Grand River Transit

[ac3r]

I would guess that was because when they made the bridge, there was really nothing around there besides a small number of homes, industry, institutional (the old tuberculous sanatorium) and farms. It's possible there was a dirt path or even concrete one that connected to the sidewalk because people still would have walked around there, but I don't imagine it saw too many people. I tried to look for evidence of any sidewalks on the old aerial maps, but they're far too low resolution to see such details.

These days it's just used as a connection for the Walter Bean and other trails that follow the river so at least it's still useful. Beats wading through the water hah. It's not deep, but pretty nasty.

[KevinL]

UW's NDP group wants night service to return; it was removed during the pandemic and still hasn't come back. They've created a petition. https://www.change.org/p/bring-back-late-night-transit

Looks like this was successful, the 'Late Night Loop' route 91 will return in September.

[timc]

That's good news.

I just want to call out the weird photo that CBC used for the story. They show passengers disembarking from a Route 200 iXpress bus, which hasn't run in years. And it's at the Cambridge Centre, far from Waterloo. Time to update the stock photo library.

I do appreciate that CBC notes that the service was dropped in 2019, while The Record keeps saying that it was a pandemic cut.

[SF22]

I haven't been able to find an actual map of where the old Route 91 actually went - I never used this one, as a student. Does anyone remember the general layout of it?

It's a good first step to better nighttime/overnight transit in the city. I'd like to see the ION run for longer, and with better frequency than 30 minutes.

[danbrotherston]

I haven't been able to find an actual map of where the old Route 91 actually went - I never used this one, as a student. Does anyone remember the general layout of it?

It's a good first step to better nighttime/overnight transit in the city. I'd like to see the ION run for longer, and with better frequency than 30 minutes.

Well I thought it would be in the wayback machine (which goes back to 2017) but for some reason I cannot find it on the list of schedules.

https://web.archive.org/web/201706040705...dules.aspx

Strange.

In any case, my recollection was that it ran from the Charles St. terminal in DTK up King, across University, through the campus, and then through the neighbourhood north of the campus....but that recollection is almost 10 years old at this point, so I'd say I have a low level of confidence. It definitely ran uptown to downtown though.

[nms]

This is the only Route 91 clue that I could find from a cached copy of the CBTDB Wiki from May 4, 2022. The first entry about the route was from November 2012 and "Late Night Loop" is used before that:

91 Late Night Loop is a conventional bus route operated by Grand River Transit. The route serves Charles Street Transit Terminal, Grand River Hospital, Uptown Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University, University of Waterloo, and the student-dominant communities of Lakeshore and Columbia.

This route operates on Thursday, Friday and Saturday late nights only.

The fact that it started at the Charles Street Transit Terminal would suggest that the driver and bus was pulled from another route which ended at the terminal at 1:00am. I can't remember if Route 9 connected to the Transit

[midriser]

I haven't been able to find an actual map of where the old Route 91 actually went - I never used this one, as a student. Does anyone remember the general layout of it?

It's a good first step to better nighttime/overnight transit in the city. I'd like to see the ION run for longer, and with better frequency than 30 minutes.

Well I thought it would be in the wayback machine (which goes back to 2017) but for some reason I cannot find it on the list of schedules.

https://web.archive.org/web/201706040705...dules.aspx

Strange.

In any case, my recollection was that it ran from the Charles St. terminal in DTK up King, across University, through the campus, and then through the neighbourhood north of the campus....but that recollection is almost 10 years old at this point, so I'd say I have a low level of confidence. It definitely ran uptown to downtown though.

It's under the 7 Mainline schedule at that archived link - on the map it's the grey loop north of campus. In the schedule itself it's listed at the bottom of the Saturday section. I used to ride it when I was student 10+ years ago as well, and can confirm your recollection is correct.

[SF22]

I'll be interested to see how much they tweak the old route to fit the new city - obviously Charles St Terminal doesn't exist anymore, and there might be different demand areas around the campuses based on where new buildings have gone up.

[KevinL]

Proposed changes to north Cambridge routes that connect from Sportsworld; 72 would be renumbered 62 and run with full-size buses, and a new BusPLUS 78 would operate along Fountain to the airport. https://www.grt.ca/en/about-grt/route-72...anges.aspx

[dunkalunk]

The BusPlus route to the airport make sense. Not a huge fan of the circuitous route from Reuter Campus to Sportsworld. Hopefully the college keeps their shuttle.

[Bytor]

I wonder if it would make more sense to have it go from Fairway Station to YKF? That feels more convenient to more people.

[ac3r]

Not really.

The Sportsworld terminal is closer to the 401 and 8 highways, GO buses, local buses and eventually a nearby LRT station and sits between two cities. It has significantly more useful transportation connections for both local and regional airport users. Fairway is more of a small local node served only by the LRT and a handful of local bus routes. A significant amount of people flying in and out of YKF are not from Waterloo Region, they're from all over the surrounding area, so being able to take a GO bus or drive on the 401 to get dropped off to catch a bus to the airport has much more utility.

[clasher]

Why would someone drive to sportsworld to get dropped off instead of just getting dropped off at the airport?

[ac3r]

There are plenty of reasons. The point is that Sportsworld makes more sense, especially if they also build that GO train spur from Cambridge. It would be a short bus or LRT trip to Sportsworld, then to the airport. There's just a much greater number of possible transit connections there.

[dunkalunk]

I wonder if it would make more sense to have it go from Fairway Station to YKF? That feels more convenient to more people.

The real issue is that ION is one stop too short. It'll require another transfer to get from Fairway to Sportworld and then Sportsword to anywhere else. What should be a 15 minute drive from Downtown Kitchener to the Airport is a 1+ hour long bus ride.

YKF is an intermittent destination, but that same transfer penalty applies to anyone working or going to school in the Cambridge Industrial park.