About 6 years ago, I explained that the SWRT Stage 2 should not be built, because the 2 minute time saving would not be enough to justify the cost.
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Originally Posted by njaohnt
People keep arguing about whether a project should go through. However, you can just use math to figure this out.
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The southwest transitway will only save enough time to be worth $40 million dollars. The 161 takes 11 minutes, so there is no way that the transitway will save more than 2 minutes......
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However, I was wrong. The SWRT2 actually adds 5 minutes to the total time (U of W to U of M from 34 minutes to 39 minutes). This is easy to see when riding 161, as it goes 60 km/h down Pembina, only stopping a couple of times. But on the transitway, it stops several times, and may only get up to 60 km/h before having to stop at the next station.
The frequency to U of M is reduced, there are currently 8 161s from 8 to 9 AM, and this will be reduced to 7 BLUEs to U of M.
Taking route 180 from downtown currently takes me 30 minutes. Taking the BLUE and the 690 will now take me 35 minutes due to the transfer time. Yes, the 690 will have 6 busses per hour compared to 4 on the 180, but I don't care, as I just leave when there's a 180 one coming, and time my downtown transfer. The 180 is reliable, usually a little early, and never arrives more than 5 minutes late. The whole spine-feeder idea is inferior to the current system.
Imagine if the $420 million was invested in a transit endowment at 6%. This could do one of the following forever with the interest:
- Reduce fares by 29%
- Increase frequency by 12.5% / Reduce time between buses by 20%
- Expand express service to actually save time
At this point, WT should forget the spine/feeder routes, and simply place the old express routes on the transitway, cancel most transitway stops for the BLUE line during rush hour, and increase stop speed limits from 30 to 60 to allow these buses to pass the stops and move on their way. Maybe then the 161 would save a minute or 2.
Of course, this won't stop Winnipeg Transit from false advertising.
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BLUE is a new rapid transit line that will provide frequent, reliable, high-speed service between Downtown, the University of Manitoba and St. Norbert.
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This is all because of a political system that makes politicians want to announce large projects, and it doesn't matter if the project is actually an improvement. When it comes to spending on transit, the project should not be allowed to go through, unless it can be demonstrated that it is the best use of funds.
If the new spine/feeder system is going to go through, it must be proven that yes-- it will save the average traveler x number of minutes. But I'm quite sure that that x would be negative.
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