Winnipeg City Transit/Rapid Transit

[buzzg]

For some interesting insights (take them as you will) you should check out the Youthful Cities report that just came out, funded by RBC Future Launch. Looks at the best places for 15-29 year olds to live and work in Canada, what's important to youth for working environments, and all the factors that go into it. Data is from polling the age group in question.

Winnipeg ranked #13 overall out of 27 cities for young people to live in Canada. 1) Vancouver, 2) Hamilton, 3) Edmonton. Man/Sask was dragged down by primarily by poor public health and digital access. Winnipeg was 26th place in Good Youth Jobs.

Winnipeg ranked in the top 5 in: Income Generation (3), Equity + Inclusion (5), Entrepreneurial Spirit (4) and... drumroll... Public Transportation (2).

Yes – According to Canadian youth Winnipeg ranks second in the country in public transit, with its key indicators being first place in youth Public Transit Usage, and first place in Biking in the City.

As I (and many others) have been anecdotally saying forever on here – young people want good public and active transportation options. Now, it's being backed by data. If the children are our future, shouldn't we be listening to them?

Highlights can be found here if you don't want to read through the full report.

[zalf]

I think Winnipegger's assessment is spot on. I find structural, systematic explanations more compelling than those that hinge on a few individual personalities. I mean, obviously the goals and biases of our leaders affect things, but in large part they're responding to the incentives given to them by the context.

A corollary of this argument is that the three levels of government could be led by Klein, Friesen, and a second Harper ministry, but LRT/BRT would still get funded and built if it was something the voters made an important issue.

[GarryEllice]

Originally Posted by Winnipegger

Address the root causes of transit's poor perception before dumping money is all I'm trying to say.

I was agreeing with everything you wrote up until this last sentence. Granted there are various reasons for transit's poor perception, some harder to address than others, but one big reason is the infrequent and unreliable service. I know people who have tried to use transit but have been turned off by long waits for buses, buses that don't show up, buses that are full when they do show up, etc. The root cause of those problems is insufficient funding, so how do we address them without "dumping money"?

[buzzg]

Originally Posted by GarryEllice

I was agreeing with everything you wrote up until this last sentence. Granted there are various reasons for transit's poor perception, some harder to address than others, but one big reason is the infrequent and unreliable service. I know people who have tried to use transit but have been turned off by long waits for buses, buses that don't show up, buses that are full when they do show up, etc. The root cause of those problems is insufficient funding, so how do we address them without "dumping money"?

And Transit has created a plan to fix this, now we just need to fund it. And funny enough, because they likely understand all the realities mentioned here – the plan doesn't require obscene amounts of money aside from the downtown needs on Main and Portage. Most of the rest of the upgrades are on-street now instead of separated transitways.

[Ando]

Originally Posted by H2man

The problem is that a lot of the dollars from both the federal government and provincial government come from lenders. I agree that we should see our tax dollars return to our province which is why I find it problematic that unless we pay to play we do not. I also agree that modern transportation is important; otherwise I wouldn't be on a progressive urbanist forum discussing it. But I also understand there are other priorities and we can't do it all when there are limited resources and the province pays a billion dollars in interest annually, which we should be trying to slow down.

Anyway, that's all I'm going to say on this topic because we are going in circles and derailing the thread.

I’m glad you ended it because your position was becoming increasingly confusing.

[Ando]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ You can adjust for those realities. I'd wager that a comparable BRT network would cost more than 12% less than a LRT system of equivalent length. Yet we don't have that either.

Exactly, Winnipeg is so far behind that it’s tragic. I think Ottawa probably had a dedicated BRT system decades ago and have now moved on to Rail. But you have people on here that in the same breath say we can’t afford it but won’t take advantage of our federal tax dollars to fund it.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Ando

Exactly, Winnipeg is so far behind that it’s tragic. I think Ottawa probably had a dedicated BRT system decades ago and have now moved on to Rail. But you have people on here that in the same breath say we can’t afford it but won’t take advantage of our federal tax dollars to fund it.

Glad you mentioned it, Ottawa is a good example of the benefits of incremental steps. What if they never bothered with BRT and were starting from scratch right now? It would be a much more complex and expensive task as a result.

[Ando]

Originally Posted by zalf

I think Winnipegger's assessment is spot on. I find structural, systematic explanations more compelling than those that hinge on a few individual personalities. I mean, obviously the goals and biases of our leaders affect things, but in large part they're responding to the incentives given to them by the context.

A corollary of this argument is that the three levels of government could be led by Klein, Friesen, and a second Harper ministry, but LRT/BRT would still get funded and built if it was something the voters made an important issue.

Individual personalities do matter so you can’t discount them. The fact is that the Pallister government has chosen to leave federal dollars on the table. A Conservative government in Ontario has chosen to do the opposite. I think that voters in general would not be opposed to improving Winnipeg’s transit system. Most reasonable people realize that a city’s competitiveness is influenced by infrastructure, including transport infrastructure. It’s unfortunately all too typical of Winnipeg to dither and do the minimum while other jurisdictions do what needs to be done.

[buzzg]

Part of the issue too is people are just woefully un(der)educated on what "good" transit and transit investments actually are.

Like in the last municipal election here, Brilliant Jenny was flatly against spending a dollar to actually improve transit operations but then late into the race said she wanted to spend like a billion dollars replacing every diesel bus with electric busses. It's the dumbest thing ever since using transit is way more efficient than vehicles already, and all that money would net the exact same system that is already underserviced.

[Ando]

Well, Jenny is in the past. We need people who are currently in power to do something and we know who they are,

[buzzg]

So I guess this means the Spirit is done for good good. I really love the attention to detail and care the city puts into everything it does.

What a fucking mess, crews are done, this is how it was left. Took out the warning strips but left the "launchpad" and the pole.

[Winnipegger]

Originally Posted by buzzg

So I guess this means the Spirit is done for good good. I really love the attention to detail and care the city puts into everything it does.

What a fucking mess, crews are done, this is how it was left. Took out the warning strips but left the "launchpad" and the pole.

This city has grown by 100,000 people over the last decade and property taxes only grow to fill more and more potholes each year, with some measly crumbs left over to fund the pre-existing BRT infrastructure. This city's three financial priorities are funding police, fire, and road repair. Is it any wonder that most of our public municipal infrastructure looks like it's on par with Kabul, Afghanistan?

The public realm of this city will see little improvement until citizens elect a mayor and/or council who has the vision to spend tax dollars or more than just high-paid police and never ending road repairs.

[esquire]

I'm not thrilled with the work done on that bus stop, but I can't say I'll miss the Downtown Spirit. The couple of times I took it I regretted it since I'd have gotten to my destination faster by walking. It seems like a relic of a bygone era when people would go around downtown from one store to another to shop, which is something that doesn't really exist anymore in any meaningful sense.

[GarryEllice]

Originally Posted by esquire

I'm not thrilled with the work done on that bus stop, but I can't say I'll miss the Downtown Spirit. The couple of times I took it I regretted it since I'd have gotten to my destination faster by walking. It seems like a relic of a bygone era when people would go around downtown from one store to another to shop, which is something that doesn't really exist anymore in any meaningful sense.

Maybe someone who's only taken it a couple times is not well qualified to comment on how useful it is? I live downtown and I used it all the time. It was handy for various things, but especially for getting to the Forks. Of course you can still access the Forks from buses on Main Street, but having that frequent service straight into the Forks Market was super convenient. Made it easy to pop over for a quick lunch. I miss it.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by GarryEllice

Maybe someone who's only taken it a couple times is not well qualified to comment on how useful it is? I live downtown and I used it all the time. It was handy for various things, but especially for getting to the Forks. Of course you can still access the Forks from buses on Main Street, but having that frequent service straight into the Forks Market was super convenient. Made it easy to pop over for a quick lunch. I miss it.

As someone who has worked downtown his entire adult life and lived downtown for a good chunk of it, I can actually say with certainty that this bus was totally useless to me, which is why I seldom bothered with it.

That said, I realize that these decisions aren't made based on how useful something is to me personally. But even then I am hard pressed to think of any friends, colleagues or former neighbours who used it either. It never looked busy whenever I saw it going by.

[GarryEllice]

Originally Posted by esquire

But even then I am hard pressed to think of any friends, colleagues or former neighbours who used it either.

I think many people could say the same thing about the entire Winnipeg transit system, though, and it doesn't mean much to the people who do use it. I lived downtown for a couple years before trying the Spirit, because it seemed kinda pointless, but once I started using it I realized how useful it actually was.

It seemed decently well used to me. Granted the buses were rarely packed full, but they were certainly better used than many suburban feeder routes that continue to operate.

Let's remember that the Spirit wasn't cancelled because of low ridership, it was part of the doom-and-gloom budget in which the city threatened to cancel/close everything. Presumably the Spirit was considered expendable because there is plenty more bus service downtown.

[buzzg]

It'll be interesting to see when all the downtown bus routes get simplified soon (and focus on less routes with quick in and outs) if a downtown circulator comes back into play.

[GreyGarden]

Originally Posted by GarryEllice

It was handy for various things, but especially for getting to the Forks.

I'd use the Spirit a handful of times throughout the year whenever I was in the Exchange and wanted to get to the Forks.

As the crow flies its not a far distance to walk but Main St is so wide and bleak and the parking lots along Israel Asper Way make it a particularly unpleasant walk.

As Railside finally gets underway and Main St hopefully starts to fill out it won't be so bad. Fingers crossed. There should be a pleasant and direct way to walk from the Exchange to the Forks Market.

[bomberjet]

Best way to access the Forks on foot from downtown is through Union Station. Always seems the easiest and most pleasant.

[GarryEllice]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Best way to access the Forks on foot from downtown is through Union Station. Always seems the easiest and most pleasant.

Agreed, I like to walk down Fort and through Union Station. No obnoxious traffic. It's quicker to take the diagonal route along Pioneer, but that's not a pleasant walk at all, especially in extreme weather (hot or cold). Fort is a sad street but at least there are some buildings to provide shade.