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+--- Thread: Grand River Transit (/showthread.php?tid=13)
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RE: Grand River Transit - BuildingScout - 06-02-2015
(06-02-2015, 11:05 AM)zanate Wrote: iXpress at its worst, pre-construction, was 56 minutes, if I recall correctly. It is now 60 minutes.
I'm going from memory, but I think I once took the 7 in the 90s from WLU to Fairview park mall on a Sunday (i.e. no traffic) and it took over about 1hr 45min. In other words a complete non-option.
RE: Grand River Transit - Pheidippides - 06-02-2015
Here is a map of population densities based on 2011 census data at the dissemination block level (the smallest available data from Statistics Canada).
This is the population density, but a better measure might be the population + employment density, but that data was harder to come by.
The top number in each dissemination block label is the population, the bottom number the population density per square kilometre. Sorry no streets (but pretty easy to pick out St. Mary's and reference yourself from there).
Legend
(broken into even quintiles (each category has 20% of dissemination blocks from across the Region))
![[Image: 352gosi.png]](http://i58.tinypic.com/352gosi.png)
![[Image: wim550.png]](http://i58.tinypic.com/wim550.png)
Population Data was retrieved from here:
http://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/24d3cb71-2459-491a-8b98-f0e263a1fa4d
Boundary files were retrieved from here:
https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2011/geo/bound-limit/bound-limit-2011-eng.cfm
Interestingly, due to the nature of dissemination blocks they can lead to some interesting densities in some odd spots.
Top 10 Dissemination Areas (of 4103) in Waterloo Region by density:
4 in downtown Kitchener
1 near Mowat Blvd (Kitchener)
1 near Monterey Cres (Kitchener)
1 near Champlain Crt (Kitchener)
1 near Wellington/Main (Cambridge)
1 near Eby St (Woolwich)
1 near Woodhurst Crt (Kitchener)
Dissemination Block Density Statistics
Min 0
Max 28,549
Mean 2,727
Median 2,631
RE: Grand River Transit - Spokes - 06-03-2015
(06-02-2015, 10:06 AM)BuildingScout Wrote: The initial savings in time for the Ion are rather modest. I surely hope that once they work out the bugs they will have the Ion running at faster speeds.
What's keeping it from running faster? Speed it travels at? Number of stops? Traffic signals?
RE: Grand River Transit - BuildingScout - 06-03-2015
Back when they announced the timings sounded like they were being cautious about traveling speeds and conservative in terms of promising speeds, both of which I can understand. But as soon as they work the kinks out and make sure everything is in place they ought to run the trams faster.
LRT will never compete in terms of time from Mall to Mall, since the expressway is right next door. However going into town it could easily be competitive with driving a car since it has right of way and can travel at speeds higher than 50 km/h. I hope they do this.
It would be quite a feather in their cap if rush hour drive from University & King to King & Gaukel was slower than taking the LRT.
RE: Grand River Transit - Markster - 06-03-2015
(06-02-2015, 10:18 PM)Pheidippides Wrote: Here is a map of population densities based on 2011 census data at the dissemination block level (the smallest available data from Statistics Canada).Holy crap that's amazing. Ha. My block is indeed the highest density block by far. And notice no one has moved into the Arrow Lofts yet!
Quote:LegendHmm... the legend isn't quite right. Those are the colours for the next-higher range, except that 0.000 is indeed the lightest colour. The highest range is the same colour as the second-highest range.
(broken into even quintiles (each category has 20% of dissemination blocks from across the Region))
![[Image: mh3qq9.png]](http://i57.tinypic.com/mh3qq9.png)
RE: Grand River Transit - timc - 06-03-2015
(06-02-2015, 12:22 PM)BuildingScout Wrote:(06-02-2015, 11:05 AM)zanate Wrote: iXpress at its worst, pre-construction, was 56 minutes, if I recall correctly. It is now 60 minutes.
I'm going from memory, but I think I once took the 7 in the 90s from WLU to Fairview park mall on a Sunday (i.e. no traffic) and it took over about 1hr 45min. In other words a complete non-option.
I would regularly ride the 12 from UW to Fairview Park in the 90s. I think it took about 45 minutes.
RE: Grand River Transit - D40LF - 06-03-2015
(06-02-2015, 12:22 PM)BuildingScout Wrote: I'm going from memory, but I think I once took the 7 in the 90s from WLU to Fairview park mall on a Sunday (i.e. no traffic) and it took over about 1hr 45min. In other words a complete non-option.I imagine that travel times would not have changed much from the 1990's, but based off this schedule from 2000, that trip would have taken approx 35-40 minutes.
RE: Grand River Transit - Markster - 06-04-2015
Pheidippides, you don't accept PMs, so I'll respond here:
My Arrow Lofts comment was an unrelated point, even if it didn't read that way. It may well push that block immediately into the red.
Any chance to get a wider view of that?
RE: Grand River Transit - highlander - 06-05-2015
(06-01-2015, 07:00 AM)Spokes Wrote: The stops at Lawrence and Belmont are pretty tight together, no?
Maybe I'm paranoid, but is there a chance this is a split stop as well? I really can't see how two stops here makes sense for an ixpress route.
I think the biggest missed opportunity for this route was to service St. Mary's Hospital via Belmont. That stop would be much more beneficial than this duplicate stop.
RE: Grand River Transit - Markster - 06-05-2015
(06-05-2015, 12:18 PM)highlander Wrote: Maybe I'm paranoid, but is there a chance this is a split stop as well? I really can't see how two stops here makes sense for an ixpress route
Considering they haven't clarified it to me (I made a rather big fuss about it both publicly and privately), I'm guessing it is not a split stop. When looking at the neighbourhood density, frankly, the Lawrence stop is more justified than the Belmont stop.
RE: Grand River Transit - highlander - 06-05-2015
(06-05-2015, 12:21 PM)Markster Wrote: Considering they haven't clarified it to me (I made a rather big fuss about it both publicly and privately), I'm guessing it is not a split stop. When looking at the neighbourhood density, frankly, the Lawrence stop is more justified than the Belmont stop.
Agreed, it probably would have come out in your discussions if it was a split stop. The main reason I questioned it is that this is only ~250m between stops, which (a) I'm not sure is justified here, and (b) is significantly shorter than anywhere else on the route.
RE: Grand River Transit - MidTowner - 06-05-2015
(06-05-2015, 12:21 PM)Markster Wrote: When looking at the neighbourhood density, frankly, the Lawrence stop is more justified than the Belmont stop.
They're 250 meters distant, which is a pretty negligible walk. However, the 8 travels on Belmont so it would make sense to provide a connection. Belmont's only likely to carry more transit in the future with a couple of big trip generators (St. Mary's Hospital on one end; Belmont Village on the other), whereas at Lawrence there is no transit on the cross street, and never will be.
RE: Grand River Transit - Markster - 06-05-2015
Alright, big news. I've just returned from a meeting with several members of GRT, and they are now indeed going to put a 204 stop at Queen/Courtland!
The split stop, where one was at Highland, the other at Mill, will become un-split, with the Mill stop moving, likely to Homewood. (The "Highland" stop is more at Brock, meaning the distance between them will now be negligible.)
RE: Grand River Transit - KevinL - 06-05-2015
Huzzah! Thanks so much for your dogged advocacy on this, Mark. It's truly appreciated.
RE: Grand River Transit - Markster - 06-05-2015
I really want to see how well that stop is used during summer festival season. It will be a major demarcation point for east/west bound travelers.
GRT also mentioned that they are already working on schedules that stagger the various services that pass Queen South, to get a high effective frequency (and avoid having 4 buses all trying to stop at the same bus stop at the same time)