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ngdvd

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Everything posted by ngdvd

  1. If I try to get a bus with 3 empty seats and 6 standees and the bus driver tried to stop me, I would just ignore him too.
  2. It might have something to do with the fact that the City of Mississauga lifted its ban on pot shops last April.
  3. Those streets aren't really main thoroughfares though. Ridgeway is a real thoroughfare and only Ninth Line can fully match with that. Such a route could potentially connect with Milton Transit, Brampton Transit, and Oakville Transit. A minor street like Churchill Meadows would not be appropriate for such a service. An Eglinton Express would still provide the service from Renforth to Kipling in place of a truncated 35. Shortening the 35 would reduce the dwell times. It's similar to how they will bring back the 104 Derry Express to connect Derry riders to the Finch LRT since the 42 cannot be extended any further. I figured MiWay will take over TTC service along Burnhamthorpe, but I didn't know about 20 Rathburn replacing 49 Bloor West. I guess that means 76 will be rerouted onto Burnhamthorpe to help replace TTC 50. Fare integration will help Malton out a lot too. A new route along Britannia would be... ambitious. Milton is probably better off begging MiWay to provide more service to Lisgar station to connect with their new Steeles route.
  4. A 46 Ridgeway-Tenth Line route might work. Taking the 35 and 46 off Erin Centre might make a dedicated Erin Centre route possible. A dedicated route for Churchill Meadows might be too much. I agree they try to do too much with these routes. The 35 serving Eglinton in one direction and Erin Centre in the other direction reminds of the old route 10 south along Huntingtonfield and north along Hurontario. Thomas is the only street they serve properly here and soon they will change it. Avoiding the rail crossings and on-street events makes sense. A separate Thomas route to Streetsville GO would not have that problem. 9 Streetsville was actually renamed to 9 Rathburn-Miller's Grove first, then it became 9 Rathburn-Thomas. It was part of system wide renaming of routes after corridors in 2005. 10 Meadowvale was also renamed 10 Bristol-Britannia, 13 Clarkson was renamed 13 Glen Erin, 22 Humber College was renamed 22 Finch, 30 Woodbine renamed 30 Rexdale, 70 Orlando renamed 70 Keaton. I assume they will truncate the 35 at Renforth and the express version will continue serve the entire corridor from Ninth Line to Kipling. The route is very busy now and so the trip length has increased to 80 minutes during rush hour. To shorten the 35 must be something on their mind. The 39 has the same problem, over 80 minutes long, and I assume they will cut it short at Ninth Line. That section from Ninth Line to Meadowvale takes 20 minutes, and articulated buses operating on a small residential street with speed bumps like Lisgar is probably not a good idea. What will happen to the 43 and 87 when the Eglinton Express is introduced might affect how they decide to serve Millcreek. The 48 has to serve the students at West Credit, the 87 is basically dead already, so the 43 seems like the only way to serve those workers. The 43 would also connect them to Brampton Transit.
  5. You are right, I completely forgot about Rick Hansen. Serving the high school students is very important, and to serving Hurontario instead of McLaughlin will help boost the ridership of the 68. The old 68 also served Kingsbridge and Hurontario. Another user brought up a good point about having a direct connection between Credit Valley Hospital and City Centre. And the 34 is redundant with 35, but their solution makes the 9 redundant with the 48, which is even worse, while also taking away service to Streetsville. I criticized the 20 no longer serving Erindale GO, but it actually makes sense now seeing the 9 partially taking over the 34. I just think the 9 should also take over the 46 so that they can save the service to Streetsville for other routes. Maybe they are planning some other change to the 46...
  6. Ah yes, a high school, a historic downtown, a GO Train station... similar to Cooksville. One all-day route is for such a hub is not enough. With this change, if you are in Streetsville, you will have to take the 44 and then transfer at Britannia or Eglinton to travel west. It would have been better to merge the 9 with the 46 and make Thomas a separate route. Then an extension of the 49 along Erin Centre can be a third all day route into Streetsville and take further pressure off the 44. The 9 overlapping with the 44 can be justified, but overlapping with a struggling route like the 48? I hate to be dramatic but this change to the 9 could be the final nail in the coffin for the 48. The 48 is already down to 47 minutes frequency all day and overlapping with the 9 will not help it at all.
  7. I assume the elimination of the 34 is in preparation for the future Eglinton Express. The 34 has been losing ridership to the 35 for years, while the ridership of 7 has been getting out of control, so it was only a matter of time. I think the real problem is the elimination of full all day service along Thomas. The downtown portion of Streetsville will be served by only one all-day route now (compared to Port Credit with four all day routes). That's also one less east-west route for route 44 riders to connect to. I'm glad they preserved the service along Kingsbridge, but I would have liked them streamline the route more by taking it off Winterton and Guildwood to serve the entirety of Terry Fox.
  8. Oh yes, Seneca College and Warden at the same time. And let's not forget about Sheppard, Fairview Mall Dr, Don Mills, Finch, Gordon Baker, Pharmacy, Esna Park, Denison, Enterprise, University, YMCA, Kennedy, and Highway 7. With the cancellation of Viva Green forcing ~700 daily riders onto so many other routes, perhaps YRT will at least consider adding buses to those other routes to relieve the pressure that the loss of Viva Green has created. The 68B for example could get one extra bus during the morning rush hour to increase the frequency from 27 minutes to 23 minutes. That would increase the capacity of the 68B by 20% which would do much to reduce the overcrowding there.
  9. Average speed of 40kph is amazing for an LRT, lol. TTC Bloor-Danforth is 32.75kph average, lol. "Rapid transit" is probably the most misunderstood term in transit. It's about increasing the capacity of a line to maintain speed as the ridership increases. A bus can travel 30kph too if no one is riding it. It's only when the ridership increases that the speed of the bus decreases. Grade separation is merely about increasing capacity (longer and more frequent trains), not about increasing speed. GO Train crossings undergo grade separation because of the amount of volume traffic (trains, cars, pedestrians). It has zero effect on the speed of the trains.
  10. Yes, exactly. Users of transit tend to be low income, elders, students, newcomers to Canada. Those the people that York Region should have thought of, but instead they built a luxury BRT system to try to attract luxury SUV drivers. Everyone in Peel eventually buys an SUV as well. The point of improving transit to delay that first purchase. That is the only way to grow ridership. That is the difference with Mississauga and Brampton. They improved their system for existing riders, while York Region improved their system for potential riders. Who were the riders that Viva Green was designed to serve? York Region's total transit ridership hasn't grown since 2012, despite their population growth, and now they are in this budget hole having to raise their already ridiculous $3.88 fare another 3%. A luxury service becomes even more of a luxury service.
  11. They built an excessive BRT system in a misguided attempt to attract riders, and of course those riders never materialized, so now they can't get enough fare revenue to fund service, even with by far the most expensive fares in the GTA ($3.88!), and even after so many cuts to the non-BRT service. In some ways, YRT's overall service coverage is now even worse than DRT if you look at the all-day routes only. They don't have any room to cut service or raise fares without killing what little ridership they have.
  12. Service reliability refers to adherence to the schedule, nothing more or less. A half-empty bus travelling late at night, with no traffic congestion, is not going to have problems keeping up with the schedule. The bus is always going to be fast and on-time. Reliability only becomes a problem only when the buses become too crowded, not when they are empty. The solution to low reliability is through rapid transit measures (limited stops, all-door boarding, longer vehicles, ROW, grade separation), not higher frequency. 7.5 minutes. That is the difference in waiting time for a 30 minute route vs. a 45 minute route. By completely cancelling routes that can't meet their 30 minute standard, Durham Region Transit is forcing people to walk 7.5 minutes further to the stop so that they can wait 7.5 minutes less at the stop. What is more strenuous? Walking for 7.5 minutes or waiting for 7.5 minutes? And of course, reducing the amount of routes also forces people to transfer more (i.e. wait for the bus more). The number one most important factor for successful transit is walking distance. That is why there is something called "transit-oriented development". The entire point of TOD is to reduce walking distance and thus improve access to transit. Cancelling routes and leaving neighbourhoods and corridors without service is completely contrary to the concept of TOD. What is my measuring stick of success? Ridership. A bus that doesn’t come at all carries less riders? That's a very nice way of putting it. I would say that a bus that doesn't come at all carries zero riders. And of course zero riders also means zero fare revenue. You might call 39 Britannia is a failure because it operates every 32 minutes (with articulated buses), but that is still more frequent than what is provided by the 225 Audley North now. If you want to talk about the frequency being "detrimental to service" in York Region, YRT provides 1.2 million service hours annually, DRT 482,470 hours, 47,420 of that on-demand service. In other words, YRT provides more service per capita than DRT does, and that's despite the TTC being the main provider of service along Steeles. MiWay provides 1.5 million hours of service, Brampton Transit 1.4 million annually. Despite their strict minimum frequency standard, and because of it, DRT provides much less service than it should be providing.
  13. Reliable and predictable refer only to the ability of transit to stay on schedule. They have nothing to do with frequency. If anything, high frequency routes tend to be less reliable (e.g. bunching of buses). Fact is, MiWay and Brampton Transit are far more successful than DRT without adhering to a 30 minute standard. A bus that comes every 45 minutes is always going to carry more riders than a bus that never comes at all. A bus route that doesn't operate is always going to be bigger barrier to access than low frequency.
  14. So they were changed due to pandemic. I see the pre-pandemic ridership of these routes now. There were separate 219 Ravenscroft and 232 Church routes. The 219 Ravenscroft had 607 boardings per weekday in November 2016. The 120 Whites had 702 boardings, yet it is about to be cancelled. There was another route, the 225 Audley North, with 763 boardings. This level of ridership is similar to MiWay routes 14 Lorne Park and 90 Terragar, which are still running. Cancelling these kind of routes even temporarily is a big mistake because people are creatures of habit, so once they are gone, they will be gone for good... Looking the frequency chart, I see a problem: all but two routes have 30 minute frequency minimum at all times, even evenings and Sundays. If the service doesn't justify 30 minutes then they will just cancel it. No 40 minutes or 45 minutes allowed. Compare this approach to Brampton and Mississauga where many routes start out at 35, 40, or 45 minutes and they gradually increase the frequency as the ridership increases. If the ridership falls, they will reduce the frequency instead of just cancelling the service. Some examples of weekday midday frequencies in Brampton and Mississauga; 9 Rathburn-Thomas: 35 minutes 14 Lorne Park: 50 minutes 16 Malton: 36 minutes 36 Colonial: 35 minutes 38 Creditview: 34 minutes 39 Britannia: 32 minutes 68 Terry Fox: 49 minutes 90 Terragar: 42 minutes 3 McLaughlin: 35 minutes 6 James Potter: 45 minutes 31 McVean: 35 minutes 32 Father Tobin: 45 minutes 33 Peter Robertson: 45 minutes 52 McMurchy: 50 minutes 54 County Court: 40 minutes By Durham Region Transit's standards, all these routes would have their weekday midday service cancelled. If they want to add more late night service in Pickering, they will have to start with 40 to 60 minute frequencies. Since they set the minimum at 30 minutes, they cannot add any late night service.
  15. "so that service can be reallocated to busier routes" Taking the page right out of the MiWay playbook I see. Just shuffling buses around. I don't use DRT, but a loss of service along Ravenscroft and Church and the waterfront in Ajax seems... unfortunate. There appear to be enough gaps in the system already. No real north-south routes in Pickering. but no real east-west routes either. The north-south corridors Cochrane, Garden, and Anderson in Whitby also lack dedicated routes. Was it always like this?
  16. The 61 Mavis to the hospital was a rush hour only route. It did not have 10-16 minute frequency all day like the current 61 does, and it was not a true grid route since it did not connect directly to 42 Derry (let alone the 11/511 in Brampton). The 42 was still a low frequency route (30+ minutes midday), and there was no 39 Britannia, 35 Eglinton, 10 Bristol, or 57 Courtneypark. The 26 Burnhamthorpe has since been redesigned as a grid route and no longer connects to the 61. Times have changed. Dundas is a future BRT corridor and the busiest east-west route in the entire city. The 61 or a secondary Mavis route doesn't need to go much further south than that. I personally would take the 61 out of CCTT and realign the 68 onto Mavis south of Winterton to provide the direct ride to CCTT. Streetsville does not have a major transit terminal like Meadowvale Town Centre does, so there is no need for a direct MiWay route just to connect Streetsville to CCTT, especially considering GO already provides the same service. The 9 was a legacy of a time before the 35 and 109 and extended 20. Even after the 20 is truncated at CCTT, the 9 will still overlap with the 61 along Rathburn. As I said, the 34 can be rerouted off Eglinton onto Thomas Street in preparation for the Eglinton Express, and so continue to provide a direct connection between Streetsville and CCTT in place of the 9. The Eglinton Express will force them to remove existing service from Eglinton regardless, and either one of 9 and 34 will have to go. Cancelling the 9 and keeping the 34 would allow them keep service along Kingsbridge Garden Circle.
  17. drum118 is always going to try to paint transit in Mississauga as a "mess" no matter what you say. A 46% revenue/cost ratio is completely normal but as usual drum118 will only see the numbers that he wants to see. If anything, MiWay should be cautious expanding the bus fleet and hiring new operators as the eventual opening of the LRT will result in many buses being taken off Hurontario Street.
  18. Without 20 Rathburn west of CCTT, it will become more difficult to take Mavis buses off Rathburn to bypass CCTT and continue south of Rathburn. It's one less grid route for a Mavis grid route to connect to. The realignment of the 61 or a new secondary route along Mavis is important because the 61 and 66 are the two busiest north-south routes outside of Hurontario and currently neither of them connect with the 26 or the 1/101. It leaves a huge gap in the grid between Creditview and Hurontario. The 9 was once the main route connecting Meadowvale to Square One, but that role has been taken over by the 109 Meadowvale Express. The 9 is completely unnecessary along Rathburn, Creditview, Eglinton, and Mississauga Road. Instead of cutting service on the 20, they should have cancelled the 9 and realigned the 34 to serve Thomas in preparation for the future Eglinton Express. Cancelling the 9 would have freed up buses to add to the 20, 34, 35, and/or 38.
  19. Yes, subsidy has been decreasing since 2020 due to ridership gain. They are planning for 46% cost recovery ratio in 2024 which is normal. In the past it used to be around 60%. They will add 57,000 service hours, which is a lot, although still not enough to match 2019 service hours. Ridership along Rathburn doesn't justify 2 routes, but I would have preferred they eliminate 9 instead of the 20 west of CCTT now that 26 no longer serves CCTT. The 9 already serves Streetsville GO. Truncating the 20 doesn't help the grid either.
  20. The only line in Transit City that made sense was the Waterfront West LRT. Lakeshore BRT and Waterfront West LRT will help lay the groundwork for a future streetcar extension to Port Credit to connect with the Hurontario LRT. This is about Lakeshore Road, not Lake Shore Boulevard. Two different streets. Lakeshore is in Mississauga. Lake Shore is in Toronto.
  21. Mississauga Transit's ridership increased 63.7% since 2003, even the Derry buses are bursting at the seams now, despite COVID. Chances are the ridership is going to keep increasing, even without LRT or BRT. The projected ridership in 2023 is 44.7 million. How many riders will the RTC in Quebec City get by the end of 2023? Quebec is the second oldest city in Canada, so the ridership is sure to be much higher than Mississauga, right? This is not some regular suburban intersection we are talking about. This is Hurontario and Dundas. The two busiest transit corridors in Mississauga. 5-minute bus service all day. 24-hour bus service. They are pre-war buildings here. There are literally dozens of mom-and-pop shops here in various 2-3 storey mixed use structures, surrounded dozens of mid-rise and high-rise apartment buildings. This is Cooksville, the former downtown of Mississauga.
  22. The diversion to the City Centre Transit Terminal is just dumb, a step backward from the current 103. The whole point of CCTT was to connect to the Transitway, and the Transitway intersects with Hurontario Street anyways. It's just a simple matter of building a Transitway station at Hurontario and extending it west of Hurontario (including station at Creditview and Churchill Meadows). A complete Transitway would have been money much better spent than an expensive diversion of the LRT off Hurontario that will waste riders' time. The LRT to CCTT also doesn't solve the problem of overcrowding of CCTT, and it might even make the overcrowding even worse. Furthermore, several non-Transitway routes that serve CCTT already intersect with Hurontario: 3, 7, 8, 10, 20, 34, 76. Other routes like 6 and 9 can easily be extended to Hurontario. These riders do not need to transfer at CCTT to use the LRT. Combine all this with the lack of service north of Steeles, this LRT has ended being an incredible missed opportunity. It doesn't solve the problem of the diversion off Hurontario, it doesn't solve the problem of the overcrowding of CCTT, and it doesn't solve the problem of integrating Brampton and Mississauga transit service, which I think should have been the three main benefits.
  23. Here is a map I made for Mississauga in 2024, if Hurontario and Finch West LRTs are complete (big IF). A more complete grid (Burnhamthorpe, McLaughlin/Confederation, Mavis, Ridgeway/Tenth Line, Mississauga Road), replacing the legacy 89 Meadowvale Express routes (two-way service along Matheson-Argentia, finally), more connections to Lisgar GO station, and some through routes in Malton (so that not every route in Malton terminates at Westwood and force riders to transfer). https://www.docdroid.net/sXXZOUj/mississauga-transit-2024-pdf
  24. I live on Britannia, and I have seen the 70 over the years, and it is always packed. But no matter how packed the bus is, a one seat ride from Hurontario to Kipling with no stops in-between is a huge cost to Mississauga, and yet it is for Toronto riders only. Ultimately, MiWay is for Mississauga riders, not Toronto riders, and that means the 39 is more important than the 70. The old 27/70/82 made sense when the old 89 Meadowvale Express had 12 minute service. The 89 was a one-way route, so the 27/70/82 actually saved Mississauga Transit money because they allowed the 89 Meadowvale buses return with riders instead of empty. But now the current day 87 runs only every 45 minutes, so the 27/70/108 is actually costing Mississauga money. They are not subsidized by a third party like the 71 is. Keep in mind, the 70 and the 82/108 existed before the Transitway. With the Transitway, there is even less reason to provide one seat express ride via the 401. So even to serve Toronto residents, it would make more sense for Mississauga to introduce new express route from Financial and Argentia that travels to Kipling via Matheson and the Transitway. Such a route could be two-way and be useful to Mississauga residents as well as Toronto residents, while replacing the 43, 70, and 108 all at once. Otherwise, if people from Toronto want to take the bus along Britannia and Matheson, that is what the extended 39 is for. If they want express service from somewhere along Derry, that is what the return of the 104 Derry Express would be for. The continued existence of the 108 only interferes with the return of the 104. It is really up to the TTC to better connect with the 42/104. MiWay already provides what is essentially express service from Kipling to Westwood with route 11. Transfer from 11 to 42/104 should be no problem. The 39 is one of busiest routes in Mississauga but service is getting cut yet again this month to pay for these Toronto routes. And of course the 104 still hasn't been restored. Instead of cutting service to the 39 and delaying the reintroduction of the 104, I would like to see the 43/70/108 cancelled immediately. MiWay's priority should be serving Mississauga residents, not Toronto residents. The weekday midday service on the 39 is being reduced to 32 minutes while the bus stops along Britannia and Matheson are being expanded to accommodate the articulated buses. 32 minute service with articulated buses. Transit riders in Mississauga getting screwed while Toronto transit riders get the non-stop express service.
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