What’s Next for Winnipeg Transit?

[MMP15]

Here's a list of all the changes that I've been able to find to the Short Term Plan in this latest revision. There aren't many noticeable changes to the primary (lettered) network that I have found. Changes are mostly positive:

Primary Network

• Route T (Kildare)
  • Altered routing at end of route. Extended south down Ravenhurst instead of going on Edmund Gale.

Connector Routes

• Route 31 (Jefferson)
  • Terminates earlier at Adsum/Dr Jose Rizal. (331 now heads further West on Jefferson). 
• CUT - Route 43
  • Eliminated. Elements of this are incorporated into the new route 443.
• Route 45 (McMeans)
  • Extended to Edmund Gale.
• Route 60 (Roblin)
  • Clarification that route 60 is not a loop route and does not overlap with route 23. 
• CUT - Route 62
  • Eliminated. Demoted to Connector route 662.

2XX Routes

• Route 233 (Polo Park - Red River College via Airport)
  • Altered routing down Berry instead of Silver.

3XX Routes

• Route 331 (Garden City - Fife and Mountian)
  • New loop added on Jefferson/Adsum.
• Route 332 (Station Casino - Jefferson)
  • Extended to Jefferson.
• Route 333 (Garden City - Fernbank and Main)
  • Altered routing near Main/Murray.

4XX Routes

• Route 431 (KP - Devonshire)
  • Altered to not be a large loop that crosses over itself.
• Route 433 (Pandora)
  • Terminates earlier at Redonda.
• Route 434 (KP - Henderson)
  • Added loop down Peguis/Concordia.
• Route 435 (KP - Watt/Nairn via London)
  • Moved from Loueda to London.
• NEW - Route 443 (Watt/Nairn - Whellams Lane)
  • Replaces route 43.

5XX Routes

• Route 534 (St Vital Centre - Sage Creek)
  • Does not go into Southdale anymore, instead continues east along Bishop Grandin to Sage Creek, and then loops through Sage Creek.
• Route 535 (Southdale Centre - Sage Creek)
  • Now terminates earlier at Sage Creek and Des Hivernants.
• Route 536 (Southdale Centre - Island Lakes)
  • Extended through Bonavista. Loops through West Southdale (534 did this before re-routing).
• Route 537 (Plaza Drive - St Vital Centre)
  • Service added to St Amant Loop.

6XX Routes

• Route 636 (Seel Station - Grosvenor)
  • Extended to Grosvenor and Stafford.
• Route 641 (Lindenwoods West)
  • Clarification that both Lindenwoods routes will now terminate at Seel Station.
• Route 671 (Dalhousie)
  • New loop added on Ken Obelik
• NEW - Route 662 (North?)
  • Replaces route 62. It appears route 62 was demoted from Connector to Community. And that the transit planners forgot that route 662 is already taken (Richmond).

Let me know if you find ones I missed!

Edited March 9, 2021 by MMP15

[LilZebra]

7 minutes ago, MMP15 said:

Here's a list of all the changes that I've been able to find to the Short Term Plan in this latest revision. There aren't many noticeable changes to the primary (lettered) network that I have found. Changes are mostly positive:

• Route 537 (Plaza Drive - St Vital Centre)
  • Service added to St Amant Loop.

Now if they could route 537 into that drive along closest to Plaza Stn. there'd be Zero walking to get to / from the rt.

6XX Routes

• Route 636 (Seel Station - River Heights)
  • Extended to Grosvenor and Stafford.

What's this route supposed to be?

 

 

[Isaac Williams]

8 minutes ago, LilZebra said:

 

https://winnipegtransit.com/assets/2790/Long_Term_Network_Plan.pdf

[LilZebra]

In lookng at the map again, route 662 is the Taylor feeder bus.

But what is this 636? And where are you getting the route names from, because clearly anything east of Cambridge is not R.H., but Grant Park. I know because I grew up first 9 years south of there in the Rpckwood neighbourhood.

[MMP15]

14 minutes ago, LilZebra said:

• Route 537 (Plaza Drive - St Vital Centre)
  • Service added to St Amant Loop.

Now if they could route 537 into that drive along closest to Plaza Stn. there'd be Zero walking to get to / from the rt.

That would be nice, but I'm doubtful. What they can do however is add better signage!!! Plaza Station has signage saying "walk to pembina to connect to 16, 47, 60" (they omit 101...), which is a start, but there's nothing the other way around. What they also need to add is the green AT signage leading from Pembina to Plaza Station.

19 minutes ago, LilZebra said:

6XX Routes

• Route 636 (Seel Station - River Heights)
  • Extended to Grosvenor and Stafford.

What's this route supposed to be?

It's a new route as of the previous revision of WTMP.

2 minutes ago, LilZebra said:

In lookng at the map again, route 662 is the Taylor feeder bus.

But what is this 636? And where are you getting the route names from, because clearly anything east of Cambridge is not R.H., but Grant Park. I know because I grew up first 9 years south of there in the Rpckwood neighbourhood.

662 is shown as the Taylor feeder AND the Richmond feeder.

None of the route names are legitimate, I just made them up based on their terminals. My mistake not saying GP instead of RH.

[ConnorsCompShow]

Quite interesting how only now they're entertaining taking the new route 662 "95" past the current Shaftesbury loop to Outlet Collection and just accepting that train delays will be a fact of life for it. You could probably staple that onto the current 95 without too much trouble so long as you axe the entire Polo Park zig-zagging too. They really should have done that after making route 74 its own route, and they absolutely should have gone after it first in the "service rationalization" round they did.

I was also reading up on one of the Q&A documents summarizing questions asked during the Zoom sessions (https://winnipegtransit.com/assets/2773/WTMP_Zoom_Webinar_Q_A_report_Oct.24_28_FINAL.pdf) and I couldn't help but notice that someone had asked a question about running a Perimeter "super express" feeder. Apparently that thought has crossed their minds too (along with mine), but "Winnipeg Transit is limited to providing service to and from places within city limits" is quite the cop-out, and dare I say it, a crock (see: the proposed B summer service to Birds Hill - whose limits is it in, again?).

The safety and construction costs do make sense, though an alternative would be to just pull in to the nearest major terminal/landmark. So for example say you're coming up north towards Wilkes, go right in and do a quick loop around Couture/McKellar or continue on to Dale towards Roblin, then head back out onto the Perimeter and then a right onto Portage and observe just the Unicity stops, then go back out, and then a little later on go in through Pipeline towards Garden City, observe Garden City Centre, then back out via McPhillips, so on so forth. Unfortunately, that would mean that pretty much the whole northwest corner is effectively a dead zone, and the southwest corner too aside from Oak Bluff. Realistically, the only locations that would work with that sort of an idea would be:

• Ridgewood West/Park West shops
• Unicity
• Amber Trails/Garden City Centre (large gap between these and Unicity...)
• Riverbend
• Glenway Loop
• Kil-Cona Park
• Redonda Loop or South Transcona (maybe)
• Tinkertown
• Bonavista/Sage Creek
• Aldgate Rd (could just go in through St. Mary's/Anne's, turn on Aldgate, and out the other end)
• Richmond West/Lakes
• Prairie Pointe
• Oak Bluff

aaaand that's about it. The inner circuit idea would definitely be a better one as far as practicality and I'm glad that they've preserved it, even going as far as leaving today's 75/WTMP "M" unchanged, though I would much rather see 75/M get extended to use all of Bishop Grandin and all of Lagimodiere (and squeak Q out a bit further to Bishop) so it at least offers that U of M and/or Kildonan Place opportunity to those in Island Lakes and Sage Creek that come out to Bishop through their feeders.

Still no elaboration on how exactly they're going to make this Jubilee expansion work, which they apparently want to do as part of this SWRT3 proposal across the Red to St. Vital Centre. I think a bigger priority as far as legalizing crossing the CN line would be a Beaumont connection to Taylor. That one's the more frustrating of the two since you have a considerable distance either way (go out to Pembina and then back in either on foot or on wheels, or go all the way out to Waverley then back in through Hurst). Jubilee used to be a major inconvenience but ever since SWRT2, it's a lot more manageable. Even on the east side of Pembina, you can take a shortcut up the hill by the waterworks shack and you're golden.

Overall though, all this for...diamond lanes, mostly? I dunno. Certainly seems like there's a lot to be desired yet (especially when it pertains to areas like the Brewery District and the St. James Industrial area). It's certainly a solid concept as far as the 80% of the non-rapid bits of it go, but there seems to be some degree of BRT creep at play with the "rapid" bits. Especially with the way the economy is right now, fully separated and dedicated transitways would be a great job generator to get jobs in the hands of the people who through no fault of their own are in need of one. I also have to wonder how challenging this would be to run operationally as far as actually spitting a schedule out, even if they really want to tell people "don't worry about it!". People are certainly going to be worrying about it if it's -25 C outdoors.

I suspect it'll probably pass through IRPW mostly unscathed, though EPC and especially Council at large will be the wildcards.

[MMP15]

So... IRPW laid over the TMP until their next meeting. Many of the councillors lacked a fundamental understanding of what was happening with this, and were focused on very very narrow issues (some of which were actually solved in the TMP, but they obviously didn't read/comprehend it). Councillors also focused on RT vs the entire network as a whole. They cited not enough time to read the report, because it was only released for days ago... the draft network and concepts have been out for many many months. All in all just another unnecessary disappointing "made in Winnipeg" delay.

[jhood135]

2 hours ago, MMP15 said:

So... IRPW laid over the TMP until their next meeting. Many of the councillors lacked a fundamental understanding of what was happening with this, and were focused on very very narrow issues (some of which were actually solved in the TMP, but they obviously didn't read/comprehend it). Councillors also focused on RT vs the entire network as a whole. They cited not enough time to read the report, because it was only released for days ago... the draft network and concepts have been out for many many months. All in all just another unnecessary disappointing "made in Winnipeg" delay.

This was an incredibly frustrating meeting to watch. Councillors complaining about how transit should be focused on improving service within the existing budget and prioritizing electric buses, and how there should be cross-communication and teamwork with the Transportation Master Plan...which anyone who even quickly glimpsed at any five pages of the TMP will be able to very easily tell you is the entire purpose of the thing. Then there was a comment from another Councillor about how it's essential to improve transit for users in St. Vital looking to get to the U of M. They then learned in the meeting a couple hours later that they're proposing a transit bridge to fix this issue, and had very little to say as they realized. There was also a request for a very specific timeline on the rollout of On-Demand Services in new developments as Councillors are worried about delivering on promises for the upcoming election.

This documentation isn't brand new. Master Plan consultation started in the beginning of 2019, and the first network was presented a year and a half ago. It's changed since then, sure, but the concepts are exactly the same. Councillors have seen the drafts and have been informed in several committee meetings and asked dozens of questions. It wasn't hidden from them before Monday. The only real new thing in the last four days are the numbers - which Transit pointed out are currently estimates, and more work is needed on the actual designs before Class 3 estimates can be made.

So Councillors complain about how there have been so many master plans in the past, and how all of them took so long to make happen, and how the promise to build all rapid transit by 2030 is now impossible. In the same paragraph, to combat the issue of slow-moving progress at City Hall, it's suggested that there should be up to a 180 day extension on voting for this.

It was hard to watch the entire meeting. I felt like banging my head against a wall.

[MMP15]

1 minute ago, jhood135 said:

This was an incredibly frustrating meeting to watch. Councillors complaining about how transit should be focused on improving service within the existing budget and prioritizing electric buses, and how there should be cross-communication and teamwork with the Transportation Master Plan...which anyone who even quickly glimpsed at any five pages of the TMP will be able to very easily tell you is the entire purpose of the thing. Then there was a comment from another Councillor about how it's essential to improve transit for users in St. Vital looking to get to the U of M. They then learned in the meeting a couple hours later that they're proposing a transit bridge to fix this issue, and had very little to say as they realized. There was also a request for a very specific timeline on the rollout of On-Demand Services in new developments as Councillors are worried about delivering on promises for the upcoming election.

This documentation isn't brand new. Master Plan consultation started in the beginning of 2019, and the first network was presented a year and a half ago. It's changed since then, sure, but the concepts are exactly the same. Councillors have seen the drafts and have been informed in several committee meetings and asked dozens of questions. It wasn't hidden from them before Monday. The only real new thing in the last four days are the numbers - which Transit pointed out are currently estimates, and more work is needed on the actual designs before Class 3 estimates can be made.

So Councillors complain about how there have been so many master plans in the past, and how all of them took so long to make happen, and how the promise to build all rapid transit by 2030 is now impossible. In the same paragraph, to combat the issue of slow-moving progress at City Hall, it's suggested that there should be up to a 180 day extension on voting for this.

It was hard to watch the entire meeting. I felt like banging my head against a wall.

Agreed. If you’re reading this I strongly suggest contacting your councillor directly, especially if they are on the IPRW committee. The vote was 4-0 unanimous to extend this and many other major issues - with NO directive in the motions to justify extensions! (Coun. Shama wants on demand service... but didn’t create a motion for it.)

As luck would have it, my councillor is Chambers, so he’ll definitely be getting an earful from me in the coming week. Not just to bitch, but to step him through from the prospective of a citizen what these changes mean and how delaying passing this negatively impacts constituents. Showing them that people are actually watching and do care is the best hope we have to make a difference. 

[jhood135]

1 hour ago, MMP15 said:

Agreed. If you’re reading this I strongly suggest contacting your councillor directly, especially if they are on the IPRW committee. The vote was 4-0 unanimous to extend this and many other major issues - with NO directive in the motions to justify extensions! (Coun. Shama wants on demand service... but didn’t create a motion for it.)

As luck would have it, my councillor is Chambers, so he’ll definitely be getting an earful from me in the coming week. Not just to bitch, but to step him through from the prospective of a citizen what these changes mean and how delaying passing this negatively impacts constituents. Showing them that people are actually watching and do care is the best hope we have to make a difference. 

Unfortunately, my Councillor is not on the committee, and didn’t speak today. I have a good relationship with their office, though, and am working with them on a couple community-specific transit projects, so I will be sure to contact them when it goes to Council.

Councillors not reading reports that go to their committees is an ongoing problem. I am quite often given 100+ page documents at work in the evening and am expected to have them read and ready to discuss the next morning. And I typically work 12-14hr days Mon-Fri. If I were to come back and say I didn’t read it and ask for a one-month extension, I would likely lose my job. Students don’t get off when they don’t do their homework. It shouldn’t be acceptable for elected officials either. Even Mayor Bowman, or at least his staff, read the TMP as it’s been all over the Mayor Bowman social media all week. I wonder if they should extend the deadline for Items to one week before the meeting instead of four days...or make it so they can’t lay over reports because nobody read it!

[LilZebra]

Never underestimate the power influence of the road/highway lobbyists.  A Billion dollars is at stake here. Don't you think they'd rather spend that huge wad of cash on more road projects?

[ConnorsCompShow]

Wow, it couldn't even make it out of IRPW, at least not yet. 

I also noticed that they finally attached an Eastern corridor update to the agenda, and pretty much everything about it seems to be a complete 180 from what happened with SWRT1 & 2. They say no to the north St. Boniface alignment next to the CN line because of a "lack of destinations" and that they didn't want to figure out permissions for an underpass "with the railway companies east of the Seine River" (read: CP Rail). Lack of destinations is definitely an unfortunate truth (I can think of one: winning Kinsmen Jackpot Bingo), though they even admit that the Provencher alignment proposal was not going to be unanimously popular. I ultimately see that excuse as a bit of a farce though. Get off on a theoretical Shaw Park Station, then go for a walk on the Esplanade Riel if you actually wanted to do something in St. Boniface proper.

They say no to using Thomas Ave or the bits south of it because people would have to walk an extra 200m to Value Village thus it'd have "fewer customers from the local neighbourhood", and that they'd have to talk to Morguard to hand some land over (they own a patch beside Petland that has nothing on it) at the east end of segment 2. The people concerned with walking in that stretch would be better off with route 45 anyways, and even then that's a very small slice of inconvenience in comparison. They also say that redevelopment potential is limited, but aren't you guys in need of a replacement North Garage there?? More on that below. This would absolutely be a dream come true, and really, a problem solved for any potential western Transcona Trail extension beyond Peguis to allow for an AT component to ERT, which they were really wanting to do to Panet generally along that way and ultimately under the Lagimodiere CN overpass even without an ERT impetus, but that is still yet to happen.

Then they say no to hugging CEMR to Transcona Blvd under the assumption that the WTMP would provide a Primary line and 2 feeders in and around Park City Commons, despite saying on the first page that "it did not consider a full realignment of the transit network city-wide" (WTMP). If they officially okayed buses can go 70 or even 80 on Regent through to Plessis, this I'd be fine with, because 42/46/48 operators already do this anyway. That, and trying to figure out Transcona Blvd, CEMR, ERT, and then Edward Schreyer whenever it gets built would be believably quite painful. I can't see them at-grading Edward Schreyer and CEMR despite how low volume CEMR is, especially if they want to hook it in to Chief Peguis Trail. But, you know, that stupid flyover to continue to Bishop Grandin got built, so that could happen yet. That there's a project to investigate for embezzlement alongside the police HQ.

Further, the North Garage replacement that they were desperately wanting to stick in as part of ERT is mentioned a grand total of once in this update in the outline of what the Eastern corridor scope was. I get that this document pertains specifically to alignment but their selections leave very little, if any room to set up a replacement for NG.

They seem to be giving way too much focus towards East Kildonan to put it plainly, and for Transcona, I'd say it's a betrayal that they want to keep segment two on Nairn/Regent (before Lagimodiere), which is the second biggest source of problems with today's service besides the Louise. The needs of East K would almost certainly be better served by any potential Northeast corridor between Raleigh/Gateway, which also gives you a bonus opportunity of having it attached to an Eastern one or even a Southeast one.

Hugging CN and CEMR (even if just to Regent) means that they could axe THREE mostly overlapping express routes (42, 46, 48) in one go. They also allege that the offset alignment for segment 2 between Grey and Peguis would lead to competition for resources between any Nairn/Regent local service (r47) and ERT/RED (or "ROSE", come on) and that service quality would be diluted on both as a result. Sorry, but that didn't really seem to be the case with route 60 and 160/162/170, and it certainly still isn't the case with route 60 and BLUE, especially now that the former was reverted to its previous configuration of going to the U of M through Chancellor Matheson with the elimination of route 162/170.

That also leads to another point I want to make, probably the biggest loss was that a Super BLUE wasn't introduced to replace route 137 and 161 for those who didn't care for anything past/before Jubilee Overpass and wished to go 80 kmh all the time (sans station bypasses) after/before that. If they ever get RED off the ground, I would certainly want a Super RED to skip between the downtown core and Peguis.

[Isaac Williams]

13 hours ago, ConnorsCompShow said:

That also leads to another point I want to make, probably the biggest loss was that a Super BLUE wasn't introduced to replace route 137 and 161 for those who didn't care for anything past/before Jubilee Overpass and wished to go 80 kmh all the time (sans station bypasses) after/before that. If they ever get RED off the ground, I would certainly want a Super RED to skip between the downtown core and Peguis.

I agree with the notion that a super express BLUE should've been created. After all, before RT, the 37 skipped everything between Broadway and Plaza, except Osborne, and the 61 skipped everything between Osborne and Dysart. Having a route that skips every SWT station except Osborne would be no different.

[MMP15]

2 hours ago, Isaac Williams said:

I agree with the notion that a super express BLUE should've been created. After all, before RT, the 37 skipped everything between Broadway and Plaza, except Osborne, and the 61 skipped everything between Osborne and Dysart. Having a route that skips every SWT station except Osborne would be no different.

I am a huge fan of this idea, but it kind of goes contrary to the direction that the TMP is going, as all express busses except the 36/236 (probably due to cost sharing with the u of m) will cease to exist.

I also find it funny that some people (not you) think they want LRT, and then don’t realize that throws super express out the window too. 

[LilZebra]

4 hours ago, MMP15 said:

I am a huge fan of this idea, but it kind of goes contrary to the direction that the TMP is going, as all express busses except the 36/236 (probably due to cost sharing with the u of m) will cease to exist.

I also find it funny that some people (not you) think they want LRT, and then don’t realize that throws super express out the window too. 

When a prior transit rider group came up with the SuperExpress concept in the late 90s and presented it to  Winnipeg Transit, the SuperExpress was meant as a "bridge" to LRT, similar to the B99 was to the Canada Line SkyTrain in Vancouver.

I told Bill Menzies (former WT Planner) at our group  that SuperExpress could be done for 10 years while Winnipeg saves up for and increases population for LRT or BRT.

Given the popularity of the SuperExpress, I support an Express BLUE route.

[car4041]

On 3/14/2021 at 11:48 AM, MMP15 said:

I also find it funny that some people (not you) think they want LRT, and then don’t realize that throws super express out the window too. 

Some people *do* want LRT, but if we're stuck with a bus, then adding some super express service is a nice way to make it a bit more pleasant.

[SirAndrew710]

IRPW is meeting on Friday, and the first item on the agenda will be TMP. Here’s hoping that goes better than last time.

[MMP15]

On 3/8/2021 at 10:31 PM, ConnorsCompShow said:

Quite interesting how only now they're entertaining taking the new route 662 "95" past the current Shaftesbury loop to Outlet Collection and just accepting that train delays will be a fact of life for it. You could probably staple that onto the current 95 without too much trouble so long as you axe the entire Polo Park zig-zagging too. They really should have done that after making route 74 its own route, and they absolutely should have gone after it first in the "service rationalization" round they did.

I was also reading up on one of the Q&A documents summarizing questions asked during the Zoom sessions (https://winnipegtransit.com/assets/2773/WTMP_Zoom_Webinar_Q_A_report_Oct.24_28_FINAL.pdf) and I couldn't help but notice that someone had asked a question about running a Perimeter "super express" feeder. Apparently that thought has crossed their minds too (along with mine), but "Winnipeg Transit is limited to providing service to and from places within city limits" is quite the cop-out, and dare I say it, a crock (see: the proposed B summer service to Birds Hill - whose limits is it in, again?).

The safety and construction costs do make sense, though an alternative would be to just pull in to the nearest major terminal/landmark. So for example say you're coming up north towards Wilkes, go right in and do a quick loop around Couture/McKellar or continue on to Dale towards Roblin, then head back out onto the Perimeter and then a right onto Portage and observe just the Unicity stops, then go back out, and then a little later on go in through Pipeline towards Garden City, observe Garden City Centre, then back out via McPhillips, so on so forth. Unfortunately, that would mean that pretty much the whole northwest corner is effectively a dead zone, and the southwest corner too aside from Oak Bluff. Realistically, the only locations that would work with that sort of an idea would be:

• Ridgewood West/Park West shops
• Unicity
• Amber Trails/Garden City Centre (large gap between these and Unicity...)
• Riverbend
• Glenway Loop
• Kil-Cona Park
• Redonda Loop or South Transcona (maybe)
• Tinkertown
• Bonavista/Sage Creek
• Aldgate Rd (could just go in through St. Mary's/Anne's, turn on Aldgate, and out the other end)
• Richmond West/Lakes
• Prairie Pointe
• Oak Bluff

aaaand that's about it. The inner circuit idea would definitely be a better one as far as practicality and I'm glad that they've preserved it, even going as far as leaving today's 75/WTMP "M" unchanged, though I would much rather see 75/M get extended to use all of Bishop Grandin and all of Lagimodiere (and squeak Q out a bit further to Bishop) so it at least offers that U of M and/or Kildonan Place opportunity to those in Island Lakes and Sage Creek that come out to Bishop through their feeders.

Still no elaboration on how exactly they're going to make this Jubilee expansion work, which they apparently want to do as part of this SWRT3 proposal across the Red to St. Vital Centre. I think a bigger priority as far as legalizing crossing the CN line would be a Beaumont connection to Taylor. That one's the more frustrating of the two since you have a considerable distance either way (go out to Pembina and then back in either on foot or on wheels, or go all the way out to Waverley then back in through Hurst). Jubilee used to be a major inconvenience but ever since SWRT2, it's a lot more manageable. Even on the east side of Pembina, you can take a shortcut up the hill by the waterworks shack and you're golden.

Overall though, all this for...diamond lanes, mostly? I dunno. Certainly seems like there's a lot to be desired yet (especially when it pertains to areas like the Brewery District and the St. James Industrial area). It's certainly a solid concept as far as the 80% of the non-rapid bits of it go, but there seems to be some degree of BRT creep at play with the "rapid" bits. Especially with the way the economy is right now, fully separated and dedicated transitways would be a great job generator to get jobs in the hands of the people who through no fault of their own are in need of one. I also have to wonder how challenging this would be to run operationally as far as actually spitting a schedule out, even if they really want to tell people "don't worry about it!". People are certainly going to be worrying about it if it's -25 C outdoors.

I suspect it'll probably pass through IRPW mostly unscathed, though EPC and especially Council at large will be the wildcards.

In the long term plan Q is extended to Sage Creek.

[MMP15]

Andddd one of the councillors punted the voting portion IRPW meeting until Tuesday... here we go again! (This in an of itself is actually pretty reasonable, but it kinda fits in with the cities delay, delay, delay, delay, delay)

[MMP15]

The Transit Master Plan was passed by IRPW yesterday and EPC today. The next step is for it to pass council on April 29th.

After that it's pretty vague when public consultation will occur for area specific implementation of the new network, and which areas will be changed first (if not the entire city all at once as Edmonton is currently in the process of doing). The only timeframe given right now is implementation in the next "2-5 years".

Hopefully once the TMP passes council, the project page on Transit's website will by updated in May to identify next steps.

[jhood135]

I’m thrilled it’s passing, but am concerned about some councillors’ comments. I appreciate the concerns about the plan not being fully fledged out - but lots of these projects won’t be built for at least a decade, so any work that’s done on them upfront in regards to costing etc. will be irrelevant when we go to build it in 10 years. All these projects need to be designed in detail before anything happens, and of course any new infrastructure or route network has to go back to council for approval at the time. Unless council is willing to throw all the money at transit at once and have all infrastructure be completed in 10 years, but I don’t see that happening with the current council given their concerns regarding debt.

I am also very happy Councillor Allard’s amendment to only fund the garage and electric buses and push everything else to next year’s gas tax revenue got rejected. They talked about how important accessibility is in their decision to pass this or not, and then suggest delaying the two projects that are designed to improve accessibility (wheelchair securements and priority infrastructure). Same thing with the safety project (radios). It was a purely political move to try and get 10 more ZEB’s on the road, which quite truthfully, would not affect service positively in any way or improve any individual rider’s experience on transit whatsoever. It would just look good for the city. I’m glad all six ICIP projects were passed as proposed.

I think they have the votes in council to pass this officially, but time will tell...

[Viafreak]

19 hours ago, MMP15 said:

After that it's pretty vague when public consultation will occur for area specific implementation of the new network, and which areas will be changed first (if not the entire city all at once as Edmonton is currently in the process of doing). The only timeframe given right now is implementation in the next "2-5 years".

The city has implemented most of the changes for the Southwest corner of the city (stops starting with 6) aligned with the TMP due to the SWBRT corridor phase II. The only significant change I see in the southwest corner of the city is that the 691 will be discontinued. I don't know for sure but my guess is that it isn't well utilized thanks to the 642 and 650 which also connect Seel Station and Whyte Ridge.

[Isaac Williams]

2 hours ago, Viafreak said:

The city has implemented most of the changes for the Southwest corner of the city (stops starting with 6) aligned with the TMP due to the SWBRT corridor phase II. The only significant change I see in the southwest corner of the city is that the 691 will be discontinued. I don't know for sure but my guess is that it isn't well utilized thanks to the 642 and 650 which also connect Seel Station and Whyte Ridge.

The 642 doesn't go to Whyte Ridge, and the 691 is faster than the 650 to get to or from Whyte Ridge. The biggest problem with the 691 I think is that it heavily duplicates the 649. The only differences between the 649 and the 691 is that the 691 goes to Seel Station instead of Windermere Terminal, and the 691 a unidirectional rush-hour route. I think the 691 would be a bit better if it used Clarence instead of Chevrier, like the 81/181 did. That being said, if I lived in Whyte Ridge, I personally would prefer to use the 691 instead of the 649 (and 650) when possible.

[SirAndrew710]

On 4/21/2021 at 5:56 PM, MMP15 said:

After that it's pretty vague […] which areas will be changed first (if not the entire city all at once as Edmonton is currently in the process of doing). The only timeframe given right now is implementation in the next "2-5 years".

The changes to the southwest will be quite minor, so that might be a good place to start. Zone 2 might also be a good place to change early, as few routes currently serve that area and the replacements will largely parallel current routes (not to mention I that I live in Silver Heights and would personally benefit from a westward extension of the BLUE).

8 hours ago, Viafreak said:

The only significant change I see in the southwest corner of the city is that the 691 will be discontinued.

And yet its sister route (the 690) will remain.

[MMP15]

9 hours ago, Viafreak said:

The city has implemented most of the changes for the Southwest corner of the city (stops starting with 6) aligned with the TMP due to the SWBRT corridor phase II. The only significant change I see in the southwest corner of the city is that the 691 will be discontinued. I don't know for sure but my guess is that it isn't well utilized thanks to the 642 and 650 which also connect Seel Station and Whyte Ridge.

The SW corner of the city is aligned with the TMP, however almost all routes have a (very positive!) short term change that will be made, in addition to discontinuing the 691 (let's start with that... and then go numerically). It is also worth noting that none of these plans are concrete and all are subject to change.

• As Issac said above, The 691 and 649 are largely redundant. By eliminating the 691, greater service frequency can be offered on the 649. This will have the side benefit of preventing "bus bunching" bulit into the schedule. (Instead of 1 route being every 20 minutes and the other being every 10 minutes, the combined route can now by every 6 minutes with the same number of busses). This is also why the 649 now terminates at Pembina/Chevrier instead of continuing to Windermere (service on Pembina was redundant with the 47/60 there). Also with the 649 terminating at Pembina/Chevrier, it will be easy to interline the 649 with the 690 (as the 691 currently does).
• With the 47 discontinued, Route I (Henderson - Ft Rouge Station) will be the closest thing to replace it. (No more downtown - U of M service on University Crescent.)

 

• Route 635 absorbed by route J.
• The new route 636 will help with fill in a connectivity gap from the Grant Park neighbourhood and Grant Park High School (high bus ridership there) to Lindenwoods when BLUE was implemented. The 84/86 offered one seat rides before, however without a significant walk the same trip currently requires 3 busses. It also allows the area to more easily access the Southbound A/D lines instead of having to go up to Osborne Station.
• Route 641 - moved to terminate at Seel Station. This is huge for not needing to pre-plan whether you want to take the 641/642. Now at one stop you can catch whatever comes first.
• Route 649 - as above, now terminates at Pembina/Chevrier.
  • Conceptually, instead of building a new bus loop at the terminal, why wouldn't this new routing use EB Chevrier -> NB SWT -> EB Clarence -> SB Pembina -> WB Chevrier? The infrastructure currently exists to do this.
• Route 650 - extended to Fort Whyte Alive
• Route 662 (the southern one...) - no more jog up to Killarney. This means Baylor will lose service which it traditionally had for years with the 137/162/170/current 662. However this routing is much more efficient to connect with the BLUE line and is cheaper to run more frequently.
• Route 671 - extended to Bridgwater Centre via the west side of Waverley West.
• Route 672 - extended to Bridgwater Centre via the east side of Waverley West.
• Route 677 - now ends at Outlet Mall (no Kenaston rush hour service). This is either a mistake or a pretty significant case of "service rationalization".
• Route 694 - replaced by on demand service.

For anyone who's still keeping track, this means the the 642, 676, 690 and 693 are the only current 600 series not being tweaked. Yes most of these changes are minor, and yes the spine and feeder concept has been implemented, but there are still changes that will occur.

2 hours ago, SirAndrew710 said:

The changes to the southwest will be quite minor, so that might be a good place to start. Zone 2 might also be a good place to change early, as few routes currently serve that area and the replacements will largely parallel current routes (not to mention I that I live in Silver Heights and would personally benefit from a westward extension of the BLUE).

I agree. I think zone 2 will be the easiest to switch over first. (Ideally we would see something like that done by the January/April 2022 service change, but I'm not gonna hold my breath.

Overall if you can't tell, I'm very excited about the plan. For context, I live south of Bishop Grandin between St Mary's and St Anne's in zone 5. Downtown 9-5 commuters are going to have a big adjustment by eliminating the express busses and being forced towards a two seat trip, however once if people can get past that initial shock I believe it truly will create a faster, more reliable, all-day frequent service. People that can see this are really going to have to advocate and be vocal about it, but Winnipegers are especially resistant to change. I also would have loved to see a few examples of specific travel times in the master plan, as they have the potential to be game changing. One big miss though is not planning a park and ride / more bike racks/lockers at St Vital Centre, which will be a busy hub with routes B, E, M and many of the 500 series routes going through there.

What are your thoughts of the plan? Any obvious needed reworks/tweaks pop out at you? What are your thoughts of posts like this? Do you appreciate me pointing out little details like this? Or are these long bulleted posts just an eyesore, as anyone can view the network plan for themselves?