03-10-2023, 06:10 PM
Prior to the pandemic at the rate that ridership on ION aBRT, later route 302 was going, 2028 would have been the first year that it would have been high enough for it to have crossed the threshold where LRT operating costs per ride are finally lower than a bus route for the same number of people. Roughly 7,000 per day on average.
2032 would have been 10,000/day, the point where the divergence in costs becomes apparent and bus routes start to struggle as they begin to need 10 minute headways or better to not be overly crowded.
As such, 2028 was a reasonable earliest point for Stage 2 construction to start, and 2032 a reasonable goal for start of service.
While the increased ridership in the latter half of 2019 was huge, even going by GRT's historical 5-7% yearly average growth, 30% growth wasn't something that would have been sustained, but because the pandemic hit we don't know if it would have returned to 7% or settled at something higher. If it went back to 7% yearly growth, which is still incredible, that only pushes forward the 7,000 and 10,000 daily riders as mentioned above by a year, 2027 and 2031, and only barely.
So 2028/2032 was still a reasonable hypothetical time frame.
Far more concerning, in my personal opinion, is that the RMoW has steadfastly and consistently refused to give any sort of targets or metrics that would start the processes for Stage 2 in earnest. Not yet having funding is irrelevant, because such targets could be worded like "If funding has been secured, then at 5,000 daily riders we order the extra trams, at 6,000 we start the RFQ process, …" and so on.
As we all know, the Region waited excessively late with the relevant bus routes having serious issues for many years before the contract was finally awarded. ION could have easily had a decade of service before the pandemic, based on ridership alone. I fear the Region will do a similar thing for Stage 2.
2032 would have been 10,000/day, the point where the divergence in costs becomes apparent and bus routes start to struggle as they begin to need 10 minute headways or better to not be overly crowded.
As such, 2028 was a reasonable earliest point for Stage 2 construction to start, and 2032 a reasonable goal for start of service.
While the increased ridership in the latter half of 2019 was huge, even going by GRT's historical 5-7% yearly average growth, 30% growth wasn't something that would have been sustained, but because the pandemic hit we don't know if it would have returned to 7% or settled at something higher. If it went back to 7% yearly growth, which is still incredible, that only pushes forward the 7,000 and 10,000 daily riders as mentioned above by a year, 2027 and 2031, and only barely.
So 2028/2032 was still a reasonable hypothetical time frame.
Far more concerning, in my personal opinion, is that the RMoW has steadfastly and consistently refused to give any sort of targets or metrics that would start the processes for Stage 2 in earnest. Not yet having funding is irrelevant, because such targets could be worded like "If funding has been secured, then at 5,000 daily riders we order the extra trams, at 6,000 we start the RFQ process, …" and so on.
As we all know, the Region waited excessively late with the relevant bus routes having serious issues for many years before the contract was finally awarded. ION could have easily had a decade of service before the pandemic, based on ridership alone. I fear the Region will do a similar thing for Stage 2.