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(11-24-2023, 04:46 PM)ac3r Wrote: Wow. It's like they're trying their hardest to make transit unpalatable to people. People are going to choose driving over walking to an even further bus stop in the dead of winter - myself included. Can't rely on this joke of a transit agency anymore.
Sometimes you have to make choices. Like, if the bus gets stuck somewhere (which I've seen outside Vincenzo's) then no one gets to take the bus. What is your productive suggestion here?
(11-24-2023, 04:46 PM)ac3r Wrote: Wow. It's like they're trying their hardest to make transit unpalatable to people. People are going to choose driving over walking to an even further bus stop in the dead of winter - myself included. Can't rely on this joke of a transit agency anymore.
What is your productive suggestion here?
To get my Nissan GT-R out of storage, slap on some snow tires and avoid transit as much as possible over the winter. I have enough horsepower in that thing I could drag that pictured bus out of the snow.
Actually I’d rather they have a specific plan for extreme weather rather than just blundering along until many buses are stuck.
Interesting that they don’t have anything for the LRT. Does that mean they’re planning on having the overhead electrical supply work properly in nasty weather like it does in other countries?
(11-24-2023, 05:30 PM)Acitta Wrote: Transit users are not suddenly going to be able to afford a car because of a day of bad weather.
If the only people using transit are those who can't afford cars then it's already a failure to a significant degree. I don't think this plan is necessarily any significant issue, but your comment does nothing to disprove that many people can chose or chose not to take transit based on service quality, consistency, and potential for degradation.
(11-24-2023, 07:32 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: Actually I’d rather they have a specific plan for extreme weather rather than just blundering along until many buses are stuck.
Interesting that they don’t have anything for the LRT. Does that mean they’re planning on having the overhead electrical supply work properly in nasty weather like it does in other countries?
(11-24-2023, 04:46 PM)ac3r Wrote: Wow. It's like they're trying their hardest to make transit unpalatable to people. People are going to choose driving over walking to an even further bus stop in the dead of winter - myself included. Can't rely on this joke of a transit agency anymore.
Even major systems like the TTC close stops in severe weather. It's not policy, it's physics. When everything is covered in ice, it's just not possible to serve certain stops, and attempting to do so just gets the bus stuck making service worse for everyone else.
The whole point of this plan is to minimize the number of passengers inconvenienced by severe weather. Right now the bus gets stuck, and the run gets cancelled, and everyone misses their bus. With the new plan certain stops get skipped, but the bus doesn't get stuck, and everyone else on the route still has a bus show up and still gets to work. I'd think this would improve ridership, given that for most customers it's a significant improvement in service reliability during severe weather. And for those whose bus stops are closed, at least they know, rather than standing there waiting forever for a bus that's gotten stuck.
(11-24-2023, 04:46 PM)ac3r Wrote: Wow. It's like they're trying their hardest to make transit unpalatable to people. People are going to choose driving over walking to an even further bus stop in the dead of winter - myself included. Can't rely on this joke of a transit agency anymore.
Transit users are not suddenly going to be able to afford a car because of a day of bad weather.
I am going to assume in good faith that you mean that people who do not have any other options should not have their plans disrupted rather than that transit won't lose riders because the only people riding transit are those with no choice, and address that point.
Yes, we should try to meet the needs of people, and people should not be disadvantaged by riding transit. But weather affects travel. We can do things to minimize this disruption, but our society should also do more to accommodate it.
One of the many things I will not forgive UW for is making me drive in through a blizzard to the UW building for an interview at 8:30 am. The interviewers had the sense not to come in, but I was told I would be kicked out of co-op if I did the smart thing. But the fact is, many people who DID try to come in that day did not make it, many people were in the ditch on the side of the road as I was driving in. I don't know if anyone died, but it's not impossible, or even unlikely.
So yeah, weather affects travel. The problem I have is when we're looking at a tiny amount of freezing rain, when everyone else, buses, cars, even people walking, seem to be able to manage, and our LRT is shut down because we refuse to invest in proper maintenance....but if buses can't get through the roads which are maintained as well as we can possibly manage because they are primarily used by cars and our society prioritizes cars above everything else, well then I'm quite content to say that it is reasonable that there will be disruptions.
(11-24-2023, 05:30 PM)Acitta Wrote: Transit users are not suddenly going to be able to afford a car because of a day of bad weather.
I am going to assume in good faith that you mean that people who do not have any other options should not have their plans disrupted rather than that transit won't lose riders because the only people riding transit are those with no choice, and address that point.
Yes, we should try to meet the needs of people, and people should not be disadvantaged by riding transit. But weather affects travel. We can do things to minimize this disruption, but our society should also do more to accommodate it.
One of the many things I will not forgive UW for is making me drive in through a blizzard to the UW building for an interview at 8:30 am. The interviewers had the sense not to come in, but I was told I would be kicked out of co-op if I did the smart thing. But the fact is, many people who DID try to come in that day did not make it, many people were in the ditch on the side of the road as I was driving in. I don't know if anyone died, but it's not impossible, or even unlikely.
So yeah, weather affects travel. The problem I have is when we're looking at a tiny amount of freezing rain, when everyone else, buses, cars, even people walking, seem to be able to manage, and our LRT is shut down because we refuse to invest in proper maintenance....but if buses can't get through the roads which are maintained as well as we can possibly manage because they are primarily used by cars and our society prioritizes cars above everything else, well then I'm quite content to say that it is reasonable that there will be disruptions.
It is unreasonable to expect to be able to travel during a winter blizzard as easily as it is to travel on a sunny summer day. It is unreasonable for employers to act as if it is. You have to expect that some days you are going to be late or that it is better to stay home.
If snow removal is an issue then they should copy what Toronto did. They contacted out cement and dump trucks which they attached plows to so that they could have more trucks on the road.
If you look closely at the map on the explainer page, all the stops and route sections affected have a serious grade difference or tight turning radius that make it hard to negotiate in heavy snow. I'm sure the list has been compiled from incidents in previous winters. I have no problems with them being proactive on known areas of concern.
(11-25-2023, 11:17 PM)KevinL Wrote: If you look closely at the map on the explainer page, all the stops and route sections affected have a serious grade difference or tight turning radius that make it hard to negotiate in heavy snow. I'm sure the list has been compiled from incidents in previous winters. I have no problems with them being proactive on known areas of concern.
Exactly! The other choice is to let Mother Nature decide when and where to alter service. And Mother Nature doesn’t know anything about transit planning.
The ridership report for September is out, and it's record-breaking. September system ridership was 2.89 million, with 3.78 million boadings.
Busses saw 2.46 million riders, 3.23 million boardings, a full 44% increase from last September.
The LRT had 424 thousand riders and 550 thousand boardings, a 38% increase from last September
System reliability took a hit to 61.7%. Probably has something to do with how busy the busses are getting!
(11-25-2023, 11:17 PM)KevinL Wrote: If you look closely at the map on the explainer page, all the stops and route sections affected have a serious grade difference or tight turning radius that make it hard to negotiate in heavy snow. I'm sure the list has been compiled from incidents in previous winters. I have no problems with them being proactive on known areas of concern.
I looked at the 206, on Cedar Road across the river. There's one short spot between Richardson and Kay that is 6%, Woodside is 4%, and everything else is 2-3%.
I rode the old 55 & 62 numerous times a from 2004 to 2009 while I lived in Cambridge, including during winter storms, and I do not remember the busses having problems on Cedar, Southwood or St. Andrews in the snow.
(11-27-2023, 03:24 PM)coriander Wrote: The ridership report for September is out, and it's record-breaking. September system ridership was 2.89 million, with 3.78 million boadings.
Busses saw 2.46 million riders, 3.23 million boardings, a full 44% increase from last September.
The LRT had 424 thousand riders and 550 thousand boardings, a 38% increase from last September
System reliability took a hit to 61.7%. Probably has something to do with how busy the busses are getting!
Boardings take time! If you have 10 people lined up to get on the bus at a single stop, that bus is going to sit for a minute. And then it will take that additional time to let everyone off at their eventual stop, too. Makes sense that more riders slows the system down, but that means GRT needs to find ways to mitigate that (tap-on boardings at the rear door might help, for example)
