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Grand River Transit - Printable Version

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RE: Grand River Transit - panamaniac - 05-04-2015

I remember taking the old South Ward bus (#8) when I was a kid. There was a bus stop at Ottawa and Mill St (actually on the short diagonal bit behind the church) that was unusual - it was a small wooden structure with a pitched roof and diagonal walls like an "X" that served to protect you from the weather. There was a wooden bench, painted dark green like the bus stop. I think there were more of them around town, but they weren't that common. Funny to think of that as being almost on the edge of town back in the 1950s.


RE: Grand River Transit - BuildingScout - 05-04-2015

(05-04-2015, 04:57 PM)Drake Wrote: Was there ever any discussion by GRT about a true express bus? Like, one that Starts at Conestoga Mall and stops at Say King/University, Waterloo Town Square, Victoria St (future train station), Fairview Mall, Somewhere practical in Cambridge, Ainsle St?

I find our current iXpress set up to be somewhat misleading and am left wondering what the express part of it is.

Bus routes before the iXpress had a stop nearly every other corner. The iXpress reduced the number of stops by 60-70%, leading to much faster travel times.

Since then GRT has revised their regular-route stop policies and they have reduced the number of stops on the regular routes as well, so the difference is not as dramatic as it used to be.


RE: Grand River Transit - timio - 05-04-2015

(04-29-2015, 09:13 AM)Viewfromthe42 Wrote: Where is this iXpress stop at King and Bridgeport? I see no sign of it, either on King or on Bridgeport.

(04-29-2015, 09:47 AM)Markster Wrote: I incorrectly reported on Twitter that the iXpress was indeed stopping at Weber/Victoria, because the first iXpress ride I took with the detour did stop there. That has never been repeated.

The Bridgeport stop is the regular #7 northbound stop at Bridgeport.

I was on an iXpress northbound today and although it announced King/Bridgeport, it did not attempt to stop to pick up passengers at the #7 stop.


RE: Grand River Transit - Canard - 05-04-2015

That's what ion aBRT will essentially be... Agreed about current iXpress not really being much of a step up.


RE: Grand River Transit - plam - 05-04-2015

(05-04-2015, 04:57 PM)Drake Wrote: Was there ever any discussion by GRT about a true express bus? Like, one that Starts at Conestoga Mall and stops at Say King/University, Waterloo Town Square, Victoria St (future train station), Fairview Mall, Somewhere practical in Cambridge, Ainsle St?

I find our current iXpress set up to be somewhat misleading and am left wondering what the express part of it is.

I think the iXpress is way more express than the 7. I suppose that your suggestion has about half as many stops as the iXpress 200, but would anyone actually take it?


RE: Grand River Transit - Markster - 05-05-2015

Can we please have that route 1 Queen St bus back?!
Drake Wrote:Was there ever any discussion by GRT about a true express bus? Like, one that Starts at Conestoga Mall and stops at Say King/University, Waterloo Town Square, Victoria St (future train station), Fairview Mall, Somewhere practical in Cambridge, Ainsle St?

Well, there is an express that does
UW -> Laurier -> Downtown -> Sportsworld -> SmartCentres
That's kinda like what you're asking for.


RE: Grand River Transit - MidTowner - 05-05-2015

(05-04-2015, 11:26 PM)plam Wrote: I think the iXpress is way more express than the 7. I suppose that your suggestion has about half as many stops as the iXpress 200, but would anyone actually take it?

I think that Drake's example (Conestoga, King/University, Uptown, Downtown) would have a lot of ridership if implemented now. I bet it could justify fairly short headways. There are some stations on the iXpress that are much less popular than others, which suggests that a true express bus would be popular.


RE: Grand River Transit - Drake - 05-05-2015

I don't ride the bus very often, but I did take an iXpress from uptown (in front of RBC) to the Conestoga mall and was surprised to learn it had a milk run through the university and Albert McCormick area of Waterloo. The reality was the 7C would have been faster and more direct without the moniker 'express'.

Again, as a noob who does not carefully study the bus routes, it was my expectation that two buses leaving the same stop ending at the same destination the one named express would arrive first. I was surprised I was wrong in that assumption and that is why I asked the question.


RE: Grand River Transit - zanate - 05-05-2015

(05-05-2015, 10:32 AM)Drake Wrote: I don't ride the bus very often, but I did take an iXpress from uptown (in front of RBC) to the Conestoga mall and was surprised to learn it had a milk run through the university and Albert McCormick area of Waterloo. The reality was the 7C would have been faster and more direct without the moniker 'express'.

Again, as a noob who does not carefully study the bus routes, it was my expectation that two buses leaving the same stop ending at the same destination the one named express would arrive first. I was surprised I was wrong in that assumption and that is why I asked the question.

It's a fair point: iXpress between Conestoga Mall and Uptown is at least 5 minutes slower than the 7C. It loses time in the detour (though it's hardly a milk run: a huge proportion of its ridership uses stops on this leg) and also in boarding time, because of the huge passenger turnover at UW and WLU.

The "iXpress" brand suggesting "express" is a bit of a misnomer, in my opinion. It's not an express. It's a limited-stop route. And even then, the 200 iXpress has wider stop spacings (even after a couple infill stops) than the other iXpresses which serve corridors without complimentary "local" routes. Again, not really "express".

Do we need an express? I've had arguments with a coworker about why we're putting LRT down the middle of town, for instance, when we can run buses from Conestoga to Fairview Park mall via the highway. It's an extreme example of an "express": maybe you could come up with something with a few more stops that is still a little faster than the 200.

The good news is: ION looks like it should save a LOT of time on the Conestoga to Uptown trip. The amount of time lost on the windy turns through the tech park and Ring Road, on boarding time, and on taking University to King and crawling down King should all disappear. And if news about the train being able to get up to 70km/h along the spur are true, ION ought to beat 7C to Uptown, while also serving the major destinations in between.


RE: Grand River Transit - BuildingScout - 05-05-2015

You are correct that the detour around UW slows down that route. The long term plan is to remove this detour and have people transfer to the 98 which would run in a continuous loop. This might yet never happen since the LRT might make the whole thing moot. 

Quote:7C would have been faster and more direct without the moniker 'express'.

For that case yes. On the other hand from Fairview to Wilfrid Laurier the iXpress is 20% faster.

Lastly, I'll say it again, when the iXpress first came in it was substantially faster than any of the route 7s. What has happened since is (1) less stops on regular routes (2) infill stops on the iXpress (3) increased ridership on the iXpress making stops slower.


RE: Grand River Transit - Markster - 05-05-2015

Last time I checked (2ish years ago), you had to board an iXpress 200 as far south as Ottawa St in order for it to get you to Conestoga Mall faster than a 7C. Any stops short of that, the 200 wins by a mile. Right now, once the 7C is north of Columbia, it's a pretty quick ride to the Mall, which is part of why I don't feel that King St N really needs an iXpress route for now.


RE: Grand River Transit - MidTowner - 05-05-2015

That's an important point, that the iXpress has become less fast as our local routes have become faster and wider stop spacing. It's too bad that wider stop spacing was not pursued for both, and that more stops were added to the iXpress. That the "express" route (I don't think that there is a clear dividing line between "express" and "limited-stop," but I agree that the iXpress is much more the latter) is only 20% faster than the local between Fairview and Laurier is pretty sad. BuildingScout's point (3) is also important, and should tell us that we should pursue more BRT features with iXpress, including eliminating on-board payment.

I certainly hope that the Ion is faster between Conestoga and Uptown than the 7. I think an express along the King corridor might still be called for, though: Ion stop spacing is not particularly wide. Depending on ridership patterns that emerge once the Ion is launched, it might become clear that there is a need for an express bus service connecting just the malls and the downtowns.


RE: Grand River Transit - zanate - 05-05-2015

I admit, I don't understand this fixation on expresses for travel within the city. Not only does the express have to be *fast* to be worth it, it also has to leave when you want it to. Which means it also needs to be frequent, which means you'll need a high ridership. So the demand has to be pretty strong.

So where does the ridership come from? If you take a route like 200, and cut out all the non-major destination stops, what does that do to the ridership? You not only lose all the riders who would board at those stops, but also all the riders who would disembark there. I'm not convinced that we have much ridership driven only by trip origin/destination pairs that are both express-worthy stops.

When you add on the fact that we're seeing more connection points (especially along ION) to cross-town routes that don't converge on central terminals but establish grid connections along the way, you further weaken the appeal of "more express" routes because you're losing transfer ridership by cutting those intermediate stops out. So I don't see how you can drive a nice short headway.

You also have to consider the practical travel time savings possible, especially for buses running in mixed traffic. How much time can you really save by not stopping, or cutting out route deviation? Does that time savings even outweigh the average wait time penalty from your loss of frequency because of diminished utility for riders? And even if it does, does it (along the central corridor) also outweigh the simplicity, confidence and comfort that a higher frequency, semi-rapid transit line like ION should offer?

I can see a city the size of the GTA benefiting from this kind of transit. I don't see the utility here in Waterloo region. I'm curious if I'm missing something.


RE: Grand River Transit - YKF - 05-05-2015

Something that I'd like to see implemented here (in the coming years) is a TTC-style express system, whereby a route stops at every stop for a portion of the route (residential neighbourhoods) and then becomes an express to a major terminal/station. I think this could work in the Laurentian West neighbourhood of Kitchener, with a route mimicking the 22 making every stop in the neigbourhood and then travelling express to Block Line Station.


RE: Grand River Transit - Markster - 05-05-2015

(05-05-2015, 11:56 AM)zanate Wrote: You also have to consider the practical travel time savings possible, especially for buses running in mixed traffic. How much time can you really save by not stopping, or cutting out route deviation? Does that time savings even outweigh the average wait time penalty from your loss of frequency because of diminished utility for riders? And even if it does, does it (along the central corridor) also outweigh the simplicity, confidence and comfort that a higher frequency, semi-rapid transit line like ION should offer?

Indeed. Currently the iXpress is every 15 minutes. With the same investment, you can either add a super-express bus every half hour, or you can increase the iXpress to every 10 minutes. The former saves people 5~10 minutes on very specific trips at very specific departure times, while the latter saves everyone an average of 2.5 minutes on every trip. Personally, I hate living on schedules, so the latter is my preferred choice.

For information, I checked the schedules, and here's some expected run times to Conestoga Mall:

200:
Charles St to Mall: 36 minutes
Bridgeport to Mall: 22 minutes

7C:
Charles St to Mall: 31 minutes (5 mins faster)
Bridgeport to Mall: 13 minutes (9 mins faster)