02-17-2016, 10:50 AM
That is a big obstacle here in regards to transit, without significant incentives.
When you already own a car(s) you have to pay for the car, maintenance, gasoline, insurance, driver's permits and any testing that is instituted.
Then you have to pay for transit fare on top of this.
In addition to those obstacles of pulling car owners into the pool of transit users you have:
Significantly longer commute time
Significantly less convenient (at the current time) especially if you have more than one stop to make.
The rush of getting to the stop on time and the dread waiting the next half hour for the next bus.
My family and I recently moved within the city.
From our old house the best case transit commute was 50 minutes (with associated walking time) in the early morning there is a 7 that converts to the Waterloo industrial, after work the time would be closer to 1h10 minutes. The car was probably 20 minutes and biking before LRT construction was 32 minutes.
At our new location which unfortunately is significantly further from the core transit time would likely be best case 1h10 minutes each way, and driving is < 15 minutes.
I am a huge transit fan but even now I am having difficulty making the substantial time sacrifice, especially missing time from my wife and children. This on top of the extra financial muscle required to pay for transit.
Better incentives need to be enacted to lure people out of their cars, I have tried to get my work place to offer incentives to non drivers but so far that has fallen on deaf ears. I am really looking forward to the roll out of Ion as I hope it will reduce my transit commute time.
When you already own a car(s) you have to pay for the car, maintenance, gasoline, insurance, driver's permits and any testing that is instituted.
Then you have to pay for transit fare on top of this.
In addition to those obstacles of pulling car owners into the pool of transit users you have:
Significantly longer commute time
Significantly less convenient (at the current time) especially if you have more than one stop to make.
The rush of getting to the stop on time and the dread waiting the next half hour for the next bus.
My family and I recently moved within the city.
From our old house the best case transit commute was 50 minutes (with associated walking time) in the early morning there is a 7 that converts to the Waterloo industrial, after work the time would be closer to 1h10 minutes. The car was probably 20 minutes and biking before LRT construction was 32 minutes.
At our new location which unfortunately is significantly further from the core transit time would likely be best case 1h10 minutes each way, and driving is < 15 minutes.
I am a huge transit fan but even now I am having difficulty making the substantial time sacrifice, especially missing time from my wife and children. This on top of the extra financial muscle required to pay for transit.
Better incentives need to be enacted to lure people out of their cars, I have tried to get my work place to offer incentives to non drivers but so far that has fallen on deaf ears. I am really looking forward to the roll out of Ion as I hope it will reduce my transit commute time.