Grand River Transit

[zanate]

Mind you, people that I used to work with when they started that out said it wasn't any faster to take the ixpress to Conestoga Mall than it was to take the 7C from the terminal, but that was back six or seven years ago now so I dunno if that's changed or not.

The time penalty to take the 200 was there from the start. A couple of years ago I noted that it was usually at least 5 minutes faster to take Conestoga Mall to Uptown by 7C than by 200. I'm looking at the current crop of schedules and a rush hour trip from CM to King and Bridgeport is 15 minutes by 7C and 28 minutes (!!) by 200. With the various detours in place, a trip to the terminal from CM by 200 still takes 44 minutes compared to 7C's 33 minutes (this is based on a 5pm departure trip.)

Off-peak, the difference at the terminal is somewhat less (7 minutes). That helps show how 200 pays a penalty partially due to routing and loading/unloading time.

I don't know about going to the Mall, but to UW the difference was heaven and earth. The 7 Route used to stop literally every other block between King & Bridgeport and University & Phillip. Compare this to the iXpress which when it opened had exactly one stop in that entire section (I think the count is now up to 4).

Also true. While 200 pays a penalty to route from CM through UW, it does provide slightly faster service from UW to Uptown and to the terminal.

How will ION affect things? There is no stop timing schedule available yet, but the route from CM has rail spur from Northfield down to Uptown Waterloo, a direct corridor with 3 stops along the way and quoted speeds of up to 70km/h. That should save considerable time over the 200's need to wind along Parkside, the Tech Park, Ring Road and out along University. In addition, stop dwell time should be considerably shorter at the busy stops, saving an extra couple of minutes.

I'm guessing that we'll see a huge time savings between CM and Uptown for ION over the 200. But will it beat the 7C's direct King St. run? I'm not sure, it could be very close during rush hour. But I bet it'll be close enough that people bound for Uptown will opt for ION for comfort and certainty even if the 7C can shave a minute or two off the trip. Heading further down the line, ION should have the clear time advantage.