Grand River Transit

[MidTowner]

And I've condensed the whole saga into a Storify, for your reading pleasure:

https://storify.com/Markster3000/grt

Thanks for posting that!

“What it *is*, is a suburban commuter service. Local in the suburbs, then direct to downtown, no stops.”

That’s true, that’s what it effectively is given the wider stop spacing. There actually might not be any problem with that. Having station spaced closer together in the low-density areas might make sense if they are less-frequently used: if say a third of the time, no one is getting on or off there, they do not slow the service down. In the downtown, though, nearly every stop will have a rider either getting on or off nearly all the time- if spacing is 500 meters, that means that the bus is going to stop (maybe for only one or two riders) every 500 meters.

I’m not positive if this is what we’re going for here. To me, the line is supposed to be limited stop, so stops should be limited. At first glance, my opinion was that stops were too closely-spaced in general. If they want to go for an express route that offers limited mobility within downtown to keep it moving as quickly as possible, I can see the merit of that. But that wasn’t communicated, so it’s hard to have a discussion about that.

Good stuff linking to that Human Transit on split routes. Again, I can think of instances where it makes sense. But even when we learned that one stop would be west- and the other east-bound, there was no explanation for why. It’s hard to judge whether this is sensible if they do not communicate their rationale.

Without good info, I am in agreement with all of your points and really grateful for all your energy in trying to address this. I’m sure your neighbours appreciate it!