To kick things off, Saint John Transit has announced it will be making some route and scheduling changes effective February 3rd. You can check out the new schedules
here, while for the time being the old/existing schedules are
here.
Below, I've put together a little roundup of the changes on the core routes, as well as an overview of the weekday schedule changes:
- Routes 5,6,7,8 have been eliminated.
- Routes 1 and 2 are replaced by routes 1A and 1B covering the same routing.
- Frequencies on 1A and 1B will be every 15 minutes during rush hour and every 30 minutes off-peak. This is an improvement over the 30 minute all-day frequency of 1 and 2, but note that with the elimination of 7 and 8, midday frequency from Uptown to Lancaster Mall/Fairville Boulevard actually drops.
- Routes 3 and 4 are replaced with routes 3A and 3B covering the same routing.
- Frequencies on 3A and 3B will be 30 minutes all day. This is a drop in service from the mostly-20 minute frequency of the current 3 and 4, however see the new routes immediately below.
- New routes: 9A and 9B duplicate the routing of 3A/B except they travel Churchill Boulevard instead of Millidge. Essentially analagous to routes 5 and 6 but continuing on through the denser parts of the East Side to McAllister Place .
- Frequencies are every 30 minutes from 6am-7pm, alternate to 3A and 3B, effectively making the McAllister-Uptown-Regional/UNB run every 15 minutes during that period.
Overall, the changes to the core routes seem to straighten out frequencies into either 30 or 15 minute intervals, which should make the system as a whole a bit more legible. They also eliminate some platooning of buses that was happening where 3/4/5/6 overlapped, better distributing departure times.
The full list of changes is available
here.
This appears to be the first in what will probably be a series of changes as Saint John Transit works to implement the recommendations of the
MoveSJ Transit Strategy.