MCI102A3

Google didn't turn up anything, but I watched Saint Pierre and Miquelon's public broadcasting tonight (SPM La Premiere, we got Shaw Direct just so we can watch this along with Northern Ontario and Northern Quebec media), but we saw a story that SPM is apparently discussing a transit study with help of France's overseas ministry. Funny enough my friends and I have toyed with a concept to propose to them (we plan to do a roadtrip there next year and also seek out friends there too when we go), where there'd be a system that's territory-wide, consisting of European buses like 9-metre/30-foot and 12-metre/40-foot0Mercedes Citaros and MAN Lion's City running in St. Pierre City and throughout Miquelon-Langlade, connecting all the rural outposts and important points. These would be fare-integrated with all ferries operating in the territory, and would also include at least a daily coach service, operated by a European modern coach from a marque such as VDL, Scania-Irizar, Mercedes, Volvo or MAN, from St. Pierre to St. John's. Unfortunately when I tried Googling with my limited knowledge of French, but nothing turned up on Google yet. But it was on tonight's La Premiere broadcast (20h00 Saint Pierre time, 2 hours ahead of Eastern time)

Perhaps if they bought the Nylene spur between Arnprior and Ottawa, and the OVR between Sudbury and Mattawa, inclusive of Temiscaming, it could be done. Would be a matter of splicing the two together between Mattawa and Arnprior rather than rebuilding the entirety of the Chalk.

I think Karsan of Turkey uses this same body style. They had a demo on show at CUTA 2018.

Yeah, frequencies I can understand due to lower ridership, but once the pandemic's over, we really need to consider reforming at least the Barrie and Orillia ends of the routes, having their terminals extended to the CBDs of those cities. Otherwise, the only people who'll take the bus will be those with no choice. We have enough gas-guzzling F-150s and RAM pickups on the road here. If we can prevent the need for more of them, why don't we? The issues with connectivity in Barrie go back to when Route 1 launched in 2018. The only really practical route for most people is Route 2 as it terminates at Allandale.

I have my own proposal. Have the routes to North Simcoe terminate Downtown, and the routes from barrie to South Simcoe terminate at Allandale. And the Orillia route should terminate at their new Downtown Terminal when it opens. It's like how Allegiant Airlines with their clapped out MD-80s flies from say, Fargo to Wichita at noon. Who really wants to go there. Likewise, for somebody from Barrie who wants to take transit to Orillia... who wants to take two buses to get to the Barrie end of LINX 3, then once in Orillia, have to take up to two buses to get to their final destination? And that's before we even factor in cross-County trips that have to go through Barrie. At least if the northern routes terminated Downtown, it's only a 5 minute bus ride on any bus going up Bradford Street to get from the Barrie end of LINX 2 or any other future LINX route serving the South to get to the northern routes, not having to take 2-3 Barrie buses across town to get to them. The problem with trying to run things on a lean fleet is you're focusing your scheduling on a game of musical chairs to save money when in reality you should be thinking about your customers. Barrie has this problem too, we've only had 2 buses delivered to us since 2017, after 2-3 straight years of retirements. And when we want to improve service, we can't because we simply don't have enough buses. Think every system in Simcoe County has this problem. For Route 6, at the very least, send it to Downtown Midland instead of the outskirts of Midland, or heck, send it to Penetang on the lakefront to connect with the northern terminus of the 1. If it requires a third bus, so be it, but if you don't design a route that connects to adequate transit at both ends of the route, you screw your customers and have more cars on the road. In my view, for Route 2 it'd also make more sense to have it go direct to Collingwood, perhaps via the 90km/h Highway 26 Bypass they built, that lovely four-land road they built a few years ago. Wasaga gets served before Stayner, then the bus goes to Stayner and then after that finishes up in Collingwood. Add a 20 minute break at each end like they do to Route 1, allow the break for the driver and vehicle. I look at how Niagara Region Transit has larger buses and operates from central station to central station, their system is brilliant. Simcoe's probs the best regional system north of Toronto, but we can improve it. Otherwise without improvements, we stall and people lose interest.

I guess because it really only goes from the northern outskirts of Barrie to the southern outskirts of Orillia? Meanwhile the ONR service goes from Downtown to Downtown, where most people wanna go (to connect to every route in both cities). Idk how the County justified this.

I find it rather peculiar that they won't connect to Route 1 in Midland. If the goal is of an inter-connected network, this route would be much harder to access. You want to connect to these routes in Midland, it requires an hour's bus ride on Midland Transit to get to them.

Knowing about the deferred orders and the service cuts, I wonder what they'll be running these new routes with? They don't seem to've ordered new buses for these routes, so would they just be using the existing surplus to operate the routes for the time being until service increases? (EDIT: Nevermind, I saw the eight bus order in the PDF)

I got a shot of Arboc 2021 while waiting for a bus on Sunday. 69207 and 69508 are for sale now.

Yesterday while I was out, I spotted a 2020 Chevy/Arboc numbered 2021 driving around the City. They must've gotten two of them judging by the numbers. No pics though as I was on a bus at the time.

Yeah, I'm familiar with that. They formed a subsidiary called "Autobus Gatineau" around the same time they expanded to the James Bay Highway. On my last trip back home from Rouyn-Noranda via North Bay we had one of Gatineau's buses, a post-2002 Prevost that was from the states. Had the full livery, but the signage was mostly in English and the speedometer was in miles per hour.

https://www.grey.ca/news/grey-transit-route-rolling-ahead Latest news from five days ago. Looks like FirstGroup in Owen Sound is going to be the contractor. As for fleet, they're talking about going to Metrolinx to "lease" buses, so it could either be Arbocs, or Enviro 200s. I never heard of Metrolinx offering a leasing programme though?

Unfortunately there's no fare integration in Barrie, however most of Simcoe County's municipal systems have an agreement with LINX where you pay a reduced rate upon transfer. Orillia I think is one of them, you get a buck off your fare I think it is.

I have a feeling if we end up getting a smart-card system, it'll probs be LINX's card and would likely apply County-wide. We tend to take a more "local" rather than "provincial" line of thinking in government up here. I'll disclose what I think of Presto.... it's an eternal f**kup and our heads were wise not to implement it. The TTC's STILL having problems with it after what? 5? 10 years after implementing it?

Yeah, they expanded into Manitoba some years ago and took over the famous Selkirk-Winnipeg commuter line, then I believe abandoned it a year later. Idk what the locals thought about it, but the optics of a bus with Ontario license plates running a local commuter route in Manitoba didn't look good in my eyes.