Grand River Transit

[Pheidippides]

I didn't realize it was already time for this semi-annual discussion again. :-)

Could we at least move it to the Ion thread or link it back to GRT discussion?

[dunkalunk]

Back on topic, with the introduction of ION, the routing of the 201 iXpress between UW Station and Conestoga Mall becomes somewhat duplicative. To encourage those already on the 201 bus to transfer to ION, as well as facilitate trips between WLU and Conestoga Mall, I'd suggest shifting the 201 to University Ave between Philip and King to serve the existing 202 stops at Phillip and Hazel.

[MidTowner]

I have mixed feelings about deadending Route 4 at Grand River Hospital.

On one hand, it would be shame to get rid of a potential crosstown route.
On the other, Route 4 isn't all that well-used between Downtown and King-Union except by local residents.
On the third, this may be a function of Route 4's poor frequency and better, straighter alternatives.

All good points. I want more service in the midtown neighbourhoods, but realistically a crosstown route through this part of town would probably not attract a lot of ridership in the short term. 4 doesn't now, like you say, and I don't think it's just its frequency that's the reason. Very frequent crosstown service on Victoria should be the focus.

[dunkalunk]

Some thoughts on how to make Route 4 more useful at the start of ION service.
   

In order of least to most optimistic:

1) Change the Routing of Route 4 so it follows Park  and Victoria to serve Cherry Hill as well as connect to Central Station to connect with GO/VIA/Greyhound etc.
2) Combine Routes 4 and 34 into one route.
3) Extend Route 4 to Breslau and then down Woolwich/Fountain to Sportsworld to connect with various iXpress routes and GO/Greyhound. The route would initially serve the airport and Cambridge Industrial Park as well as eventually serve the Breslau GO/RER station.

At the very least, even if the route is only extended down Park St and terminates downtown, it already provides a more-useful connection and improves service coverage more than having it loop around the hospital.

[MidTowner]

That is extremely optimistic (by which I mean maybe not entirely realistic), and awesome! As far as Breslau, without your extension to Sportsworld, would be great, but the way you have it would be really excellent.

[KevinL]

A user on the Facebook Light Rail group has put together a quite well-made unofficial render of the proposed routes. Route numbers are just a guess, in many cases.

Facebook post

Full render on Dropbox

[chutten]

I'm not liking the short-turn of the 92 at UW. It was the only local service along Fischer-Hallman that could connect with ION.

The 201 will connect with ION

Sadly, the 201 isn't local service.

I'm in one of those pockets of white in the blue coverage map. I successfully petitioned for a new 92 stop (F-H @ Craigleath/Roxton) so that my neighbourhood could be covered. Maybe I can get them to upgrade it to a 201 stop before the route change? The density really doesn't warrant it. At all. But I'm getting tired of seeing my bus skip my stop as its estimated arrival time takes a delta of 3min over the 11min it takes to walk there.

As for the positioning of the UW-adjacent stops... that stop in the middle of UW originally seemed ludicrous to me, too. However, I can now see a few reasons why it's better than having stops at University and/or Columbia. No pedestrian actually wants to be at University @ Seagram, dozens or hundreds of metres from anywhere, stranded in that sea of asphalt. We've done too good of a job tailoring these streets to cars that there's little a pedestrian could possibly want at those bus stops, except to leave (unless waiting for a connection).

And all the while, buses are clogging up the right-hand lane.

Push the bus stop into UW's East Campus, though, and the buses are only clogging up other buses on that East Campus laneway (and even then, not much given the dedicated bus bays). Riders will come and go in all directions (except perhaps into the old RIM campus buildings, though I expect decent foot traffic during rush) as there are campus buildings, the plaza, and high density residential all around. To say nothing of an ION stop.

In short, I've done a full heel-face-turn from derision to appreciation.

[danbrotherston]

I don't know the numbers but University/Seagram (well really, University and the railway tracks) is a huge pedestrian/transit user corridor. And as for "what a pedestrian could want", there's the UW residences, UW, and the UW Plaza. At least as much if not more than there is at the UW stop.

I think your argument holds far better with Columbia and the tracks, but I still would argue that for better or worse, Columbia and University are major pedestrian corridors.

Yeah, it's a shame, and yeah, they're terribly unpleasant places to walk, but they are nonetheless very busy.

That being said, if the city/university had the initiative, they could fix (or rather could have fixed, boat's kinda sailed already) the whole mess, by turning development inwards towards Hickory, extending Hickory through to Ring Rd., making it a large pedestrian plaza, and turning that into the entrance to campus. Then you'd have a centralized dense pedestrian area.

Of course, now there's a switching box directly in that pathway, and there's a fence forcing pedestrians to take a circuitous route to anywhere on campus. I am not in the slightest impressed with how the UW station area has been put together.

[yige_t]

Fall Schedules are out!

New route - 78 Hanson - http://www.grt.ca/en/routesSchedules/res...02-web.pdf

New route names:

12 Westmount
16 Strasburg
52 Coronation
61 Fountain <NEW

Good to see GRT start standardizing route names.

[timc]

What was the old name for route 12?

[YKF]

What was the old name for route 12?

I believe it was just Conestoga Mall/Fairview Mall. Didn't really provide a lot of information.

[Markster]

All three of those routes used to be named simply after malls that they terminated at.

12 Conestoga Mall – Fairview Park
52 Fairview Park – Ainslie Terminal
16 Forest Glen

In the case of the 12 and 52, there are other bus routes that serve the pairs, making the names particularly useless.

[kitborn]

In my days as a driver there were two legs to a route with the same number. i.e. 2 Stanley Park, 2 Forest Hill. After many years of passenger frustration of getting on the wrong leg, they finally changed it so that each direction had a different number.

[Markster]

In my days as a driver there were two legs to a route with the same number. i.e. 2 Stanley Park, 2 Forest Hill. After many years of passenger frustration of getting on the wrong leg, they finally changed it so that each direction had a different number.

Presumably that was back when the 2 did that jog down Stirling to Avalon Pl? Yeah, I can believe people would be getting on the wrong way when both directions of bus run the same way along a road!

There's some discussion to be had regarding bus route naming:
http://humantransit.org/2009/07/legibili...oblem.html
What's most important in a name? The direction? The end of the line? The places it actually serves in the middle?

Ideally, the name includes both features, the "To" and the "Via", but the finer point is which one is paramount?

As we move away from circuitous routes, and on to more grid-like routes, the direction of the bus is more an inherent feature of "which side of the road is it on?" in a way that isn't always obvious for buses snaking around cul-de-sacs. This means we can move away from names that emphasize direction, and toward names that tell you what variety of places you can get to (going to somewhere on Westmount Rd? Take the Westmount bus!).

[Smore]

All three of those routes used to be named simply after malls that they terminated at.

12 Conestoga Mall – Fairview Park
52 Fairview Park – Ainslie Terminal
16 Forest Glen

In the case of the 12 and 52, there are other bus routes that serve the pairs, making the names particularly useless.

A bunch of "mall-to-mall" shuttles!!