Grand River Transit

[SF22]

Going in the opposite direction, when will the articulated buses be in service?

I was under the impression that they hadn't even been purchased yet, and also that there might need to be some light construction work done along the route(s) that will have the articulated buses, so that the far rear door opens onto a proper landing pad.

[creative]

Is there anywhere that I can find ridership broken down to show the percentage of student trips? Just curious to see if the increase in ridership correlates with the recent increase in student population.

[ac3r]

I don't know of any such data available, but I could see that explaining the rise in ridership. Sometimes you can get on a bus and all but 2-3 people are Indian, yourself included.

If there is no such data available, maybe you could take the data/charts on the ridership growth with data/charts on the influx of students and compare the two. I suspect any line graph of both data sets would look quite similar.

[Bytor]

This article https://uwimprint.ca/article/hey-grt-whe...ndy-buses/ claims that procurement was put off until 2027. Somebody cited it to me on reddit today, but this is the first I've heard of the chain in plans. I've not been able to find any corroborating evidence, either.

[jeremyroman]

The Record recently published an article which compares Fall 2019 to Fall 2023.

[the_conestoga_guy]

The Record recently published an article which compares Fall 2019 to Fall 2023.

That jump in Conestoga students is obviously huge, but the 50% increase in "Monthly pass holders" is bigger news to me. That's a huge jump in ridership for (presumably mostly) non-students for just a 4-year span.

I may be wrong, but I would assume that the drop in University student ridership can be explained by the development of the Northdale neighbourhood. Centralizing student housing within walking distance of the schools will naturally reduce the reliance on transit and driving for transportation.

On a related note, the City of London recently set a target of 32.5% for active transportation and transit usage in their city. Does anyone know if the Region of Waterloo has a metric that they're trying to hit?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/po...-1.7155957

[danbrotherston]

The Record recently published an article which compares Fall 2019 to Fall 2023.

That jump in Conestoga students is obviously huge, but the 50% increase in "Monthly pass holders" is bigger news to me. That's a huge jump in ridership for (presumably mostly) non-students for just a 4-year span.

I may be wrong, but I would assume that the drop in University student ridership can be explained by the development of the Northdale neighbourhood. Centralizing student housing within walking distance of the schools will naturally reduce the reliance on transit and driving for transportation.

On a related note, the City of London recently set a target of 32.5% for active transportation and transit usage in their city. Does anyone know if the Region of Waterloo has a metric that they're trying to hit?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/po...-1.7155957

Lol...the comments are hilarious from people who are pretty typical....

""If we go with this 35 per cent target, you're constraining the system so that everybody is stuck in traffic and that's when the pollution is the greatest, when you're idling.""

This is literally gobblygook, non-reality speaking from the councillor. 

For RoW their plan was outlined here: https://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/livin...-06-12.pdf

I'd call it wildly unambitious. The 2010 goal was ~70% car modeshare by 2031. The 2018 plan made the bold move of making that same goal a 2041 goal, and planning to achieve that with 32 road expansions, 5 road extensions, and 2 whole new road categories. Yes there were other planned investments in transit and cycling, but I was disgusted with the process which absolutely was a Business as Usual plan.

[SF22]

The only way I can support new road connections is with the explicit goal to improve direct through-lines for transit. For example, reconnecting River Rd with Riverbend Dr with a two-lane street instead of the existing pedestrian bridge would let us run a bus down Riverbend to serve all the offices in there and then straight through to Rosemount and Heritage Park, and provide a north-south connection that doesn't require going all the way downtown to change buses.

[KevinL]

UW's NDP group wants night service to return; it was removed during the pandemic and still hasn't come back. They've created a petition. https://www.change.org/p/bring-back-late-night-transit

[ac3r]

Oh wow, I didn't even know they ran buses that late here. It would be a great idea (or have the LRT operate longer) but I don't think that would happen again for a while. GRT always seems to struggle with budget. Having to pay extra overnight shift premium wages to get drivers to want to drive that late would cost a lot. Driving a bus already sucks, I can't imagine driving the 7 until 3AM and dealing with all the crazies on that route. That'd wear you down quickly.

[plam]

Oh wow, I didn't even know they ran buses that late here. It would be a great idea (or have the LRT operate longer) but I don't think that would happen again for a while. GRT always seems to struggle with budget. Having to pay extra overnight shift premium wages to get drivers to want to drive that late would cost a lot. Driving a bus already sucks, I can't imagine driving the 7 until 3AM and dealing with all the crazies on that route. That'd wear you down quickly.

And that's why I don't favour fares-free transit: at least have some contribution of fares to operating costs. Though late night routes are unlikely to contribute much, since they are usually sparsely used. But they should absolutely run as a way of increasing overall transit use: if you can rely on transit all the time, then you're less likely to have to have a car.

[ac3r]

Road Guy Rob has released an interesting video on Minneapolis–Saint Paul's newest BRT line. I think it really shows that BRT is overly complicated when you want to do it correctly, with the main real benefit that it is cheaper. BRT is really not a good solution unless you are willing to go all in and spend the money to do it successfully such as Transjakarta in Indonesia, but at that point it's just as costly as rail. However it is possible to do it a step at a time like this project does. And ultimately it's still going to be cheaper than any form of rail...because unfortunately the cost of rail transport is costly (if not inflated).

A comment on the video makes a good point, though.

You know why this is a good idea?

Because you're basically building light rail infrastructure in advance. In a few decades when the economic growth helped by your bus services enables the municipality to afford it, you can just replace those "arterial buses" with trams and light rail without having to fuck about with routing.

And that's rather true. The Ottawa Transitway is a good example of this. While their light-metro/LRT lines don't follow the exact route of the Transitway, they still connect similar areas. It kind of acts as a cheap way to get the ball rolling on transit oriented development. Once you develop nodes and demand increases thanks to a BRT line, you can then invest in LRT.

I've considered that instead of the 4.5 billion at minimum we are going to have to spend on the Cambridge LRT line here, we could instead save the money and use BRT for now. The planned LRT line essentially follows existing arterial roads already, so the infrastructure is mostly there. We're basically paying billions of dollars for bridges that cost hundreds of millions...and then plonking some tracks down on existing roads. We are getting ripped off by consultants and contractors. We could send BRT buses down the same route for significantly less money for the time being. Considering Cambridge is carbrained and doesn't even want the LRT we're basically forcing upon them anyway, it might be easier to "sell" BRT to the voters. With some creativity modifying roads and traffic signals, we could probably ensure buses have priority over other traffic (it's not like the LRT we have is fast...it literally stops at red lights like cars, lmao) to keep a useful headway. BRT could be a useful tool to connect Cambridge with the rest of the region for much cheaper whilst also catalyzing development and more transit demand, which in the future could justify the LRT (right now it isn't even worth the energy your neurons require to think about whether it's worth it).

In any case, while I think BRT is shit 90% of the time, it seems like the sort of higher order transit Cambridge can benefit from. It'd move more people, be cheaper, create demand and prove to voters that LRT would eventually make sense. If Minneapolis–Saint Paul can build a modern BRT line with numerous bridges/viaducts - the one thing that is making the price of our LRT skyrocket - for less than what we paid for our current LRT, it may be worth a consideration. I love trains, but I hate wasting money. The anti-anything-on-4-wheels fascists might seethe at the idea of more vehicles on roads - or indeed, more road infrastructure being required - but they can't be taken seriously.

Anyway, here's the video.

[ZEBuilder]

And that's rather true. The Ottawa Transitway is a good example of this. While their light-metro/LRT lines don't follow the exact route of the Transitway, they still connect similar areas. It kind of acts as a cheap way to get the ball rolling on transit oriented development. Once you develop nodes and demand increases thanks to a BRT line, you can then invest in LRT.

I've considered that instead of the 4.5 billion at minimum we are going to have to spend on the Cambridge LRT line here, we could instead save the money and use BRT for now. The planned LRT line essentially follows existing arterial roads already, so the infrastructure is mostly there. We're basically paying billions of dollars for bridges that cost hundreds of millions...and then plonking some tracks down on existing roads. We are getting ripped off by consultants and contractors. We could send BRT buses down the same route for significantly less money for the time being. Considering Cambridge is carbrained and doesn't even want the LRT we're basically forcing upon them anyway, it might be easier to "sell" BRT to the voters. With some creativity modifying roads and traffic signals, we could probably ensure buses have priority over other traffic (it's not like the LRT we have is fast...it literally stops at red lights like cars, lmao) to keep a useful headway. BRT could be a useful tool to connect Cambridge with the rest of the region for much cheaper whilst also catalyzing development and more transit demand, which in the future could justify the LRT (right now it isn't even worth the energy your neurons require to think about whether it's worth it).

This is what I certainly hope comes out of the LRT to Cambridge discussions, there is no way we're going to get full funding from the province/feds like the Region wants so instead if we were to start making incremental infrastructure changes, they're already widening King in Sportsworld in a way that the median can handle an LRT so if we were to install platforms and make that a dedicated BRT space you could then get proper MTSA rules and spur that development which can later justify the LRT once the demand is there. 

Then if the Region keeps on doing these incremental changes as roads come up for reconstruction you would effectively have an entire BRT route which could easily be upgraded to LRT once the demand is there which would allow for a better business case for funding from the feds/province. Hespeler is going to eventually come up for reconstruction so if they build it like King you'd have your BRT route in place, you'd have to force Cambridge to properly approve projects in the MTSAs but at least the infrastructure is there at a far cheaper cost, so you can start building that demand.

Obviously you'd need proper TSP which I doubt would happen but by incorporating those incremental infrastructure changes you're allowing for a BRT system to be built on a future LRT ROW which is really a win win as you're allowing for some form of higher order transit to be built without waiting years and years for proper funding to be approved.

[bravado]

We're still taking the $4B number as the gospel around here?

[danbrotherston]

We're still taking the $4B number as the gospel around here?

Lol. Yeah. I noticed that. *sigh*