03-17-2018, 04:54 PM
(03-17-2018, 04:21 PM)Pheidippides Wrote: At this point I wouldn't expect it, but I suspect that some regional politicians were hoping for a specific announcement of full funding for the next phase of Ion like other municipalities have recently had full funding for their own LRT projects.
The scale of this investment is pretty impressive when you compare it to GRT's 2018 operating budget ($63 million) or its 2018-2017 capital budget ($314 million) or the rapid transit 2018-2017 capital budget ($118 million).
LTC's ridership is not that much higher. In 2016, the last year I could find comparable numbers, LTC had a ridership of 22.9 million vs. GRT at 19.7 million.
That's a lot higher though if you factor in population base. I'm sure that London services London only, while GRT services Kitchener, Cambridge, Waterloo, Elmira (and St. Jacobs) and New Hamburg. We have an extra 120,000 (roughly 30%) people in the service area but had ridership that is 3.2 million lower (16%). That's huge. Based on population alone, we should be up to 30M compared to London.
Though you can blame it on poor design (layout of the streets) of the cities, especially KW, and Cambridge really being 3 separate towns, when you think of it. And really, the poor design hasn't really stopped. Not transit friendly at all.
My daughter could have gone to a different high school, but it meant 3 different busses (and taking the early bus) and getting to school late every day, and getting home by 5:30. 5 hours on the bus plus 30 minutes walking wasn't going to work for us.