Grand River Transit

[zanate]

Again, my understanding is that those signals are only used when buses are behind schedule (so, relatively infrequently). But I wish GRT published their guidelines for signal prioritization use so we could understand when and how it's used.

Have you asked them? They might tell you. You could direct your question to Blair Allen at the region.

[KevinL]

I don't think that's the case - in fact, 570 news even did a piece a few weeks ago pointing out that buses on 24 were now bypassing lights, and to not be alarmed if it looked like they were going through red lights.

Highway 24 is a special case as the lights actually have separate signals for buses - a vertical white bar, above the others. Thus it can look like a bus is 'running a red' if observers are not familiar wtih that signal.

Signal priority does not require the white-bar lights, though, and the question is when and how it's being used in general.

[Canard]

An open house evening to the traffic control centre for WRConnected members would probably answer all of the questions.

[Pheidippides]

I vaguely recall hearing the that 200's signal priority only kicks in when it is >3 minutes behind schedule; but I can't find the reference for now, but that would align with the GRT performance standard that buses are considered on-time, "..if it departs a scheduled timepoint no more than 3 minutes late." As side note, I've never come across the above linked performance measurement page before showing trends by month; only two indicators for now though (overall ridership and on-time performance).


Another definition from http://www.grt.ca/en/aboutus/FAQ-Perform...ements.asp:
"A bus is considered on time when it has departed from a timepoint at the scheduled time or no more than 3 minutes late. A bus departing more than 3 minutes after the scheduled time is considered late, while a bus departing before the scheduled time is considered early.
...On-time performance is then calculated by determining the percent of buses that are never early and up to 3 minutes late..."


This article from August 2015 talks about the signal priority for the aBRT/Ion BRT:
"Traffic signal priority will also be in place. When buses are behind by more than two minutes, green lights on Hespeler can be extended or red lights shortened to allow the buses to make up time."

[MidTowner]

Thank you very much for that, Pheidippides!

[MidTowner]

Plans from years ago called for route 9 to be rerouted through the R & T Park with a new route between UW and Northlake via Hazel, Albert, and Weber

Isn't that what the route 9 late night loop already does?

GRT seems to be fairly incremental about the system wide changes; I expect that will continue. I don't think we will go to bed one night and the next morning when Ion is up and running have a completely different network.

I think after the #7 rationalization takes place they could probably re-route the 201 from King/Columbia to follow the current 200's route through Northfield/Parkside/North campus; especially if we end up with an "express" 7 going straight down King.

I could also see an new express running from the Boardwalk north, up Erbsville and across Conservation down Westmount and across Northfield and down Weber, especially once that Beaver Meadows District is built out.

Recognizing that I am also contributing, but perhaps this conversation needs to be moved over to the GRT thread; it is drifting a little bit off of Ion.

Wait: is this what is going to happen? GRT went only so far with the rationalization of the 7, and I don’t remember anyone saying authoritatively how the 7 would eventually look.

The express service you just theorized sounds very convoluted to me. I don’t think the Beaver Meadows development would justify frequent rapid bus service on Conservation.

When you think about issues like this (how is McCormick going to continue getting good service?), it becomes especially clear how convoluted our street networks are. I don’t think McCormick needs express service right along Parkside necessarily- a good local service feeding into one or more rapid services might make sense. Retooling 9 to do that shouldn’t be too complicated.

[dunkalunk]

I've been playing around on MyMaps with how to interface bus routes with the northern part of ION...
   
Full Image: http://i.imgur.com/7yi9QcJ.png

I've included the ION route for clarity. For line clarity, I've omitted iXpress routes. I'm not sure if what's going on in Northwestern Waterloo makes the most sense. Trying to make bus routes that are both direct and have good enough service coverage in that area is a challenge.

Route Descriptions

1 Queen-River: Removed from Charles St Terminal
2 Forest Heights: Extended along Stirling, Borden, and East, and Frederick to serve The Aud, Frederick Mall, and businesses near Bruce/Victoria.
4 Glasgow-Union: Modified to serve Belmont  Shifts from Weber to Margaret
5 Erb-Bridgeport: No Change
6 Bridge St: No Change
7 King St: One branch along King St
8 Midtown Loop: Southern loop deleted (replaced by other routes). Northern loop truncated at Victoria and shifted from Belmont Ave to Park St in the west.
9 Hazel-Belmont: Orange Line on Map. Changed to serve Belmont, Uptown, Hazel, and Parkside. Some trips extended to Lake Louse Blvd.
11 Strasburg: Follows Courtland, Ottawa, and Strasburg Road. Replaces Part of Route 8
12 Westmount: Route Terminated at UW Ring Road
13 Laurelwood: Extended east along University and north on King to Conestoga Mall
15 Weber: Connects Northfield and King Central ION stations via Weber St. Runs on King through Downtown Kitchener and returns to Weber south of Frederick. This route would largely replace the function of Route 8 Weber.
18 Southdale-Vanier (NEW): Green Line running from Charles St Terminal. Largely replaces the function of Route 8 Courtland. Serves Highland Rd E and Vanier Dr.
20 Victoria-Frederick: No Change
24 Lakeshore: Largely replaces the role of Route 9. Route travels from UW Ring Road to Conestoga Mall
29 Keats Way-Lincoln: Extended roughly along former path of Route 12 through eastern Waterloo
31 Columbia-Eastbridge: No Change. Possibly could be diverted to directly serve the UW ION stop.

[tomh009]

That looks good!

Although they might need to change route 8 to be route 0 with this plan.

[notmyfriends]

I'm still hoping Laurelwood punches through to Wes Graham, and Wes Graham punches through at the R&T station to Phillip so the 13 can move accordingly and that LRT station can get some real connections. There's room to make some kind of awesome station area there, with everything right around the station being un-or under-developed it seems the place where we could really end up with a nice and inviting new part of town; one that could be very transit focused.

[timc]

Is there any hope for a bus to go down Seagram to meet ION at Waterloo Park?

[dunkalunk]

Is there any hope for a bus to go down Seagram to meet ION at Waterloo Park?

Serving the Seagram station is a tricky proposition. By doing so, you'd have the move any bus route away from the trip generators on University Ave. You could also potentially end up in a situation where the bus is used as a 600m moving sidewalk for those heading from Laurier - Waterloo Park (the station) to Laurier the campus.

[Canard]

600 m moving sidewalk - you mean, the bus acting as a shuttle between the campus and the station?

[timc]

Serving the Seagram station is a tricky proposition. By doing so, you'd have the move any bus route away from the trip generators on University Ave. You could also potentially end up in a situation where the bus is used as a 600m moving sidewalk for those heading from Laurier - Waterloo Park (the station) to Laurier the campus.

It seems that if you moved it from University to Seagram, you would change a bus from being a "moving sidewalk" to UW to being a "moving sidewalk" to Laurier. But it would also become a needed ION connection.

What's wrong with a shuttle connection from ION to Laurier?

[zanate]

It seems that if you moved it from University to Seagram, you would change a bus from being a "moving sidewalk" to UW to being a "moving sidewalk" to Laurier. But it would also become a needed ION connection.

What's wrong with a shuttle connection from ION to Laurier?

Interesting idea. Way back, I did raise the possibility of establishing Seagram as a transfer point for through routes as a way to hack around the poor UW stop placement.

Still, I think that if you're going to talk about transit from ION to Laurier (in particular the parts of Laurier not closest to Seagram), I think you're still best off looking at something from the UW station, ideally through an access road to Phillip. The reason being: why run a Laurier shuttle from a special stop, when you can run a Laurier shuttle (or even a regular high frequency route) from the UW stop serving not only ION riders, but also students who have courses on either campus?

[Viewfromthe42]

It would be very ridiculous for the city to push hard for Hickory to break through to Philip, only to have UW develop the lands between Philip and Ring Road so intensively as to make connections horrible.