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My Winnipeg Transit days are behind me, but the overhauled route system remains pretty unpopular, by all accounts. Fixing that should be the top priority.
Beyond that, they desperately need to commit to additional rapid transit corridors beyond the Blue line.
I know the new transit system gets a really bad rap, but I'm actually pretty sympathetic to it. I think the main issue is the lack of funding, not the actual system design itself.
The way I've heard it describe was that, with the old system, we kind of maxed it out already. Due to the twisty-turny nature of the routes, and certain predictable choke points that clogged up traffic (such as Graham Avenue), there wasn't really a whole lot we could do to improve it. Sure we could have added more buses, but the main issues with the system (namely, the large delays and unpredictable schedules) were not the sort of issues that we could have fixed through more funding. Because the primary cause of those issues were inefficiencies in the actual bus routes themselves.
The new system, in contrast, is far from prefect. But it is the kind of system we can fix with more funding; the primary issue is no longer inefficiencies in the bus routes themselves, but lack of funding. For example, one of the main issue right now is all the transfers. There's a lot of transfers in the new bus system, and it sucks. But it only really sucks because buses don't come very often. If buses came every more regularly, transfers would be less of a problem. And we could make it so buses come more often, if we bought more of them. And, with the new system, these new buses wouldn't get held up trying to do unnecessary left turns or stuck in bus traffic jams on Graham Avenue. These new buses would just go on their dandy way relatively unimpeded and actually increase frequency and reliability.
So, though the bus system still sucks, the new system is the sort of system we could fix with funding. Whereas the old system was not. So, though I think the push to revert back to the old system is the wrong way to go. Instead we should channel that energy on getting our city council to stop wasting money on widening Kenaston and extending Chief Peguis, and put that money towards a functional transit system instead.
Interests are preventing a healthier public transit system?
It's car-brained culture. Our current city council is allocating a lot of resources to extending roads, and its coming at the cost of public transit improvements.
For example, the current underfunding of our transit system comes quite explicitly as a result of the decision to widen Kenaston Boulevard:
A city council committee voted to reduce the scope of Winnipeg Transit's new north garage on Thursday, in response to the rising cost of the project, a move that staff warned could hamper efforts to grow ridership.
A report found the project's price tag had risen from $200 million to $305 million.
The report laid out three options. One involved taking on debt to cover the increased cost. Another option, favoured by transit officials, would have reduced the cost increase to $80 million by cutting back on the spaces for buses — from 249 to 207 — and slashing the number of maintenance bays from 20 to 12.
But on Thursday, council's public works committee voted to go with the third option, which would drastically reduce the scope of the project to fit within the original $200-million budget by slashing storage spaces and completely eliminating the maintenance bays.
Public works chair Coun. Janice Lukes (Waverley West) says there was no other option because the city is already facing a shortage of infrastructure money for other major capital projects, such as the North End sewage treatment plant and the expansion of Kenaston Boulevard.
The way this was worded here makes it sounds like its a necessity that we do this, because we need to widen Kenaston. And sure it might be nice, but consider the price tag on the Kenaston project:
A preliminary report released Tuesday calls for upgrades on Kenaston between Taylor Avenue and Ness Avenue, with a price tag of $586.1 million.
An additional $150.6 million in construction-period interest would come along with that, should the city tackle the project solo by taking on debt.
So 586.1 + 150.6 = 736.7. So widening Kenaston is going to cost us about $736.7 million, give or take a few million and put us on the hock for maintaining that infrastructure, which will be money that comes out of our yearly budget each year indefinitely. Compare that to the $305 million of the original transit garage. With the money allocated for Kenaston, it would have literally been possible to build two full-sized transit garages and then some. And, unlike Kenaston, it would actually decrease the load on traffic by making transit a more appealing means of transportation, thereby taking more cars off the road. There is also of course the point that transit actually has a pretty high return on investment while road buildings do not, but I don't want to get too off topic here... And we haven't even gotten into the Cheif Peguis Trail extension, which is perhaps an even bigger finacial disaster if the city decides to go through with it.
So, anyway, the point is: city council cares way more about building the city around cars than public transit. City council is willing to majorly inconvenience transit users in order to not mildly inconvenience drivers. The respective interests of each group are not seen as being of equal importance.
On top of that, the last provincial government slashed the 50/50 funding model for transit (which made it so that the province covered half the tab of our transit bill) and the current government is yet to restore it. But luckily the current government has a survey open right now to solicit feedback on their current budget plans. And the survey closes tomorrow (March 12th), so fill it out now if you want to have a say! If you care about the state of public transit in this city, then you should ask them to restore the 50/50 funding model