Grand River Transit

[Markster]

With the university district housing developments, I suspect there's some reverse trends for student ridership that might counterbalance student population increases.

I must admit, commuting in from Kitchener this year, things have been less squishy than last year. Sept/Oct 2013 were guaranteed crush loads on the iXpress in the morning rush, with many people standing all the way from Charles St. It's rare that I've been on a bus that full (during morning rush) this season.
Another anecdote is that leaving UW, there's a very heavy turnover on the iXpress at Laurier. Something that isn't there in the morning. The crush of students is not continuing as far into Kitchener anymore.

What I imagine we're seeing here is that yes, the towers of King St are making significant changes to travel patterns. My guess is that students are still gravitating to the most reliable service, the iXpress, but inbound in the morning, they wait at the iXpress stop and take whichever bus comes first. In the evening, they all go to the iXpress stop, crush load it (because there fewer alternate services at DC) and then all pile out at Laurier to go home to the towers.

I don’t understand Route 15. It is a very short walk from the 204 on Victoria to Wellington Street (I can’t picture right now where the best places to cross the tracks are). Likewise, if someone really wants to take the bus to a job on Shirley, the 204 station at Lackner is not far. I just can’t see this rush hour-only bus to serve a handful of businesses being successful.

Route 15 is a coverage route. It's political. GRT has been asked to provide a bus to Bingeman's for years, and they've (rightfully) said that it's unfeasible as a successful route. What they've done is extended the rush-hour extension of the current 15, and provided more (rush hour only) coverage for the industrial along Shirley. There are very few crossings of the railway tracks, so any service on Victoria is almost entirely unrelated to Shirley.
The service will not be popular. But it will provide some basic service to a part of the city that's been isolated from transit.