Posted February 22nd, 2013 by Mike Boos
The Region of Waterloo’s Planning and Works agenda has come out for next Tuesday, including proposed 2013 service improvements in Waterloo and the service planning implications of cuts to existing transit service in the 2013 budget.
Public consultations on the service changes will be held at various locations in Waterloo and Kitchener between March 18 and 26.
We are very pleased to see a movement towards a grid system. A trade-off is present here however: it will take longer for customers within the neighbourhoods bordering Bridge Street to reach their bus stop. Once they get to a bus though, it will take much less time for them to reach their destination. We believe this change represents a net gain for GRT users and residents in general. [1] Read the rest of this entry »
In Buses, News, TriTAG | 3 Comments »
Posted November 7th, 2012 by Duncan Clemens
In the upcoming weeks, Grand River Transit will be hosting Public Consultations for the Proposed 2013 Transit Service Improvement Plan. This includes the implementation of an express bus route running from the west end of Waterloo from the Boardwalk to the Northeast Corner of Waterloo at RIM Park via University Ave. Also being discussed will be route adjustments in Kitchener and Waterloo set to be implemented in September 2013. Maps will also be provided so you will be able to draw your preferred routes along the corridor.
Consultations will be held at the following dates and locations:
Thursday, November 15
4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Kitchener Waterloo Bilingual School
Gymnasium
600 Erb St. W., Waterloo
Tuesday, November 20
12 p.m. to 4 p.m.
University of Waterloo
William G. Davis Computer Research Centre
Room 1301
200 University Ave. W., Waterloo
Wednesday, November 21
4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Waterloo Mennonite Brethren Church
Chapel
245 Lexington Rd., Waterloo
Thursday, November 22
12 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Wilfrid Laurier University
Fred Nichols Campus Centre
Concourse
75 University Ave. W., Waterloo
You may also view these events on TriTAG’s Public Events Calendar and copy them to your own calendar.
You can preview the service changes beginning on page 117 of this Planning and Works Agenda [PDF]
[UPDATE] More information about the consultations can be found here on the GRT Site
In Buses, News, Transit | 6 Comments »
Posted September 24th, 2012 by Mike Boos
I live on Queen Street, about a 10 minute walk from Charles Street terminal. It’s a 3 minute bus ride though, and the stop outside my building is served by four different routes coming in and out of the terminal. In theory, based on the number of buses passing through each hour, you would expect an average wait of 3.5 minutes (up to 7 minutes) making the bus competitive with walking if I’m in a hurry or the weather is poor.
However, this is not the case. You can often see two or three buses coming one after another down Queen, which means there are up to 16 minutes of no scheduled service at times. We should expect 6.5 minutes of delay based on the number of buses, making taking the bus marginally faster on average. But because of the variations in bus headways, it takes almost twice as long as walking at worst. I can’t simply step out my door and know whether walking or taking the bus at any given time would be faster. Clearly, the bus schedule is not very optimal for wait times near my home. If the departure times between buses travelling to Charles Street were equally spaced, rather than all arriving at once, the bus network could be made more efficient and predictable, for the same amount of service and expense. Read the rest of this entry »
In Buses, Transit | 4 Comments »
Posted August 24th, 2012 by Duncan Clemens
With the upcoming Kitchener-Waterloo by-election, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty has pledged to construct an 18km grade separated 4-lane freeway. This 18km roadway will be placed along a new 100m wide right-of-way to the north of the existing highway, include a new crossing of the Grand River and include 6 interchanges. Of particular interest is the modification of the existing Wellington Street interchange with the Conestoga Parkway into a 4-level interchange with high-speed direct flyover ramps set to be a quarter of the cost of this project.
Image of the planned Highway 7 route taken from a presentation made to Regional council in 2011
However, is the construction of a highway at an unknown cost (>400 Million according this presentation) best way to meet travel needs on this corridor? TriTAG’s position is that before a new highway corridor is constructed between Kitchener and Guelph, less invasive approaches to this issue involving transit need to be investigated.
Read the rest of this entry »
In Intercity Transit, News, Other Cities, TriTAG | 2 Comments »
Posted June 18th, 2012 by Michael Druker
It’s Committee week at the Region, which means lots is happening. But first, two other things. Our almost-monthly pub night is tomorrow evening, and you should join us!
Today, the Ontario Coroner’s Office has released its Cycling Deaths Review (HTML / PDF). I have not read through it yet, but it is supposed to claim that all the cycling deaths it looked at were preventable. It also recommends a mandatory helmet law for everyone, which is deeply problematic if the goal is making cycling a safer and larger part of the transportation system. We’ll have more on this later.
Tomorrow is Committee day for the Region of Waterloo. Agendas are always posted here at around 4pm on the preceding Friday. Typically, most issues and reports go to initially to the appropriate Committee, where motions are made, to be finalized at the full Council meeting on Wednesday of the following week. (See Council agendas.) As the standing committees are currently composed of all the councillors, the decisions are effectively made at the committee level, with rare exceptions. Read the rest of this entry »
In Cycling, Light Rail, News, Transit, Walking | No Comments »
Posted June 1st, 2012 by Michael Druker
A number of things are happening in the next two weeks, which you shouldn’t miss!
Next week is the Commuter Challenge, aimed at getting people to rethink their commutes. Check that link for details on all the constituent events. On Monday, June 4, is the launch event, which is also an open house and consultation for both the King/Victoria transit hub walking/cycling access plan and for the Region’s active transportation master plan. If that weren’t enough, there will be a presentation by Hans Moor on developing a cycling culture, including a discussion of the successful Dutch approach. The event is from 4:30pm to 8:00pm at the UW School of Pharmacy, with the presentation at 6pm. (It is not entirely clear whether the public consultation / open house continues through the presentation.) You should attend. More information is available from the Region and from Sustainable Waterloo; people are encouraged to register.
The following week is the final one of three week-long public forums on the Central Transit Corridor development strategy. The topic for the week is how the LRT can strengthen existing aspects of the community. It will include two open houses, one in Cambridge and one in Kitchener. The first open house will be followed by a keynote talk by Sue Zielinski; if it’s anything like the previous two, it is well worth attending. Details are in this document; you can also check the project website as well as the storefront office by Kitchener City hall. There is a Facebook event for the talk that can help you spread the word.
In Cycling, News, Transit, TriTAG, Walking | No Comments »
Posted May 18th, 2012 by Mark Jackson-Brown
Ottawa St, from King St to Mill St in central Kitchener, currently a two lane road flanked by driveways, single family homes, and some industry, is about to get a whole lot busier.
On the books for this 1 km stretch, according to the Region of Waterloo, are plans to:
- Widen the road from 2 lanes to 4 lanes. (link)
- Install dedicated biking infrastructure. (link and map)
- Run the northbound leg of the LRT line. (link)
In total, 1 LRT lane, 4 car lanes, and 2 bike lanes (if not better, segregated biking infrastructure).
That’s an awful lot to fit in the 20 metre right-of-way (pg 7). Comparing to road layouts planned for other sections of the LRT, it is apparent that this is a large amount to fit in the 30 metres between the front doors of the houses lining this stretch.
It is admirable to intend Ottawa St to serve all of these purposes, and there is no doubt that it is ripe for a rebuild and redesign, but there needs to be a holistic review of what we want to do with the corridor, and what we need to do with it, before we start digging.
If we blindly move forward with current plans for all of the road uses, it is likely that there will be great impact at great cost to the homes on Ottawa. At best, many homes will lose the majority of their lawns, and at worst, an entire side of the street will be expropriated, just as is happening on Weber St. Either way, this would be unnecessarily disruptive to an otherwise stable neighbourhood.
What can be done to mitigate this? Something needs to move, and that should be the LRT which would be rerouted to Borden Ave.
Read the rest of this entry »
In Buses, Cycling, Light Rail, News, Transit | 1 Comment »
Posted March 25th, 2012 by Michael Druker
This weekend was the official launch of the Central Transit Corridor Community Building Strategy (CBS). (The launch was webcast, as other Regional proceedings now are, and should be soon available in the archive.) This Tuesday the 27th, there will be a CBS open house from 3 to 6pm at Knox Presbyterian Church (at Erb & Caroline in Waterloo); there will be a presentation from 5:30 to 6:15 and a workshop from 6:15 to 8:15pm. (Details from here.) We encourage everyone to attend the presentation and workshop.
Though the name of the project is daunting, the idea is both simple and rather important. The Rapid Transit / LRT project is designed to function as a regional transit spine and to attract and handle a large amount of development as urban infill along Waterloo Region’s central corridor instead of as sprawl. The CBS will set out the vision for land-use planning and street networks around stations.
LRT is already attracting development near station areas, but with the zoning currently in place and without a coherent strategy for LRT corridor development, those buildings may not be creating transit-oriented and human-scale places. The “Northfield Station” development is a likely example of a missed opportunity. It isn’t a given that LRT changes its station areas much by itself. For example, outside of Calgary’s downtown, its LRT appears to have primarily influenced the land-use around its stations through the copious provision of parking.
So that the line can create dense, urban, transit-oriented places along the line, the zoning needs to change so that it allows for density, so that it does not require off-street parking, and so it allows and encourages a built form that makes for pedestrian-oriented neighbourhoods. The attraction of a new light rail line is going to result in much development interest of various kinds along the entire line. The CBS should be a guiding mechanism to turn that interest into city-building along the LRT line.
It’s important stuff, and crucial to the Region’s reurbanization and growth management priorities. Attend the Tuesday workshop if you can, and if not, send your comments online or stop by the storefront the project will be opening soon in downtown Kitchener.
In Light Rail, News | 1 Comment »
Posted March 21st, 2012 by Duncan Clemens
One of the main goals of rapid transit is to decentralize the bus network from a system of hub-and-spoke routes to a system of cross-corridor bus routes which connect to rapid transit stations. However, the current planned LRT station locations in Waterloo between Uptown and Northfield are not optimally placed to achieve this goal.
Currently, stations in the University area are planned at Seagram Drive and mid-block between University Avenue and Columbia Street:
Current station locations at Seagram and UW Davis Centre with 600m walking radius
The issue with the above setup is that it would divert cross-corridor routes off their corridors and into a terminal station in front of UW Davis Centre. Diverting trips from these corridors would result in longer cross-town travel times, and would reduce the amount of mixed-use development potential at the cross-corridors. Anyone who has travelled on Routes 7 and 8 through Charles Street Terminal knows the frustrating experience that even a minor route diversion can have on your overall travel time. Time wasted sitting at a terminal is time spent thinking about how much quicker it is to drive or even walk.
As such, TriTAG supports altering the University station locations to the following:
Modified station locations at University Ave and Columbia Street with 600m walking radius
Placing a station at the street provides many benefits over a station mid-block: Read the rest of this entry »
In Buses, Intercity Transit, Light Rail, News, Transit, TriTAG, Walking | 8 Comments »
Posted March 15th, 2012 by Michael Druker
Amidst the talk of GO trains (or the lack thereof) between Toronto and Waterloo Region, GO Transit has quietly and steadily been increasing service on its Waterloo-Mississauga Route 25. Starting March 31, when university-related service is cut back, it is actually adding an extra regular weekday run in both directions. (At the same time, it is cutting back on some Friday express runs and extending others to run on Thursdays as well.) Details are available at GO Transit’s schedule page, as well as on Google Maps when you ask for transit directions.
That will bring us to pretty much all-day hourly scheduled bus service between Kitchener and Mississauga on weekdays and Saturdays. It’s less than hourly in the early morning, evening, and Sundays, but still pretty impressive for a service that doesn’t seem to get much media attention. Yet, GO is increasing the service likely because there is high demand for it.
Why would you want to go to Mississauga, apart from the city itself or the Square One mall? At the Square One terminal, there are regular buses to Toronto-Union station (Route 21), to York University (Routes 45, 46, 47), and mostly commuter runs to Yorkdale and North York (Route 19).
In addition, with a Presto card you can easily ride both GO buses and MiWay local buses without buying tickets (and with a transfer discount). MiWay routes 26, 3, and 20 will take you from Square One to Islington station on the TTC Bloor-Danforth subway line. Routes 107 (weekday only rapid) and 7 both go to Pearson Airport — the 7 goes directly to Terminal 1 and the 107 stops at the Viscount LINK train station. Apart from being dropped off and picked up at the airport, GO + MiWay is by far the cheapest way of getting to Pearson from Waterloo Region.
In Intercity Transit, News | 5 Comments »
