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Grand River Transit
#76
I don't think anyone on here disagrees with each other to any great extent. No one here thinks that all bus lines should recover their own costs, and likely no one here thinks that all bus lines should be required to recover an equal proportion of their costs. Probably very few people here think that transit is funded through general Regional revenues to the extent it should; most here likely feel that more resources should be procured for the system generally.

BuildingScout is right when he says "all we are left to argue is where we draw the line." That's true, we all have slightly different opinions about the balancing point between ridership and coverage. I personally think it is extremely damaging to the long-term goals of transit and sustainable development to operate a popular route in a part of the city dense enough to support frequent transit, and then to deny it enough transit resources to prevent crush-loads and drive-bys. I would agree that the best solution would be to procure more transit resources for those routes, but failing the political feasibility of that, I would suggest reallocating resources from social service routes whose few passengers are being subsidized to a greater tune, and from neighbourhoods that are not dense enough to ever support transit of any kind of frequency.

Is that so bad? The alternative would be to say to a dedicated transit rider in a dense neighbourhood that he has to withstand crush loads so that someone who has chosen (I understand that no one has infinite choice in where to live, and some less than others, but we do have some) to live in a sprawling neighbourhood can keep his hourly peak bus, even though he's one of only four or five people on it.
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#77
Is it just me or is the GRT Real Time map misleadingly useless? The main thing I want to know is what time the next buses are going to be at my stop. It took me two weeks to figure out that when you click on a stop on the "real time" map, the posted arrival times are still the scheduled arrival times - it doesn't use the real time data at all. (Same goes for the Transit app which boasts 'real time' data for GRT).

Ok, so I'll scroll down the map in the direction that the buses are coming from (which assumes users know what direction their buses are coming from), find the next bus, click on it, hope it's going in the direction I want to go. Except inevitably it says that the next 3 stops are all "less than 1 minute" away (apparently GRT can get from the Charles St Terminal to Sportsworld in under 1 minute!). So there's no way to tell when the buses are actually arriving at my stop.

Right now for instance I see two northbound iXpresses bunched up at King & University, both are "1 minute" away from Laurier, UW, and R&T Park, and the R&T Park stop shows the next buses in 4, 14, and 24 minutes.
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#78
(11-20-2014, 10:01 AM)BuildingScout Wrote: The 200 are a more efficient use of a bus, because they take less time per round trip than the 7. The idea should be to consolidate 7A, 7B and 7F and get rid of 7D, 7E which are replaced by the 92+200. 7B would be replaced by a new 8 routing.

It's been mentioned in this thread before, but GRT is currently consulting the public on proposed service changed for Fall 2015.
http://www.grt.ca/en/aboutus/2015PCC.asp

The 7D and 7E will be gone come Fall 2015. Be sure to fill out the Online Comment Form to voice your opinion! 
My 2 cents: I think that the current 7B should be transfered to the 8 that is proposed in Map 2, with the newly revised 8 travelling along Weber from Frederick Street to Fairway Road.
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#79
(11-20-2014, 04:00 PM)goggolor Wrote: Right now for instance I see two northbound iXpresses bunched up at King & University, both are "1 minute" away from Laurier, UW, and R&T Park.

That's what I call express service Tongue


Quote:YKF:

My 2 cents: I think that the current 7B should be transfered to the 8 that is proposed in Map 2, with the newly revised 8 travelling along Weber from Frederick Street to Fairway Road.


I'm pretty sure this was one of the options available in the survey.
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#80
(11-20-2014, 04:18 PM)BuildingScout Wrote: [quote pid='2814' dateline='1416513620']
YKF:

My 2 cents: I think that the current 7B should be transfered to the 8 that is proposed in Map 2, with the newly revised 8 travelling along Weber from Frederick Street to Fairway Road.


I'm pretty sure this was one of the options available in the survey.
[/quote]

One would think that they'd make this an option, but they didn't *facepalm*. The route options for the 8 (in maps 1 and 2) still show GRT somewhat clinging onto the old school circuitous ways of transit planning (the south end of the 8), otherwise they would've showed an option for it along Weber from Frederick to Fairway Road.
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#81
They had four maps in one the displays two of which had already been eliminated. Having the 8 down Weber might have been in one of those.
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#82
(11-20-2014, 03:32 PM)BuildingScout Wrote:
(11-20-2014, 03:00 PM)zanate Wrote: You're also talking about public transit as entitlement, and I think you've missed the point. Coverage standards like ours exist because as a society we've accepted that public transit provides a social service.

You lost me right there. First we as a society have barely accepted that public transit exists, we are far from settled about how prevalent it is.

I disagree. Perhaps we have barely accepted that public transit exists for "us", but the prevailing attitude to transit is it's something you spend a few bucks on for poor folks and those who can't drive: that's what I mean by "transit as a social service". In that role, maximum coverage for minimum dollar is the objective. Ridership numbers are a distant concern. Trip time and comfort hardly enter into it.

Now we're talking about maximizing the utility of transit and growing ridership. I'm arguing that this goal has not (and in my own opinion, should not) replaced the old one.

Quote:Second you make it sound like everyone is being served and I'm breaking some ground by withdrawing service which is disingenuous. We do not provide public transit to large parts of the region, such as the townships or the new subdivision in New Dundee road or no off-peak hour service for so many of the existing routes. All we are left to argue is where we draw the line.

That's a good point. I'm trying to say that we can't just dismissively discard low ridership routes because our transit system still has the defined goal of providing a coverage standard. Changing that goal means talking to council, not the transit agency. And in a conversation like that, we will have to talk about how much of our transit system's role should be to provide coverage even with lower ridership growth potential, or higher cost.

I think we're due to have that conversation. The way the coverage standard is structured is an impediment to restructuring the system to a higher frequency grid network. There are tools like MobilityPlus that can supplement our regular transit system, and maybe we can acknowledge that not everybody needs a symphony hall transit stop within 450m, if a stop slightly further away provides a service frequency of better than 2 concerts per month.

But while I strongly support restructuring our transit system in search of higher utility for everyone, I can't agree that we should discard transit's role as providing the level of mobility it does in less-easily served areas for people whose lives are dependent on it.
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#83
(11-20-2014, 05:58 PM)zanate Wrote: That's a good point. I'm trying to say that we can't just dismissively discard low ridership routes because our transit system still has the defined goal of providing a coverage standard. Changing that goal means talking to council, not the transit agency. And in a conversation like that, we will have to talk about how much of our transit system's role should be to provide coverage even with lower ridership growth potential, or higher cost.

I think we're due to have that conversation. The way the coverage standard is structured is an impediment to restructuring the system to a higher frequency grid network. There are tools like MobilityPlus that can supplement our regular transit system, and maybe we can acknowledge that not everybody needs a symphony hall transit stop within 450m, if a stop slightly further away provides a service frequency of better than 2 concerts per month.

But while I strongly support restructuring our transit system in search of higher utility for everyone, I can't agree that we should discard transit's role as providing the level of mobility it does in less-easily served areas for people whose lives are dependent on it.

Normally I would agree, but the "service everywhere, once every hour" has been such a total and utter failure whenever and wherever it has been tried that I think this is beyond the level of policy discussion.

We are not comparing two different alternatives each with its own virtues, we are talking a total failure against a service so successful it has to leave riders behind because buses are too full.
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#84
(11-20-2014, 09:20 PM)BuildingScout Wrote: Normally I would agree, but the "service everywhere, once every hour" has been such a total and utter failure whenever and wherever it has been tried that I think this is beyond the level of policy discussion.

We are not comparing two different alternatives each with its own virtues, we are talking a total failure against a service so successful it has to leave riders behind because buses are too full.

There was also the argument where someone pointed out that removing low-frequency buses just doesn't add that many buses compared to the number of buses running in high-frequency corridors, because, well, they're low-frequency buses and there just aren't that many of them.
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#85
Today around 3:15 I got on a 200 iXpress bus in Uptown and right behind it was another 200 iXpress bus. Do they just add another bus when there are crush loads? Or did the one iXpress bus just catch up to the other one somehow? It just surprised me.
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#86
(11-21-2014, 12:40 AM)plam Wrote: There was also the argument where someone pointed out that removing low-frequency buses just doesn't add that many buses compared to the number of buses running in high-frequency corridors, because, well, they're low-frequency buses and there just aren't that many of them.

Speaking to a GRT person he claimed that the numbers were significant enough to make a difference on the main routes.

Additionally there are likely more people left behind in a single iXpress stop when the bus is full than the entire number of passengers in those suburban routes.
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#87
As much as I agree about the short term financial future of operating low ridership routes in the suburbs the main point for me is that it is hard to attract long term transit riders if people grow up in an area that virtually has no transit service. In the same vein I would really like to see growth in the number of users in the suburbs, however unlikely this may be. As obvious as it seems the best way to reverse the current economic situation of these low ridership routes is to grow the ridership. I am hopeful that more and more employers will locate their employment base near the core, making the transit option more appealing, only time will tell.

The unfortunate fact: I have worked in the areas high tech sector for over 8 years and the vast majority of people don't even consider the local transit service an option for their commute to work. Although a couple of people have indicated that they would consider taking the LRT to work in the future. The growth of GRT is promising, however we are still not at a point where many people are willing to give up their car. Increasing the frequency, improving stops and signage, cost competitiveness and system connectivity will drive ridership.

Currently I work on Kumpf Ave, during the warmer months I bike to work and during the other half of the year I take the bus when possible. On Wednesday the night of the epic 2 hr trip home on the bus I was surprised at how many people were taking the 14, it was promising.
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#88
(11-20-2014, 05:21 PM)BuildingScout Wrote: They had four maps in one the displays two of which had already been eliminated. Having the 8 down Weber might have been in one of those.
Oh really? I've only seen the two maps that they have up on their website. Were four maps provided at the public consultation sessions?
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#89
(11-21-2014, 01:29 AM)rangersfan Wrote:   the main point for me is that it is hard to attract long term transit riders if people grow up in an area that virtually has no transit service. 

It is even harder if you only provide peak hour service because it teaches people from an early age that public transit is crappy, as opposed to non-existent.

This is what happened for the last 60 years, and as soon as the trend was reversed with frequent and reliable service ridership increased on every single newly improved route.

The peak hour service on suburban neighbourhoods is a proven failure. The iXpress model is a proven success. Where's the controversy?
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#90
(11-21-2014, 10:01 AM)YKF Wrote:
(11-20-2014, 05:21 PM)BuildingScout Wrote: They had four maps in one the displays two of which had already been eliminated. Having the 8 down Weber might have been in one of those.
Oh really? I've only seen the two maps that they have up on their website. Were four maps provided at the public consultation sessions?

Yes. They had four maps in the public consultation services.
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