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(11-24-2021, 10:06 PM)Acitta Wrote: (11-24-2021, 10:19 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: At this point, they'd not be competing with GO Transit who does not operate a bus route from Toronto to WR.
But I'm not exactly hopeful here either. Well, they do operate a train that will be all day service at some point in the future. Also, you can also take a bus to and from Toronto and Kitchener, you just have to take two of them, or one bus and a train, transferring at Bramalea. That may be not quite as good as one bus all the way, but you don't have to book in advance or buy a ticket. You just tap your Presto card. I switched to GO even before Greyhound stopped running. There are a lot of other communities in Ontario that used to be served by Greyhound but now have no service whatsoever. That seems like a better opportunity for a bus company wanting to expand.
I mean, it shouldn't be hard to compete with an up to 3.5 hour bus ride with a connection in the middle on a route that can be in conservatively 1.5 hours in decent traffic in a car. I've taken GO to Toronto on weekends, but I've been angry about it every time.
The train is certainly a stronger competitor, but that's years off from a real timetable. Hell, if they had a real interest in serving our community they could run the trains on the weekend...but they don't. Perhaps there SHOULD be competition?
That being said, I don't think most of the communities which lack bus service can be served profitably. We need to completely rethink our intercity bus service, and go with a different model.
Transit can't be run at a profit. At least that's my opinion (and don't @ me Japan, AFAIK a significant portion of their profitability comes from realestate). But what should be entirely uncontroversial is that transit cannot be run at a profit in small cities across Ontario where we subsidize driving to an utterly astronomical degree.
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(11-24-2021, 10:06 PM)Acitta Wrote: Well, they do operate a train that will be all day service at some point in the future. Also, you can also take a bus to and from Toronto and Kitchener, you just have to take two of them, or one bus and a train, transferring at Bramalea. That may be not quite as good as one bus all the way, but you don't have to book in advance or buy a ticket. You just tap your Presto card. I switched to GO even before Greyhound stopped running. There are a lot of other communities in Ontario that used to be served by Greyhound but now have no service whatsoever. That seems like a better opportunity for a bus company wanting to expand.
Oh yeah, Greyhound's dynamic pricing was pretty annoying too. Overall I agree with danbrotherston about transit being difficult to run for profit in North America.
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Japanese railways/subways may make a profit on real estate. But whether or not they do, the passenger volumes are so massively different (as is the urban density) that it's not really a useful comparison anyway.
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Lol...sorry Tom, forgot where I was posting, you guys aren't going raise that un-applicable exception. 😂
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(11-25-2021, 07:17 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Lol...sorry Tom, forgot where I was posting, you guys aren't going raise that un-applicable exception. 😂
I can only speak for myself! 
I love public transit in Japan, but it really isn't applicable to Waterloo Region.
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03-24-2022, 03:16 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-24-2022, 03:25 PM by Chris.)
New bus operator to offer trips between Kitchener and Toronto
https://kitchener.citynews.ca/local-news...to-5193709
From the linked article:
Special $4.99 fares can be booked between March 24 to April 6. A regular fare from Kitchener to Toronto will cost $14.99, one-way.
ETA: It wasn't in the article so I looked it up. The bus goes to the Harbourfront.
8 York St Suite 2910, Toronto
Two trips a day. 11am and 5:45pm to TO.
7:45am and 2:15pm to Waterloo
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(03-24-2022, 03:16 PM)Chris Wrote: New bus operator to offer trips between Kitchener and Toronto
https://kitchener.citynews.ca/local-news...to-5193709
From the linked article:
Special $4.99 fares can be booked between March 24 to April 6. A regular fare from Kitchener to Toronto will cost $14.99, one-way.
ETA: It wasn't in the article so I looked it up. The bus goes to the Harbourfront.
8 York St Suite 2910, Toronto
Two trips a day. 11am and 5:45pm to TO.
7:45am and 2:15pm to Waterloo
Yeah, two isn't a huge volume, but good to be able to go for the workday from Toronto to Waterloo at least.
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(03-24-2022, 03:16 PM)Chris Wrote: Â The bus goes to the Harbourfront.
8 York St Suite 2910, Toronto
Guess there's a service fee to use the Union terminal, which is only a couple blocks away.
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(03-24-2022, 03:16 PM)Chris Wrote: New bus operator to offer trips between Kitchener and Toronto
https://kitchener.citynews.ca/local-news...to-5193709
From the linked article:
Special $4.99 fares can be booked between March 24 to April 6. A regular fare from Kitchener to Toronto will cost $14.99, one-way.
ETA: It wasn't in the article so I looked it up. The bus goes to the Harbourfront.
8 York St Suite 2910, Toronto
Two trips a day. 11am and 5:45pm to TO.
7:45am and 2:15pm to Waterloo
GO works for me to go to Toronto, but this would be great for a day trip to Guelph. The bus is scheduled to leave Waterloo at 11:00Â and return at 15:50 starting April 7. I would probably take the GO train back because the last one leaves at 22:00.
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I saw an Onex bus driving on Jubilee Dr today, which I thought was odd. Doesn't it only stop at Sportsworld, or has that changed? Their website doesn't seem to make any indication of where the stop is...
I see they also do charter buses, so maybe that.
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(10-13-2022, 10:22 PM)dtkvictim Wrote: I saw an Onex bus driving on Jubilee Dr today, which I thought was odd. Doesn't it only stop at Sportsworld, or has that changed? Their website doesn't seem to make any indication of where the stop is...
I see they also do charter buses, so maybe that.
They could also be testing an extended route. Usually the first day of revenue service is not the first time the bus drives on a route.
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(10-14-2022, 12:58 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: (10-13-2022, 10:22 PM)dtkvictim Wrote: I saw an Onex bus driving on Jubilee Dr today, which I thought was odd. Doesn't it only stop at Sportsworld, or has that changed? Their website doesn't seem to make any indication of where the stop is...
I see they also do charter buses, so maybe that.
They could also be testing an extended route. Usually the first day of revenue service is not the first time the bus drives on a route.
I would be happy if they had a downtown stop. I would use it to go to London, even though it costs me 3 times as much as the deathly slow GO train.
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FlixBus seems to have completely removed Guelph from their routes.
https://www.guelphtoday.com/local-news/f...to-5950410
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That's a shame. I never regularly took a bus that stopped in Guelph but I'm curious, are the buses full enough to warrant GRT and/or Guelph Transit just adding a route a few times a day? It would be very handy and although Guelph isn't part of Waterloo Region they're so close they might as well be part of us so a connection would be nice. It's no further away than the distance between Waterloo and Cambridge.
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