R+T is very suburban?

[danbrotherston]

...

Ironically, I disagree with the only current vehicle restrictions on campus, namely that the university is heavily restricting transit vehicles on Ring Rd. I was absolutely livid when the university administration put up fencing, took out sidewalks, banned buses, and DIDN'T restrict cars, and they pretend this is in the name of "safety".

I don’t think buses are banned, just reduced, mostly due to the LRT and of course soon to be moved to the new bus terminal. And I’m not aware of sidewalks being removed — where did that happen? Corrections and memory jogging welcomed! But I understand the administration wanted to get rid of buses, which is totally asinine. A few professional drivers coming through once every couple of minutes (combined between all routes) are not the problem, either for congestion or for safety. A similar discussion happened when the iXPress was being set up and GRT wanted to run it down I think Central — Albert — Seagram. The neighbourhood complained about excess traffic, as if one bus in each direction every 10 minutes was a problem compared to the many miscellaneous vehicles which use those streets. So for years the iXPress ended up being maybe 3-5 minutes slower on every trip than it should have been.

Actually just on logical grounds the notion of restricting buses annoys me (in addition to the policy absurdity). If arbitrary members of the public are allowed to drive their vehicles on campus, what is the basis for telling buses they can’t? I mean, if I bought an old GRT bus I could drive it around and around Ring Road; how can GRT not be allowed to do the same? GRT is part of the public, after all. It would be like having a retail store where absolutely anybody can just walk in, but GRT drivers aren’t allowed, or a web page that is allowed to be seen by anybody who is not logged in, but not by certain logged in roles.

I'm not actually certain of the current situation, but I know that was a goal of the administration.

The sidewalks that were removed were on the other side of Ring Rd. which was replaced by a fence. They weren't completely continuous, but it was convenient, because one could walk up one side until there was a break in traffic, then cross. They took out the sidewalk and replaced with the fence, which people now do the same thing along the outside of.

In general we agree...see also the people who complained about the diesel trains to the airport...because a diesel train ever 15 minutes is a problem by the thousands of private vehicles and taxis that train replaces are fine.