Grand River Transit

[chutten]

Thanks!

It's a real pain that ridership isn't part of the Open Data initiatives. I wonder if we could build a model to approximate ridership based on the estimated time buses are stopped at a stop's location... it wouldn't be accurate, but it might be the best measure we have.

At the very least, we could see if the time spent at stops is increasing or decreasing over time, which might be a decent canary for ridership levels...

[plam]

That's a shame about Conestoga College. I imagine some of this funding will still go towards additional service in the area as all routes to the college are beyond capacity. The 110 for instance could easily use 10-minute service during the morning rush hour.

Edit: I've just learned that only a measly 31% of eligible students chose to vote in the referendum. Ridiculous...

Student referenda have notoriously low participation rates. 31% is actually quite high for one.

[Viewfromthe42]

Interesting read: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2016/02/c...ss/462963/

I wonder what might change at tech companies if they approached things this way? Both the Tannery and Google, for all the high-tech talk of supporting lifestyles, etc, still have massive surface lots that are full of employees. Do they charge for this parking, without any subsidy? And thinking of something like Conestoga college enrollment, what kind of deal could you get for employees if every tech company that spent any time in the Tannery was a part of a collective that bought transit passes for all employees, would it be even half as cheap as Conestoga College was able to get (would be ~$1/day/employee at that worse rate, less than any piece of a catered lunch).

[tomh009]

Much cheaper than paying for parking: our company pays for staff parking in the city garage at $150/employee/month.  GRT monthly pass costs $79 without any discounts.

Edit: No tech company will charge for parking, it would be a significant deterrent in recruiting employees.

[MidTowner]

I know that Desire2Learn at least has a benefit to employees who don’t drive to the office, and I’ve known employees who have taken advantage of it. According to the article you linked to, though, this is not going to effectively counter-balance the benefit of free parking, and I believe that.

That idea about the Tannery negotiating a lower-rate transit pass is a great one, I think, and the Tannery might be a likely organization to be the first one to do it.

Tomh009, do you know if the company identifies that parking as a taxable benefit on employees’ tax slips?

[MidTowner]

That's a shame about Conestoga College. I imagine some of this funding will still go towards additional service in the area as all routes to the college are beyond capacity...

According to the Record and an interview on the CBC this morning, it won’t go to expansion in the Conestoga area and might not necessarily go to transit expansion at all- Tom Galloway suggested that it might be used to reduce the tax increase.

Hopefully it does go to transit. I have no experience with the 110, but I can believe it’s overcrowded- overcrowding seems to be an issue on any student-heavy route, and we should be looking to add capacity.

[BuildingScout]

That idea about the Tannery negotiating a lower-rate transit pass is a great one, I think, and the Tannery might be a likely organization to be the first one to do it.

Isn't this the same as the already existing TravelWise Corporate Pass ?

[MidTowner]

Thanks- I wasn't aware there was one. So it exists and wouldn't be reinventing the wheel.

Edit: I just did a search, and apparently several current or former Tannery tenants (for instance, Desire2Learn and VidYard) offer the pass. I'm surprised that some of the organizations are not even especially large.

[MidTowner]

Actually, it isn’t quite the same as Viewfromthe42’s idea. If I understand his idea correctly, he’s proposing that a big organization buy passes for all its employees, negotiating a steep discount in the process because of the bulk purchase. In the case of TravelWise, employees can (if they choose) purchase their own pass, and being an employee of a participating organization entitles them to a 15% discount (if they prepay the entire year).

I’m still not knocking that. I wish that I had the ability to save 15% by pre-paying my entire year’s bus pass. For some people, that might make sense, and presumably there’s value to the GRT in knowing for sure that monthly pass purchases won’t drop off for some reason.

[tomh009]

Tomh009, do you know if the company identifies that parking as a taxable benefit on employees’ tax slips?

I don't think they do.  In fact, I don't know of any local tech company that does.  (And, yes, I know that CRA considers it a taxable benefit, but I would be compliance on that is very low.  And CRA will first go after such benefits in Toronto, Calgary or Vancouver where parking could cost $500+ per month.)

I do like the idea of offering the TravelWise pass as an alternative.  I'll try to bring this up at our office sometime, even if I think that the take-up rate will be fairly low, knowing where people live.

[MidTowner]

No dispute that failing to comply with that would probably be low-risk. I’m sure it’s not a CRA priority. I’ve worked at places where it was similarly straightforward that it was a taxable benefit (the company paid for parking passes at a lot it didn’t own, and issued them to staff) but it wasn’t identified on tax slips. It’s kind of too bad, though.

A fifteen percent discount doesn’t seem like it would entice many people who are not using transit already. Parking is too abundant everywhere, and our transit service not quite up to the challenge of drawing riders who have already sunk significant cost into a car.

[tomh009]

A fifteen percent discount doesn’t seem like it would entice many people who are not using transit already. Parking is too abundant everywhere, and our transit service not quite up to the challenge of drawing riders who have already sunk significant cost into a car.

Agreed.  But if the pass is paid by the employer (instead of the employer providing parking to the employee), it might work.  Especially for people who bike to work for most of the year.

[MidTowner]

You’re likely right, but I think we’re moving out of the realm of possibility in Waterloo Region- what employer here who is now providing free parking would be willing to say to employees “no more free parking, but I’ll pay for your transit pass instead”? Or, if it were a choice between (continued) free parking or a pass for a transit system with which he’s not familiar, what employee would opt for a latter?

[rangersfan]

That is a big obstacle here in regards to transit, without significant incentives.
When you already own a car(s) you have to pay for the car, maintenance, gasoline, insurance, driver's permits and any testing that is instituted.
Then you have to pay for transit fare on top of this.

In addition to those obstacles of pulling car owners into the pool of transit users you have:
Significantly longer commute time
Significantly less convenient (at the current time) especially if you have more than one stop to make.
The rush of getting to the stop on time and the dread waiting the next half hour for the next bus.

My family and I recently moved within the city.
From our old house the best case transit commute was 50 minutes (with associated walking time) in the early morning there is a 7 that converts to the Waterloo industrial, after work the time would be closer to 1h10 minutes. The car was probably 20 minutes and biking before LRT construction was 32 minutes.

At our new location which unfortunately is significantly further from the core transit time would likely be best case 1h10 minutes each way, and driving is < 15 minutes.
I am a huge transit fan but even now I am having difficulty making the substantial time sacrifice, especially missing time from my wife and children. This on top of the extra financial muscle required to pay for transit.

Better incentives need to be enacted to lure people out of their cars, I have tried to get my work place to offer incentives to non drivers but so far that has fallen on deaf ears. I am really looking forward to the roll out of Ion as I hope it will reduce my transit commute time.

[tomh009]

No one will force employees onto transit, you are right. But there are some employees who (1) don't own a car, (2) own a car but prefer not to drive, or (3) prefer to bike to work whenever possible. Those people might choose the transit pass instead. And a larger portion would once the LRT is running.