Winnipeg City Transit/Rapid Transit

[drew]

Originally Posted by h0twired

Parking is still too cheap in Winnipeg for anyone to justify a transit system. I still find it funny that Winnipeggers make fun of "poor" people that take transit, but if you are on the train or bus in Calgary they tend to be filled people working professional jobs and wearing suits.

If you want to remove the "poor person" stigma of transit use make parking within reach of the top 1-2% of the population. Force more of the professional working class on the bus and it will get better support from the public.

^ I think you answered you own question here.

I'll let Viking give the stats, but from what I understand Winnipeg has at least an average if not better than average percentage of people working downtown.

Calgary has a very high percentage of workers downtown due to it being the paper pushing hub of oil Canada. It is by no means a "normalized" stat to be comparing other moderate sized North American cities to.

[swolfe]

Any upgrades are welcome. My wife & I are regular transit riders and I actually enjoy taking the bus downtown on most days. I don't like the added stress of driving in rush hour traffic or in bad weather. Let someone else do the driving while I relax in the back and read a book or listen to my ipod. Also, the cost difference is quite significant. We get 2 monthly bus passes through our work for about $50 each. If we were to drive, we'd be looking at:

parking - $120+
gas - $50
all-purpose insurance - $16
+ extra miles on the car

So it's a fair amount of money we save, even though we could car pool together. Then we also get the tax deduction. With all that said, I'd rather be taking a train

[h0twired]

Originally Posted by drew

^ I think you answered you own question here.

I'll let Viking give the stats, but from what I understand Winnipeg has at least an average if not better than average percentage of people working downtown.

Calgary has a very high percentage of workers downtown due to it being the paper pushing hub of oil Canada. It is by no means a "normalized" stat to be comparing other moderate sized North American cities to.

Winnipeg on the other hand is a light industrial manufacturing town. Little need for office towers and stores that sell suits and ties.

Oil or not it comes down to the local economy and where the working class work (offices downtown or factories in the burbs). There are however MANY cities without oil that have booming downtowns and light rail systems. However when you start to consider those cities you will probably see a higher ridership than a potential 70,000 people per day. Calgary alone has a 250,000 people riding the train every day. Could you imagine if you took 250,000 off the roads in Winnipeg every day?

At the end of the day when dealing with ridership you need REAL numbers not percentages since trains aren't exactly much cheaper to build if your population or ridership is smaller.

The problem however exists that where do the trains go to optimize ridership?

An obvious possibilities is between the U of M and downtown. The school has 25,000+ students and there are probably a good number of people that would be willing to skip the commute up Pembina and ride a train instead. However going in that direction you tend to have wealthier people who would rather drive than be seen riding on transit. Also going down Pembina you don't have many locations for stations that a large number of people could walk to.

Another possibility could be to go down the length of Portage. Unfortunately the costs of this venture would be astronomical as the train would be required to run underground for the entire length. Certainly better access to more transit riders and stops at the U of W and Polo Park would help, but still can Winnipeg find enough people willing to ride the train on a daily basis to make it worth the expense?

[vid]

Originally Posted by swolfe

all-purpose insurance - $16

Missing a 0? Fuckin' socialists.



Winnipeg should raise parking fees. We know with gas prices that people are too stubborn give up their cars even when they cost 10 times more than city buses, so what's an extra 40$ a month? Think of the revenues you'll get!

[h0twired]

Originally Posted by vid

Missing a 0? Fuckin' socialists.



Winnipeg should raise parking fees. We know with gas prices that people are too stubborn give up their cars even when they cost 10 times more than city buses, so what's an extra 40$ a month? Think of the revenues you'll get!

The difference between all purpose insurance and pleasure in Alberta is about $10/month not to mention that the insurance on my Honda Accord is $500/year cheaper in Alberta than in Manitoba.

[swolfe]

Originally Posted by vid

Missing a 0? Fuckin' socialists.

I should have clarified, all-purpose insurance is $16 more than we currently pay per month for "pleasure" insurance. MPI charges you more if you drive your car to work.

[vid]

It's still more than Ontario. :/

[rypinion]

Originally Posted by vid

It's still more than Ontario. :/

In February the Fraser Institute said that Ontario's insurance rates are the second highest in Canada, with only BC having higher rates.

http://www.citynews.ca/news/news_7918.aspx

Also note that in Winnipeg you are insuring your car in the auto theft capital of Canada. I'm sure that would have would effect your rates negatively regardless of the insurance provider (public or private).

[vid]

If Manitoba has private insurance I'm sure their rates would be the highest. You should be thankful.

[swolfe]

Mon, December 10, 2007

The new year will bring new alerts for bus riders.

Winnipeg Transit and the Amalgamated Transit Union will implement a Next Stop Policy on all transit routes, effective Jan. 1.

The program will mean transit riders can expect each bus stop on a route to be announced out loud.

An automated bus stop announcement display is expected to take effect over the next several years.

[Greco Roman]

Originally Posted by swolfe

Mon, December 10, 2007

The new year will bring new alerts for bus riders.

Winnipeg Transit and the Amalgamated Transit Union will implement a Next Stop Policy on all transit routes, effective Jan. 1.

The program will mean transit riders can expect each bus stop on a route to be announced out loud.

An automated bus stop announcement display is expected to take effect over the next several years.

Okay, this is a little much. So you are telling me that every two blocks there will be an annoying, recorded, muffled voice shouting out every frekin stop along a route? I can see this on an LRT, but not on regular buses.

Essentially what they are trying to do is create an environment on regular buses that mimicks rapid transit, thinking that Winnipeggers will buy into this stupidity and forget about the notion of adopting a REAL rapid transit (again, bus rapid transit is garbage and doesn't count). It's quite pathetic actually.

[spiritedenergy]

Originally Posted by Greco Roman

Okay, this is a little much. So you are telling me that every two blocks there will be an annoying, recorded, muffled voice shouting out every frekin stop along a route? I can see this on an LRT, but not on regular buses.

Essentially what they are trying to do is create an environment on regular buses that mimicks rapid transit, thinking that Winnipeggers will buy into this stupidity and forget about the notion of adopting a REAL rapid transit (again, bus rapid transit is garbage and doesn't count). It's quite pathetic actually.

it's not pathetic, is common sense. We have this in Florence since 1998 I think. It's important for turists, elderly people and in winter when the windows are fucked up and they can't be seen through.
Building a LRT and leaving the regular buses at stone age IS pathetic.

They should also change the door's strips as they are annoying as hell.

[The Jabroni]

Originally Posted by spiritedenergy

it's not pathetic, is common sense. We have this in Florence since 1998 I think. It's important for turists, elderly people and in winter when the windows are fucked up and they can't be seen through.
Building a LRT and leaving the regular buses at stone age IS pathetic.

They should also change the door's strips as they are annoying as hell.

They changed the door strips in the latest buses they ordered (that's out on the road right now). It's now more bulkier and bigger than the pansy yellow strip.

As for the calling out the stops, they were starting to do that already, at least only a couple times in the last 2 weeks, and from a couple of bus drivers. This was on route 18 too...

[1ajs]

wrong thread :S

[MalcolmTucker]

Originally Posted by h0twired

70,000 is a fairly low number compared to other major cities.

Calgary is around the 250,000 people working downtown with about 1.2 million people in the CMA.

Parking is still too cheap in Winnipeg for anyone to justify a transit system. I still find it funny that Winnipeggers make fun of "poor" people that take transit, but if you are on the train or bus in Calgary they tend to be filled people working professional jobs and wearing suits.

If you want to remove the "poor person" stigma of transit use make parking within reach of the top 1-2% of the population. Force more of the professional working class on the bus and it will get better support from the public.

When Calgary built its LRT system in the late 70s early 80s, there was only about that many people working downtown. (70k) Right now it is around 125k. The rest of the riders come from developments and land uses that have cropped up along the suburban routes.

Calgary's success in driving ridership to the LRT is an aberation and doesn't compare to any other north american city's implementation of LRT. Calgary's system has one of the lowest cost per km with the highest ridership.

Edmonton's would be a better city to compare with Winnipeg.

As for paying for a system, Calgary is starting to get about $400 million in additional funding a year for infrastructure, on top of the current $275 million a year already coming from the federal and provincial governments.

All this funding is why both Calgary and Edmonton are building expansions to their systems and planning entirely new lines.

It is my understanding that when Calgary and Edmonton built the initial stages of their systems in the '80s, there were large directed grants from the provincial government to build rapid transit.

All Winnipeg needs is a provincial government that is forward looking enough to fund this vision.

[h0twired]

Originally Posted by kyle_olsen

All Winnipeg needs is a provincial government that is forward looking enough to fund this vision.

Also needs a Provincial government with the cash. Instead of one the spends on useless things like museums and stadiums.

Perhaps the sale of Hydro would be a good way to raise the needed money.

[supai]

It might help to have aplan in place first then push for funding. Is Winnipeg council conducting any LRT studies or plans for future LRT lines? I don't see how this could ever get done without some vision first.

[1ajs]

Originally Posted by h0twired

Also needs a Provincial government with the cash. Instead of one the spends on useless things like museums and stadiums.

Perhaps the sale of Hydro would be a good way to raise the needed money.

unfortunately the money would not get spent on that

[Keng]

O.K. just a regular bus, but it was moving really fast...

[ScrappyPeg]

Very cool pic!!