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Grand River Transit - Printable Version

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RE: Grand River Transit - MidTowner - 01-06-2016

Maybe you're right that Weber would make more sense as a local; it does seem to me to have a lot of potential detours. Too many detours will reduce its utility, and I'm not sure how important it would be that it intersect with Ion at multiple places. I know that two-connection trips are a big disincentive, but if Ottawa and others have very frequent service, it might not be such a hassle to get off the Ion, hop on a crosstown iXpress, and then connect to a Weber local to complete your trip. Weber and King are so close at Victoria that I think what Lens' proposal does there makes a lot of sense.


RE: Grand River Transit - timc - 01-06-2016

(01-06-2016, 01:50 AM)dunkalunk Wrote: Not to be pessimistic, but I don't see willingness in the short term of GRT to place an iXpress route on Weber which has the potential beat the end-to-end run time of ION on opening day. While a trunk route running the length of Weber (possibly diverting to serve Hazel, WLU, and the Transit Hub) certainly makes a lot of sense and would serve a lot of trips, making this an iXpress route has the potential to draw ridership away from the ION corridor instead of to the ION corridor.

I'll be pessimistic here too. I don't remember why I have the impression, but I've gotten the feeling that GRT was kind of meh with regard to aligning service with ION.


RE: Grand River Transit - Viewfromthe42 - 01-06-2016

At some point, it seemed that GRT decided that even with the eventual intermodal hub, they would want to keep the Charles terminal. So buses would be told to hub/spoke at Conestoga Mall, Fairview Park Mall, and Charles. ION itself would encourage a grid approach, and the intermodal hub would somewhat provide cover for doing both jobs, and hopefully not ending up with a worse system than either would be on its own.


RE: Grand River Transit - dunkalunk - 01-06-2016

(01-06-2016, 05:18 PM)Viewfromthe42 Wrote: At some point, it seemed that GRT decided that even with the eventual intermodal hub, they would want to keep the Charles terminal. So buses would be told to hub/spoke at Conestoga Mall, Fairview Park Mall, and Charles. ION itself would encourage a grid approach, and the intermodal hub would somewhat provide cover for doing both jobs, and hopefully not ending up with a worse system than either would be on its own.

My understanding of GRT's rationale is that even with a shift to a more grid-like system and reorganization of routes to run to ION stations, there will still need to be a facility in downtown to terminate non-interlined routes and to schedule driver breaks and changeovers. There will still be a push to align GRT service with ION stations, but Charles St will still need to play a role for operations, at least until the intermodal hub is constructed.


RE: Grand River Transit - MidTowner - 01-06-2016

(01-06-2016, 05:18 PM)Viewfromthe42 Wrote: At some point, it seemed that GRT decided that even with the eventual intermodal hub, they would want to keep the Charles terminal.

Do you mean by this that GRT will continue using Charles Street even after the King/Victoria terminal opens? I must be misunderstanding.


RE: Grand River Transit - Waterlooer - 01-06-2016

(01-06-2016, 08:39 PM)MidTowner Wrote:
(01-06-2016, 05:18 PM)Viewfromthe42 Wrote: At some point, it seemed that GRT decided that even with the eventual intermodal hub, they would want to keep the Charles terminal.

Do you mean by this that GRT will continue using Charles Street even after the King/Victoria terminal opens? I must be misunderstanding.

There's no solid plan as to what will happen with the terminal in the future. I suspect that gradually routes will move out of the terminal. Route 20 no longer goes there and and at least the 204 will not stop at the terminal either once ION launches in Fall, 2017.


RE: Grand River Transit - Pheidippides - 01-07-2016

My GRT commutes through Downtown Kitchener and Uptown Waterloo this week have left me believing it is time for a crack down on double parked vehicles (delivery/armoured cars/private cars etc.) and vehicles not yielding to the buses when they are trying to pull out from stops and bus bays to get back into traffic. It is particularly frustrating when there are nearby laneways and side streets within steps of the offending vehicles. It slows everyone down (transit users, motorists, cyclists) and makes for needlessly dangerous passing.


RE: Grand River Transit - dunkalunk - 01-08-2016

Midtown areas such as Cherry Hill and the Mt Hope neighbourhood are both quite dense by suburban standards yet seem to be underserved by local routes when compared with similar neighbourhoods in Kitchener. Part of the reason why is the lack of arterials the the disconnected nature of the road network caused by the organic merging of two cities and the location of the cemetery.

Those who live in these areas of the CTC might rely on private vehicles more than transit than they would otherwise need to with better access to high quality transit. Some things could be done to help this situation such as overlaying new routes, diverting existing routes, and/or adding frequency. If you were given a cart blanche on midtown, how would you restructure service?


RE: Grand River Transit - MidTowner - 01-08-2016

I think that a service on Weber would help these areas a lot; I bet it would be fast and, if frequent, I suspect would provide popular. That might be a lot to ask, but in the shorter term 8 could be realigned to travel along Weber instead of taking the detour to Margaret. I know that exists to serve the Breithaupt Centre, but 4 could be realigned to continue along Union to Margaret, turning to terminate at the Breithaupt Centre or somewhere further.*

If relatively frequent service could be had on each of Belmont, King, Weber, and Lancaster; and Victoria, Wellington, Glasgow, and Union, I think the areas in between the two city's cores would be well-served. You're right that there are not good arterials on which to place buses, but if we're more interested in coverage than frequency, buses could be put on streets like Moore between downtown and uptown (part of Moore used to carry the 4), or Guelph to serve the new development at Victoria Common.

*As we move to more of a grid system, built-up areas neglected because they didn't happen to be in downtown will get better service naturally. I know there are good reasons for using terminals, but not everything needs to begin or end at the downtown terminal, and I think the GRT is increasingly understanding that.


RE: Grand River Transit - Markster - 01-14-2016

To my surprise, with the 200 back on Super Detour, taking Weber all the way to Bridgeport before going to Uptown, they've finally decided to add stops on Weber St.

There are now 200 iXpress stops at Weber/Guelph, and Weber/Union.

This comes about 10 months into the detour, which started mid-March of last year.  I wonder what was finally done to convince them to add the stops?


RE: Grand River Transit - MidTowner - 01-14-2016

I think it's as a result of the 4 being detoured off King starting Monday. The 4 is about to begin a detour to Joseph-Victoria-Park before taking Glasgow and proceeding normally. The 200 is taking Weber (as it has been) so it's stopping at Weber/Guelph and Weber/Union so there is at least some service at those stops. At the Weber/Guelph stop, the sign reads something to the effect of "the 4 won't be using this stop, but you can take the 200 instead."

I really have my fingers crossed that at least one of these stops continues to be used by the 200 after these (approximately) six weeks are up. Taking the 200 this week, it doesn't seem like there are that many people using them, though- never more than three or four boarding or disembarking.


RE: Grand River Transit - goggolor - 01-14-2016

I wonder how much of the lack of use of the new stops is due to the lag in updating various online tools. Google Maps still doesn't know about the new 200 route (GRT keeps responding to people on Twitter that Google has the information and to ask Google why it's not up to date). 3rd party apps like Transit App don't have the new stops listed either.

Even the official EasyGo application was only updated today with the information about the detour stops. When I checked yesterday, EasyGo was still giving "real time arrival" information for the 200 iXpress stops that were no longer in service.


RE: Grand River Transit - zanate - 01-14-2016

(01-14-2016, 04:31 PM)Markster Wrote: To my surprise, with the 200 back on Super Detour, taking Weber all the way to Bridgeport before going to Uptown, they've finally decided to add stops on Weber St.

There are now 200 iXpress stops at Weber/Guelph, and Weber/Union.

This comes about 10 months into the detour, which started mid-March of last year.  I wonder what was finally done to convince them to add the stops?

Great to find this out! Living behind Mount Hope cemetery, I'd given up on the 200 (Weber/Union just too far) but Weber/Guelph is viable. In fact, it's just a few steps further away from my place than the old GRH stop was/future ION stop will be.

It's also a few hundred metres closer to the hospital than Weber/Union. Good. Still over a km, though.


RE: Grand River Transit - MidTowner - 01-18-2016

(01-14-2016, 05:11 PM)zanate Wrote: Great to find this out! Living behind Mount Hope cemetery, I'd given up on the 200 (Weber/Union just too far) but Weber/Guelph is viable. In fact, it's just a few steps further away from my place than the old GRH stop was/future ION stop will be.

It's also a few hundred metres closer to the hospital than Weber/Union. Good. Still over a km, though.

There seems to have been an update to the GRT ‘Detours’ page, listing this detour (and I presume the temporary temporary stop at Weber/Guelph) as in place from January 11 through January 25. It had previously said 6 weeks. I’m unsure if they will keep the stop when the 200 can use (some of) King in a few weeks, but I doubt it.

If the stop at Weber and Guelph is useful to you, please let GRT know. Especially with both King and Waterloo closed, restricting access by foot to the service at King and Victoria, there are a lot of people between Victoria and Union for whom the utility of the iXpress is greatly diminished. It seems senseless not to have a stop somewhere between King and Victoria and King and Union (which is something like three kilometers along the Weber routing), but that’s the situation it’s been for the better part of a year, until last week.


RE: Grand River Transit - Markster - 01-18-2016

I noticed that the Waterloo Spur at Weber has crossing arms now! Maybe they've been there for weeks/months, but I only just noticed them today. Are they active? Has anyone seen them in action yet?

My question is, how do we lobby GRT to drive through, without coming to a complete stop at, these fully controlled intersections?