REALLY STUPID Mass transit changes

hey check this out
on Sundays there is no service on the POPULATED portion of pembina from jubilee to grant after 7PM. YET, the mass transit still runs until midnight. I bet those people freezing in the middle of winter on Pembina are gonna love that eh?



http://winnipegtransit.com/en/timetables/stop?booking=next&schedule_type=sunday&stop_id=10080

http://winnipegtransit.com/en/timetables/stop?booking=next&schedule_type=sunday&stop_id=11032


There is ZERO reason to be operating express buses during that time and NO regular buses. Its freakin retarded beyond belief.

AHEM

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/Popularity-of-route-has-transit-add-back-buses--146716475.html

at least YOU are using the correct name for this stupid corridor.

the "Rapid" the city has put on it is quite ridiculous.

They interviewed a woman this morning who rode it...and she told the interviewer that she MIGHT have saved 5 minutes on her trip this morning.

But...granted...during "rush" hour...the saved time might be more...it still will NEVER be enough to justify building a road for a bunch of buses to run on.

And now they are talking about adding a fuel tax to fund the "expansion"!!!

It took me longer (1 minute) AND I will be missing my transfer downtown quite often once the schedule of my inbound bus goes back to normal.

also... now many of the buses dont go near the Burger King at confusion corner

Deank wrote:also... now many of the buses dont go near the Burger King at confusion corner

I thought you liked Big Macs?

heh.. well they do have the king supreme which is close to the same thing

Deank wrote:It took me longer (1 minute) AND I will be missing my transfer downtown quite often once the schedule of my inbound bus goes back to normal.

also... now many of the buses dont go near the Burger King at confusion corner

But DeanO/CrazyHair...aren't you one of the ones who said "we can't afford an LRT, so this is the best we can do"?

You made your bed, now you have to lie in it.

Well, I've noticed the following positive changes:

Prior to RT, the 62/37 stopped @ Portage Place and Citiplace. Last 37 from downtown was 5:05 PP. Next bus to St. Norbert was 5:39 62. Thirty fricken minutes!!

Now:

Buses stop at Winnipeg Square on Graham both in and outbound. Last 137 is now 5:03, but there are now 162s to St. Norbert at 5:10, 5:18, 5:28, 5:38. That's better. Now if they would just change the 5:18 162 to a 137.....

The problem that I have with the unbelievable whining is this is just the first leg. Winnipeggers really need to get over this incessant whining and bitching about everything.

If Winnipeg was building Portage Avenue today we'd b1tch endlessly over the cost of building 6-8 lanes wide with a median strip for trees and everything. So the nadless mayor would cut it back and now where would we be?

Build the bus transit-way. Make smart decisions about feeder routes. Grow it like a spider-web around the city. Maybe in 50 years the route is changed to LRT.

Stop the bitching!

jimj_wpg wrote:

Deank wrote:It took me longer (1 minute) AND I will be missing my transfer downtown quite often once the schedule of my inbound bus goes back to normal.

also... now many of the buses dont go near the Burger King at confusion corner

But DeanO/CrazyHair...aren't you one of the ones who said "we can't afford an LRT, so this is the best we can do"?

You made your bed, now you have to lie in it.

this aint my bed

my bed would have focused on a mass populated distant area of thw city that was ill served by transit


ie. transcona

not the best served areaof the city

I would have also simply used existing lanes with more transit priority and highercapxity buses.. hell for the 160 million of this first pissant leg we cou
d have masstransitted the entire city

note... we alread have as rapid of transit asits gonna get to the u of m

No sane person would have agreed to spending 2.1 billion dollars for something as dumb as any quick method of saving 10 minutes travel time!

Rhe whole idea made no sense, and there has never been a COST/BENEFIT analysis.

Think of all the $5 million dollar helicopters we could have purchased. That would have been smart because he roads are not that safe with all the holes in them.

AGEsAces wrote:They interviewed a woman this morning who rode it...and she told the interviewer that she MIGHT have saved 5 minutes on her trip this morning.

But...granted...during "rush" hour...the saved time might be more...it still will NEVER be enough to justify building a road for a bunch of buses to run on.

Name one city where rapid transit is that much faster than an empty street during non rush hour times?

The BRT busway (along with EVERY rapid transit system in history) was built SPECIFICALLY for rush hour congestion. Those sitting on Osborne or south Donald everyday as they crawl towards Confusion Corner will be counting the buses they see fly by as they essentially jump to the front of the line on Pembina.

Oh sput...have you traveled as much as your name would imply?

Let's see...Toronto, Montreal, NYC, Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh, LA, shall I go on?
How about more international? Tokyo, Hong Kong, London

Any more?
Moscow, Kiev, Buenos Aires

Ok...that should be enough...

The BIG difference with most RAPID transit systems, is that they are designed to bring people INTO a city...not run them around the city itself.

AND...they were designed 50 years (or more) ago, when other options were not available yet...such as a nice monorail or LRT system at a reasonable cost.

And nobody here is thinking outside the box. Thinking forward instead of thinking 50 years ago.

Look at those cities I've listed...and what do they ALL have in common? Some kind of light rail system feeding the city from outlying areas.

So why not create a downtown "hub" for a nice monorail system...I hear there's some nice property where some cops used to be...or where an old bus station was...
and have a monorail system built right down the center of Portage, Main, and feeder routes from outlying areas (St. Vital, Tuxedo, U of M, Transcona, etc.)

Pick one to start (say Transcona) and see how it runs. It would probably cost about $200-300M to get it up...but it would offer a basis for future expansion...and one nice thing about the monorails...is that they are so easy to add on to...and expand...and the biggest, MOST important thing...is that NOTHING IS ON THE GROUND!!! to hinder traffic flow, or to slow the monorail system...and then you truly have RAPID transit.

AGEsAces wrote:
Let's see...Toronto, Montreal, NYC, Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh, LA, shall I go on?
How about more international? Tokyo, Hong Kong, London

Any more?
Moscow, Kiev, Buenos Aires

Ok...that should be enough...

The BIG difference with most RAPID transit systems, is that they are designed to bring people INTO a city...not run them around the city itself.

Apples and oranges.

Rapid transit applications scale based on the requirement. Winnipeg isn't going to get a bullet train similar to that of Tokyo or Shanghai nor will it get a subway similar to that NYC or Toronto. Why? Because Winnipeg isn't anywhere near the size of ANY of the cities you mentioned.

Additionally. You have to differentiate between exurban transit that brings people INTO a city and transit that moves people around a city.

Calgary's C-Train serves a MUCH different purpose than the GoTrain that runs between Toronto and Hamilton. However even though Toronto has the GoTrain, they still have tons of rapid transit within Toronto proper. Same goes for Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver, Seattle, Chicago etc.

AGEsAces wrote:
AND...they were designed 50 years (or more) ago, when other options were not available yet...such as a nice monorail or LRT system at a reasonable cost.

And nobody here is thinking outside the box. Thinking forward instead of thinking 50 years ago.

Look at those cities I've listed...and what do they ALL have in common? Some kind of light rail system feeding the city from outlying areas.

50 years ago Winnipeg wasn't even at 500,000 people and surrounded by rural communities. The cities you mentioned were already in the millions of people with tons of density and other cities surrounding it. Europe and Asia shouldn't even be a factor in this conversation or comparision since they have population densities MUCH higher than almost ANYWHERE in Canada or the US.

Why not compare cities that have under 1 million people in the CMA and then start comparing their rapid transit plans to ours.

We are not Moscow, Shanghai or London. We never will be and we shouldn't expect similar transit plans.

AGEsAces wrote:So why not create a downtown "hub" for a nice monorail system...I hear there's some nice property where some cops used to be...or where an old bus station was...
and have a monorail system built right down the center of Portage, Main, and feeder routes from outlying areas (St. Vital, Tuxedo, U of M, Transcona, etc.)

Pick one to start (say Transcona) and see how it runs. It would probably cost about $200-300M to get it up...but it would offer a basis for future expansion...and one nice thing about the monorails...is that they are so easy to add on to...and expand...and the biggest, MOST important thing...is that NOTHING IS ON THE GROUND!!! to hinder traffic flow, or to slow the monorail system...and then you truly have RAPID transit.

Cost is the reason. Simple.

The problem you have is the fact that your pricing is WAY out of the ballpark. The current cost of an underground subway is about $250-300 MILLION per kilometer and a monorail is around $125-150 MILLION per kilometer.

That is ONLY the cost of construction and doesn't factor in the cost of trains or operating costs.

So how many kilometers long will your system be? How will you pay for it?

The BRT busway came in at $38 million per kilometer and does what it was intended to do. That is, bypass areas currently plagued by heavy traffic congestion during rush hour.

This is the same purpose that rapid transit systems in Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Halifax, Waterloo etc serve.

ok...1...i don't think ANYONE has suggested an underground system in Winnipeg...that cost would be outrageous...and my understanding is that with the rivers & rock around here...probably can't even be done.


that said...A monorail system is no longer $150M/km...it's more like $80M/km...and how long does it have to be?
It's what? maybe 4km from downtown to the UofM...in a straight line...let's be generous and say 10km.

And let's say another 10km to Transcona (which is a HUGE exaggeration)

So let's say we build two lengths at 10km for a total of 20km.
And let's say it's $100M (though building that much, that fast would be less)

So for a $2B price tag (did I do my math right), we now have a high-tech, above ground mono-rail system, which can take about 30 or 40 buses off the road, move those drivers into the monorail system, save on fuel, maintenance and reduce road congestion for those runs significantly.

And you are right...is it something to do with "only 1M" people? who knows...but at least it solves the problem...and offers people an ACTUAL option, rather than just moving the problem somewhere else.

The BRetroT program does nothing except move the congestion from where it was...to where the buses now exit/enter the system...and still has vehicles on the road blocking up traffic.

AGEsAces wrote:
that said...A monorail system is no longer $150M/km...it's more like $80M/km...and how long does it have to be?

The Vancouver Evergreen line is about 11 km and has a proposed price tag of $1.4 billion.

That said, it is slated to open in 2016 and will probably cost more than that when all is said and done.

$150 million/km for monorail is conservative.

$80 million/km is wishful thinking.

AGEsAces wrote:It's what? maybe 4km from downtown to the UofM...in a straight line...let's be generous and say 10km.

And let's say another 10km to Transcona (which is a HUGE exaggeration)

So let's say we build two lengths at 10km for a total of 20km.
And let's say it's $100M (though building that much, that fast would be less)

So for a $2B price tag (did I do my math right), we now have a high-tech, above ground mono-rail system, which can take about 30 or 40 buses off the road, move those drivers into the monorail system, save on fuel, maintenance and reduce road congestion for those runs significantly.

Looks like your 20 km plan will have a $3B price tag to move people from Transcona to the U of M via downtown.

How much daily ridership do you see on this train?

Do you really see the $3B as money well spent just to take 30-40 buses of the main arteries (you will still need buses taking people to and from the stations).

AGEsAces wrote:And you are right...is it something to do with "only 1M" people? who knows...but at least it solves the problem...and offers people an ACTUAL option, rather than just moving the problem somewhere else.

The BRetroT program does nothing except move the congestion from where it was...to where the buses now exit/enter the system...and still has vehicles on the road blocking up traffic.

How does it move the congestion? The congestion is mainly as a result of the number of arteries intersecting at Confusion Corner. Anyone who commutes south down Pembina is aware that traffic is MUCH better past Jubilee. Even so, the BRT is planned to go the entire length to the U of M anyways.

The other issue with the train solution is that it actually ads complexity to the transit plan.

With trains you still have to often take buses either to and/or from train stations for your entire trip (unless you live and work within walking distance of two stations). With the BRT you have buses completely bypassing traffic but then able to use existing roadways to provide a complete end-to-end service. So once you factor in feeder buses to and from trains, transfer times and walking you really don't gain any time going from BRT to an LRT/monorail/subway solution.

Admit it.

You don't like the bus (for whatever reason).

You like trains.

You are unwilling to recognize any benefit of the BRT pretty much solely on that fact.

The bus was chosen simply for economy. The city does not have to buy rolling stock that is limited to an LRT or other rapid transit.

A bus can get on and off the busway where practical and allows Winnipeg to grow the RT in less costly stages.

We should give this a few days so that they can work out the problems.

Personally, I like not having so many busses on that one stretch of Pembina and look forward to it being completed to the University.

I think they should make the curb lane of Pembina a diamond lane.

Diamond lanes merely screw up all traffic. Defeats the purpose IMO.

dont worry... they are coming..... uggg.

grumpy old man wrote:Diamond lanes merely screw up all traffic. Defeats the purpose IMO.

I thought the point was to get people out of their cars and taking transit.

2 lanes going south on Pembina (or north) during rush hour would be heavily congested, but the busses would be able to move past all the traffic with the diamond lane. For me, doesn't matter, I have been in far worse rush hours than anything in Winnipeg

Me too USAPegger.

My point is the diamond lanes are often on two lane roads effectively limiting traffic during rush hour to one lane.

Diamond lanes are also less effective on major routes like Pembina Highway because there is an entrance/exit every 5 feet.

I propose....

The new RT corridor be for north bound traffic in morning and southbound in evening
Then pembina can easily accommodate a diamond lane.
weekends and evenings the corridor becomes Active transportation only.

umm...GOM...

while I completely disagree with Diamond Lanes...can you name one location in Winnipeg where they are on a two-lane road?

outside of where there is active construction going on that is.

Everywhere I can think of in the city are 3-lane in each direction (or more).

Osborne? Can't recall exactly. I'll keep an eye out...