Quote:
Originally Posted by YOWetal
45-60 minutes MORE per day? Is it really that big a change? How long is the commute now? Regardless, I doubt that many will actually start driving as I can't imagine many people who take the bus from there have a realistic choice of driving.
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It won't likely have a short-term effect on ridership levels as people aren't going to go out and buy another car right away simply because of this. Also, downtown parking rates are unlikely to go down and for STO express pass users the premium fare is being eliminated so it will actually cost them less to go to work on the bus.
In the long-term though it may have an impact - perhaps more people will start using the Rapibus park and ride lots instead of walking to the bus stop from their house.
Also, someone made the comment about anyone not going downtown will not be using the bus anymore, but those people aren't using the bus anyway because all of the express routes in Gatineau sector, Buckingham and Masson-Angers are "portes fermées" as soon as they leave their catchment areas. So you actually drive by places of employment on your express bus at the moment but you can't get off there. So it's a rather moot point. At the moment, almost no one east of the Gatineau River uses transit to commute to jobs within this area (say from Buckingham to the area around Maloney), but with the Rapibus they could. Also, there is a huge amount of employment in Hull around St-Joseph, St-Raymond, Boulevard de la Carrière, and also Montcalm and Crémazie that at the moment is only accessible (realistically) by car. Rapibus opens up transit commuting to there as well.
There are problems for sure but it is not all bad news.