Grand River Transit

[kps]

It's 800 feet from the Ion line. How much better can you get?

They were discussing the Family Centre on Hanson, near St. Mary's High School. Hanson/Lennox Lewis Way is a non-through-street near Homer Watson: kind of in the middle of nowhere, especially from a transit perspective.

Yes, here, 800 feet from the Ion line. Last week, an old car lot twice that distance was a ‘prime location’.

[MidTowner]

Yes, here, 800 feet from the Ion line. Last week, an old car lot twice that distance was a ‘prime location’.

It has to be much more than 800 feet from there to either the Block Line or Mill Street stop. Are you talking about the Ottawa Street site that had been rumoured to be under consideration for a grocery store development? That had to be closer to the Ottawa Ion station than this is to Mill Street.

Anyway, it came up because Family Centre was asking for GRT bus service, after locating there presumably knowing that bus service was sparse.

[KevinL]

You can be right next to the LINE, but it's no good if you're nowhere near a STOP.

[isUsername]

You can be right next to the LINE, but it's no good if you're nowhere near a STOP.

It's about one kilometre to the nearest ION stop. A tad further than 800 feet.

[neonjoe]

Maybe once the 201 is extended to BlockLine station they can have it do its turnaround via Courtland/Hanson/Lennox Lewis and back to BlockLine

[Elmira Guy]

Seeing as I only come on here when I have a complaint with GRT, I won't break with continuity.

Went out to catch the #12 at Weber and Lincoln today. App said it would be there at 1:49, arrived at 1:57. Got to the mall to catch the #21 scheduled to depart at 2:30. Bus arrived at 3. No explanation, no apology.

I appreciate that there is a lot of construction around, so I can let the #12 slide on it's lateness. But 30 minutes late for the #21 is entirely unacceptable! I realize it's only Elmira, but the bus is full, with a lot of people in addition to myself waiting in the rain for 45 minutes.

Not a real solid way to encourage people to use the bus.

End rant.

[Viewfromthe42]

Just to be clear...what frequency is the 21 on? I'm looking at it and it says every 30 minutes. Did they miss a bus or something, if you were there for 45 minutes?

[Elmira Guy]

The frequency is every hour mid-day, and 30 minutes morning and afternoon. Yes. The 2:30 bus never showed. Although the app showed the 2:30 and 3 arriving about 3 minutes apart.
No idea why it was so ridiculously late. No construction or delays from the mall to Elmira.

So from my place at Weber & Lincoln to Elmira, it took me a little over 1 hour, 45 minutes total time.

Not pleased.

[Lens]

You're not alone in your feelings towards certain GRT schedules. The 10 is still a nightmare every Sunday. Only hourly service for Conestoga College, It's many students and the surrounding neighbourhoods. Buses are frequently full if not jam packed. I'm not sure what GRT deems to be enough demand for more service but it's painfully obvious that the 10 needs more weekend service.

[Section ThirtyOne]

Seeing as I only come on here when I have a complaint with GRT, I won't break with continuity.

Went out to catch the #12 at Weber and Lincoln today. App said it would be there at 1:49, arrived at 1:57. Got to the mall to catch the #21 scheduled to depart at 2:30. Bus arrived at 3. No explanation, no apology.

I appreciate that there is a lot of construction around, so I can let the #12 slide on it's lateness. But 30 minutes late for the #21 is entirely unacceptable! I realize it's only Elmira, but the bus is full, with a lot of people in addition to myself waiting in the rain for 45 minutes.

Not a real solid way to encourage people to use the bus.

End rant.

Which app were you using? The GRT easyGO app? It really isn't very good.

I've found the Transit app to be much better, especially with regards to bus arrival times: https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...tapp.droid

[zanate]

Which app were you using? The GRT easyGO app? It really isn't very good.

I've found the Transit app to be much better, especially with regards to bus arrival times: https://play.google.com/store/apps/detai...tapp.droid

Bear in mind they use the exact same data source.

[goggolor]

The Transit app uses GRT data, but it's about 10x faster and easier to use than the official easyGO app. However I've found with all the detours there can be issues with Transit app - for example, right now Transit app doesn't show the Uptown Waterloo or King/Union stops for the 200 iXpress, which were only recently put back into service.

The most reliable option I've found is https://busmaple.com/ - I check the map to see where the buses actually are, which lets me predict arrival times a lot more intelligently than the "Next departure" times on the apps. BusMaple also works on mobile a lot better than GRT's official realtime web page.

[chutten]

BusMaple also works on mobile a lot better than GRT's official realtime web page.

And the Understatement of the Year Award goes to...

(( thank you so much for this link! I was getting angry enough to build my own transit map that wasn't
awful on mobile, reverse engineering GRT's data stream ))

Bear in mind they use the exact same data source.

Near as I can tell, the easyGo app has access to the realtime data. Transit only advertises knowledge of the scheduled data (at least according to their app description on Google Play).

This wouldn't be a problem if GRT released their realtime data like they said in August(pdf) they would (still no sign of it).

[GtwoK]

As someone who has never ed used the GRT befire: what's wrong with using Google Maps? Their transit data has always been plenty accurate from what I've seen in other cities, and from the work I've done with Google Maps, seems to be very fleshed out in KW too. Is there another layer to this that I'm not seeing?

[goggolor]

Near as I can tell, the easyGo app has access to the realtime data. Transit only advertises knowledge of the scheduled data (at least according to their app description on Google Play).

Transit app definitely has the same real-time arrival time as GRT (Transit app has a symbol above real-time data to distinguish it).  However, I've noticed that the GRT and Transit mobile apps will sometimes have different real-time arrival data than is displayed on the signs at the bus stop.

As someone who has never ed used the GRT befire: what's wrong with using Google Maps? Their transit data has always been plenty accurate from what I've seen in other cities, and from the work I've done with Google Maps, seems to be very fleshed out in KW too. Is there another layer to this that I'm not seeing?

Google Maps isn't real-time data, which makes it pretty much useless in this time of perpetual detours and delayed buses. Also, every seasonal schedule update there's a delay of a week or two where GRT data disappears off of Google Maps entirely - GRT always claims it's a problem on Google's side, which I find hard to believe.