I think that a service on Weber would help these areas a lot; I bet it would be fast and, if frequent, I suspect would provide popular. That might be a lot to ask, but in the shorter term 8 could be realigned to travel along Weber instead of taking the detour to Margaret. I know that exists to serve the Breithaupt Centre, but 4 could be realigned to continue along Union to Margaret, turning to terminate at the Breithaupt Centre or somewhere further.*
If relatively frequent service could be had on each of Belmont, King, Weber, and Lancaster; and Victoria, Wellington, Glasgow, and Union, I think the areas in between the two city's cores would be well-served. You're right that there are not good arterials on which to place buses, but if we're more interested in coverage than frequency, buses could be put on streets like Moore between downtown and uptown (part of Moore used to carry the 4), or Guelph to serve the new development at Victoria Common.
*As we move to more of a grid system, built-up areas neglected because they didn't happen to be in downtown will get better service naturally. I know there are good reasons for using terminals, but not everything needs to begin or end at the downtown terminal, and I think the GRT is increasingly understanding that.
If relatively frequent service could be had on each of Belmont, King, Weber, and Lancaster; and Victoria, Wellington, Glasgow, and Union, I think the areas in between the two city's cores would be well-served. You're right that there are not good arterials on which to place buses, but if we're more interested in coverage than frequency, buses could be put on streets like Moore between downtown and uptown (part of Moore used to carry the 4), or Guelph to serve the new development at Victoria Common.
*As we move to more of a grid system, built-up areas neglected because they didn't happen to be in downtown will get better service naturally. I know there are good reasons for using terminals, but not everything needs to begin or end at the downtown terminal, and I think the GRT is increasingly understanding that.