18% of women aged 85 and over.
And you're right that losing a license for health reasons is rare. I knew that in an anecdotal sense, but there are numbers here, and even among seniors with dementia or poor eyesight, most still have driver's licenses. That's disturbing, but there are the numbers, anyway.
I think the most important part in there is this: "The relatively infrequent use of public transit compared with other means of transportation is possibly also attributable to the fact that seniors,
like the rest of the population, tend to live in low residential density neighbourhoods."
The goal here in Waterloo Region is to change that.
(12-10-2016, 08:07 PM)MidTowner Wrote: [ -> ]The goal here in Waterloo Region is to change that.
And that is really what will enable the future growth in transit. In addition to the current active or completed intensification projects, there is a huge amount of construction in the pipeline in Kitchener alone: 100 Victoria, King's Crossing, multi-modal transit centre, City Centre phase 2, Arrow phase 2 and more. And that's only for Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge are also nearly as active. At the same time, downtown employment is booming.
Unfortunately Mr Reed is so focused on the impact of self-driving cars (not a real transit competitor anyway) that he doesn't consider intensification at all.
It would be interesting to hear the Region's explanation for the decline in transit ridership use over the past five years. If it is truly, as Regional staff have claimed recently, due to changes in the school board bus policy, then there is the potential that the ridership simply got knocked back temporarily but will grow in the future. If, on the other hand, this decline is due to something else, then that will need to be looked.
Toronto has had stagnant ridership recently with several explanations. One that I thought most likely, is that if everything is centralized to a small, walkable/bikeable area, then there would subsequently be less demand for transit between home-work-play areas.
On the subject of boomers aging, I can foresee that self-driving or otherwise semi-autonomous cars will become more attractive. Many seniors prefer to stay in their own homes for a variety of reasons rather than to relocate to a smaller, more centralized facility (and even then, some seniors living facilities are not very central at all). Having access to a self-driving car would mean that seniors could still maintain a certain degree of independence as well as the rest of their lifestyle without the need to relocate.
(12-12-2016, 02:15 PM)nms Wrote: [ -> ]It would be interesting to hear the Region's explanation for the decline in transit ridership use over the past five years. If it is truly, as Regional staff have claimed recently, due to changes in the school board bus policy, then there is the potential that the ridership simply got knocked back temporarily but will grow in the future. If, on the other hand, this decline is due to something else, then that will need to be looked. Toronto has had stagnant ridership recently with several explanations. One that I thought most likely, is that if everything is centralized to a small, walkable/bikeable area, then there would subsequently be less demand for transit between home-work-play areas.
On the subject of boomers aging, I can foresee that self-driving or otherwise semi-autonomous cars will become more attractive. Many seniors prefer to stay in their own homes for a variety of reasons rather than to relocate to a smaller, more centralized facility (and even then, some seniors living facilities are not very central at all). Having access to a self-driving car would mean that seniors could still maintain a certain degree of independence as well as the rest of their lifestyle without the need to relocate.
The region gave several reasons for the decline (over 2-3 years I believe, not 5 years), including the change in student passes, as well as delays due to construction, further, changes to schedules often have an immediate decrease in usage, even if long term gains are made.
Further there is a country wide decrease, my guess, driven by the huge drop in gas prices. Which are now on the rebound.
As for boomers, I believe the traditional belief was that they stayed in their homes, but that knowledge is becoming out of date, people stay in bungalows that were common long ago, but not the later two story homes.