Grand River Transit

[danbrotherston]

Yet, Canada has a car ownership of 790 vehicles per 1,000 people.

Finland, well, they are also 790 vehicles per 1,000 people.

Netherlands, they are a little lower, at 588 per 1,000 people (still more than one per family).

Should also be noted, the Netherlands are roughly 200km by 200km in size (41,000 km2). That's it. And yet you still have 588 cars per 100k. For comparison, Southern Ontario is 114,000 km2, almost 3x the size, with about 4.5 million less people.

Honestly, this has been the biggest surprising moving here. The country is HIGHLY driveable (outside of Amsterdam). Basically every single one of my neighbours owns a car. We are the odd ones out by not having one. Most have only one, but a few have two. Parking is free everywhere but the centre of the city. Right now they are trying to make all curb parking permit based (which is most overnight parking in the city, most people don't have a garage or driveway) and there is all kinds of uproar and petitions going on about it (albeit less entitled--"I have a RIGHT to park free" and more utilitarian--"expenses are high enough already" than in Canada).

People who claim "oh that's just Europe" are naive at best.

The land use is certainly more dense, but that matters less for cycling. Yeah, walkability depends hugely on the built form, but cycling extends the distance you can move. The suburb I live in is not particularly walkable. The grocery store I go to is almost exactly as far away as the one I went to in Kitchener, but it feels much closer, because I don't have multiple near death experiences on the way there (or realistically, I don't have to choose a more circuitous route and go to a farther grocery store just to avoid unsafe roads). We should still stop sprawling and do infill development, but cycling is the secret sauce that can make the garbage land use we already have less car dependent.

[tomh009]

About a 2% increase to both monthly passes and EasyGO fare payments, well below inflation.

Whether or not it is below inflation doesn't matter. People are still struggling to afford life. Sure a mere 24 extra dollars on a transit pass per year may not be a lot of money to someone like you or I, but for others any sort of cost increase can be extremely hard. The elderly with low pensions, students, those on ODSP or even just people making minimum wage (or hell even low 20s) feel every little cost increase they are faced with.

You do know about the reduced fare program, right? 48% reduction in passes for people with low income. And in that scenario, the increase is only about $1/month. Yes, it's an increase but it's nothing compared to the food inflation recently.

As for your claim about people spending 2h to get somewhere on transit, that's been debunked enough times here already.

[plam]

Honestly, this has been the biggest surprising moving here. The country is HIGHLY driveable (outside of Amsterdam). Basically every single one of my neighbours owns a car. We are the odd ones out by not having one. Most have only one, but a few have two. Parking is free everywhere but the centre of the city. Right now they are trying to make all curb parking permit based (which is most overnight parking in the city, most people don't have a garage or driveway) and there is all kinds of uproar and petitions going on about it (albeit less entitled--"I have a RIGHT to park free" and more utilitarian--"expenses are high enough already" than in Canada).

People who claim "oh that's just Europe" are naive at best.

The land use is certainly more dense, but that matters less for cycling. Yeah, walkability depends hugely on the built form, but cycling extends the distance you can move. The suburb I live in is not particularly walkable. The grocery store I go to is almost exactly as far away as the one I went to in Kitchener, but it feels much closer, because I don't have multiple near death experiences on the way there (or realistically, I don't have to choose a more circuitous route and go to a farther grocery store just to avoid unsafe roads). We should still stop sprawling and do infill development, but cycling is the secret sauce that can make the garbage land use we already have less car dependent.

My walk/cycle split is pretty indicative of that too. In months where I'm in KW my bike/walk split heavily leans towards bike, while in Wellington there's way less biking and way more walking. KW is much better for biking than for walking, and it's going to be hard to get buses that meet those needs, especially in deep suburbia. Bikes are far more practical for many people.

NZ outside Wellington is pretty car centric too. Although, as in any city, driving a car in central Wellington is not that fun. And the streets are narrow.

[Bytor]

Should also be noted, the Netherlands are roughly 200km by 200km in size (41,000 km2). That's it. And yet you still have 588 cars per 100k. For comparison, Southern Ontario is 114,000 km2, almost 3x the size, with about 4.5 million less people.

Bullshit alert.

Nobody's talking a bout biking across Ontario (or even across the Netherlands) so that size is utterly irrelevant and bad faith arguing to bring up.

It's about biking 1-5km to work inside the same city where you live.

[danbrotherston]

Should also be noted, the Netherlands are roughly 200km by 200km in size (41,000 km2). That's it. And yet you still have 588 cars per 100k. For comparison, Southern Ontario is 114,000 km2, almost 3x the size, with about 4.5 million less people.

Bullshit alert.

Nobody's talking a bout biking across Ontario (or even across the Netherlands) so that size is utterly irrelevant and bad faith arguing to bring up.

It's about biking 1-5km to work inside the same city where you live.

Honestly...it's also silly. From a travel perspective...there are no borders in schengen zone (which is slightly different than the EU).

I'm not sure what jeffster was getting at for the Netherlands in terms of area, it doesn't really affect anything. Most people drive their cars for exactly the same types of long distance trips as they do in Ontario...we aren't on an island...people routinely drive 3 hours to places in Germany or Belgium.

The difference again is that you are not dependent on a car...you can drive to Rheinbach Germany (a random small town in Germany) but I can also take transit pretty easily in a way that is impossible in most of Ontario.

[Bytor]

It's also extremely small. You can walk from one end of Amsterdam to the other in just over an hour.

Do you always just pull stuff out of your butt like that?

More like 3.5 hours.

You do the same thing with you oft-debunked 2 hour bus ride claim.

It is much easier to transform the infrastructure of a city when the city itself is tiny and not even 1 million people live in it.

You mean like Kitchener at 260,000 people an 137km² compared to Amsterdam in the 1980s of 720,000 and 219km²?

Bike usage is high there because the country/cities are tiny, they have fairly mild weather year round and they really could not afford to waste space on roads.

Country size is irrelevant and using it as an argument is bad faith and dishonest because nobody is talking about biking across Canada, across Ontario, or even across the Netherlands. More like between 1 and 10 km to work in the same city.

As for weather, how many time do people have to bring up the Not Just Bikes video about Oulu, Finland, before you stop making that BS claim?

[bravado]

I’m certain that the next generation, when they can’t afford to live or move in the city they grew up in, will probably just understand that the status quo was just too hard to change.

[danbrotherston]

The Toronto Board of Trade gave the region a B- grade on our transit system.

https://bot.com/Resources/Resource-Libra...port-Cards

They fairly reasonably analyze our transit system and correctly point out our strengths and weaknesses (like our LRVs operating too slowly).

I am surprised though that they don't seem to look at intercity transit at all (which did make it easier to know where to post this lol), given that it's the Toronto board of trade, and also intercity transit is by far the region's biggest weakness.

It is nice to see an economic organization focus on transit though...

[Bytor]

I am surprised though that they don't seem to look at intercity transit at all (which did make it easier to know where to post this lol), given that it's the Toronto board of trade, and also intercity transit is by far the region's biggest weakness.

Lack of decent GO bus & train service was mentioned.

[bravado]

https://www.cambridgetoday.ca/local-news...ge-7243367

The region is now offering a new way to get to areas in Cambridge that have been inaccessible by bus. 
The 72 Boxwood flex route is one of three new flexible bus routes being offered by Grand River Transit.
GRT said in a press release these routes provide reliable service in parts of the region that are harder to serve with regular bus routes and help build ridership in lower-density and new growth areas, while connecting transit riders to the wider network.

I’m annoyed that we make new places that are ignored by transit in the first place, but happy to see some options from GRT. As someone who works in an industrial park, the really high volumes of people walking and biking through ditches and gravel shoulders don’t ever come up in these sorts of forums but it’s really a massive chunk of people who need to get to work.

[tomh009]

The Toronto Board of Trade gave the region a B- grade on our transit system.

https://bot.com/Resources/Resource-Libra...port-Cards

They fairly reasonably analyze our transit system and correctly point out our strengths and weaknesses (like our LRVs operating too slowly).

Notably none of the regions was rated better than a B. Waterloo Region lost most of its points because of lack of (base and high-frequency) coverage: only 15% of residents are within walking distance of every-15-minutes transit service, and 85% of any transit at all. Frequency of service, not speed of LRT of buses, would be the big win on their score card.

   

[danbrotherston]

The Toronto Board of Trade gave the region a B- grade on our transit system.

https://bot.com/Resources/Resource-Libra...port-Cards

They fairly reasonably analyze our transit system and correctly point out our strengths and weaknesses (like our LRVs operating too slowly).

Notably none of the regions was rated better than a B. Waterloo Region lost most of its points because of lack of (base and high-frequency) coverage: only 15% of residents are within walking distance of every-15-minutes transit service, and 85% of any transit at all. Frequency of service, not speed of LRT of buses, would be the big win on their score card.

Generally I agree, 

I just thought it was interesting that they called out the LRVs travelling too slowly. And that's also something that costs the region nothing to fix...it's more waste than lack of investment.

[ijmorlan]

Notably none of the regions was rated better than a B. Waterloo Region lost most of its points because of lack of (base and high-frequency) coverage: only 15% of residents are within walking distance of every-15-minutes transit service, and 85% of any transit at all. Frequency of service, not speed of LRT of buses, would be the big win on their score card.

Generally I agree, 

I just thought it was interesting that they called out the LRVs travelling too slowly. And that's also something that costs the region nothing to fix...it's more waste than lack of investment.

That’s actually pretty impressive. I don’t necessarily expect a report of this nature to really dig into the details and identify specific issues correctly. But they call out the lower LRT speed limits that apply right next to faster motor vehicle traffic, when it should be the reverse: there is no problem with centre lane traffic running faster than the traffic that is right next to the sidewalk.

In the TTC section they also identify a huge TTC problem: bunching of vehicles, so that instead of maybe 15 minute service you instead have 2 buses every 30 minutes. TTC management has effectively given up on service management, and the drivers often don’t even make an attempt to do their part.

[nms]

I can't remember, are there sections of the Ion route where the LRVs can be sped up without any engineering changes? Or would it result in uncomfortable speed changes for passengers whenever the LRV hits a tight curve?

How easily could GRT achieve 15-minute service on all of its routes? What kind of a budget increase would that represent?

[ijmorlan]

I can't remember, are there sections of the Ion route where the LRVs can be sped up without any engineering changes? Or would it result in uncomfortable speed changes for passengers whenever the LRV hits a tight curve?

There are many areas where Ion could simply drive faster. Anywhere it’s parallel to motor vehicle traffic and in the middle between other vehicles, it should be doing at least the speed of uncongested traffic, typically 10km/h faster than the limit. For example, King St. near GRH. Southbound approaching Erb St. the only explanation for the snail like pace of the service is safety paranoia. We’ve discussed the section parallel to Courtland a few times.

In addition to the actual speed of travel, there is also the issue of signal priority. The LRT often does not get priority. For example, if an LRT is waiting to leave Allen northbound and Allen has the green, King St. motor vehicle traffic will get its green first when the LRT should instead.

Signalling in general has been poorly handled. I also have complaints about other traffic being held up, not because an LRT is going through (which is fine; there is no reason why a few motorists should go before an LRT with dozens of people on it), but because an LRT will be going through or has recently gone through or even is just nearby. Signals should clear faster after the LRT is gone, and should be designed only to stop conflicting movements. For example, when the southbound LRT crosses Erb St., Caroline St. traffic should get a green; at Allen St., only King St. traffic in the same direction as the LRT should be stopped.