Wonka

I got #1101 the other day and noticed it has the new system installed. I'm guessing its the oldest bus in service at the moment with it installed unless any of the remaining D40LF's have gotten it.

I've noticed that they've really picked up the pace with installing the system onto more buses in the last week. Almost every bus I rode on Friday had it.

They've been doing it since 2018 or 2019 I believe, I think its just an attempt to freshen up the logo a bit. Seems like they're randomly applying the logo to older buses as they get body or maintenance work done, I've seen it on a few XD40's.

It feels really weird to be discussing the retirement of the XD40's and the first order of XN60's. They all seem to be in pretty good condition still, definitely better than any of the 2015-2018 Nova's. New Flyer really builds a quality bus.

2321 at Nash and Queenston on the 4 a few hours ago.

"Route 11 - Parkdale Route now runs more frequently in the early morning across all days. Weekday trips have improved from every 45 minutes to every 30 minutes. Weekend early morning service has improved from every 60 minutes to every 30 minutes, making it easier to catch a ride in the morning." I mean its not a huge improvement but its the most I've seen in years.

Those old XD40's still have far better air conditioning than even the newest Nova's. No idea why they've always been cursed with poor AC performance.

This is a nice change to see. Was always a bit inconvenient for me to be let off of the 12 at Fairview mall instead of downtown St. Catharines since Niagara region doesn't use PRESTO so you don't get the discount for the transfer to downtown. I'll definitely try the 11 out next time I visit St. Catharines, I haven't been a fan of how packed the 12 has gotten in the last few years.

The screens were just for ads, they didn't have any useful information about next stops or detours. I found them annoying.

I don't think the 1400's ever had seats in the articulated joint, the 0900's were the last ones to have it.

Or even better, King opposite the Macnab terminal where you've got a chance of getting one on 3 different routes going Westbound. You can pretty much spend 10 minutes there and take your pick of which year of articulated bus you want to ride.

Thats an impressive number considering that expansion has been held back due to overcrowding at the mountain garage. It'll be interesting to see how much ridership will continue to increase once the new garage is open and HSR can get back into regular expansion of the fleet. They've done a great job of increasing service around the system in the past few years with what they have available.

There's still plenty of articulated ones at least? I would assume HSR will be picking up more of them after the new MSF is finished as well.

Ah alright, makes sense that they'd do that in the meantime since the LRT will eliminate the B-Line bus anyway (and one would assume that'll be the end of buses going into the plaza at all)

I'm guessing HSR is trying to get excess buses out of University Plaza? They moved boardings to the stop around the corner on Osler a few months ago, my guess at the time was that all the 60 footers were clogging the small platform up and it was creating issues. Makes sense to get the 1A buses out of there so the B-Line can have the entire platform.

I didn't notice any machines that were out of service yesterday but I did have an issue tapping onto an HSR bus with my phone (it kept trying to charge my bank card in my google wallet instead of the PRESTO) and then at West Harbour before I boarded a train, I tapped on with my phone and although the machine gave me the usual green confirmation and a charge for a dollar and something, the tap never showed on my app and when I tapped off at Appleby, it registered it as a tap on and then charged me the rest of the fare to Union a few hours later. I thought about cancelling the tap at the time but didn't in case the first tap was just delayed, turns out I should have. Not sure if its even worth bothering with customer support since I can't actually prove that I tapped on the first time, since it didn't register.

thankfully all of those surfaces should be pretty easy to clean in minutes.

Nice to take a trip down memory lane until I remember how noisy and rough those old buses rode. I guess thats a tradition that Nova has carried on.

Heres the re-envisioned system map, the route legend is at the bottom right.

I believe thats part of the HSR Re-Envision plan, which is supposed to be happening at some point over the next decade. I'm pretty excited about it, mainly because it'll be bringing a lot of new North/South routes that don't exist in the lower city right now. Also lots of enhanced service and new express routes on the mountain.

I also saw 2206 on the 6/7/8 yesterday, hopefully that means they've fixed the stalling issue.

Some good changes for the fall for sure. Makes me excited about how many more service enhancements they'll be able to do once the new MSF is complete and they can (hopefully) do a lot more expansion bus purchases.

Mid to late 90's, I believe.

Apparently at least one bus will be getting a wrap for the HSR 150th anniversary celebrations later this month. Nice to see all the stuff they're doing for it, I'll definitely be checking out the exhibit at the Lister Block once its up and I'd love to snag one of those PRESTO cards.

I stand corrected, thought they were all in service by now but I was probably thinking of the 23xx artics.