Waterloo Region’s second iXpress route, along Fischer-Hallman Road, will begin service in September. It will start at 30 minute headways Monday through Sunday, and have 15 minute headways during peaks. We hear that the route branding will be something like “Route 201 iXpress”, though it would be more useful if it were simply iXpress Fischer-Hallman or iXpress [colour].
The stop locations have not been publicized, however it turns out that they appear in a Request for Proposals for transit shelters for the route, from several months back. The full proposal details (PDF) include a list of stations and drawings of exact shelter locations (Appendix 2).
View Fischer-Hallman Express in a larger map
From south to north, the stations are: Forest Glen Plaza, Block Line / Laurentian, Block Line / Westmount, Westmount (on Fischer-Hallman), Activa, Ottawa, McGarry, Highland, Victoria, Stoke / Hazelglen, University, Thorndale, Erb, Keats Way, Columbia, Columbia / Beechlawn, Columbia / Hagey, Columbia / Phillip, University / Phillip (one way), Hazel / University (one way). (Note: the list in the PDF has a mysterious “University / Conestoga College” stop, which all signs point to actually being Hazel / University.)
The list really is pretty boring – the route stops mostly at major intersections, stays on Fischer-Hallman instead of entering the Highland Hills terminal, and keeps a stop distance around the 600-1000m range. It doesn’t stop at Columbia and Westmount, instead stopping at Beechlawn just west of it. That location allows for better access from both sides of Columbia Street but it requires a terrible pedestrian crossing (link to Street View), which is going to be dangerous without at least a pedestrian island.
The main thing the line is missing is an anchor at the south end to help make it a line with demand in both directions all day. Currently the route will mostly serve to connect residential lands in the south with employment and the universities in the north. But it’s a long and quick route on a major corridor, so there will likely be many other kinds of trips as well.
This route actually looks ideal for me, living near fisher-hallman/bleams and working at Agfa.
I thought that maybe this was a preliminary list that would be narrowed down.
I was hoping it would be more in line with iXpress stop frequency.
Cory – I didn’t mention it in this post, but keep in mind that this route is replacing Route 12 on a large stretch of Fischer-Hallman (and Route 12 is moving to Westmount). Unlike the iXpress, this would be the only route on the corridor and it really can’t leapfrog. Its proposed stops allow for connections to routes along the intersecting corridors and for “walking distance” stop spacing.
In some sense one could argue that it’s not “express” so much as doing the reasonable thing on a suburban corridor. Hopefully it will be able to serve as a template for service on other suburban corridors in the region (and elsewhere).
I see it as a good intermediary between local service and broad-stop, full iXpress. It fits very well on this style of arterial (F-H, Columbia, Block Line) and I could see the same working on, say, University west of Weber, Ottawa north of Weber, Lackner Blvd, Franklin Blvd in cambridge, etc.