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ETS Bus and General Transit Improvements

Blizzard said:
Leduc County, City of Leduc, and City of Edmonton are close to finally improving service on Route 747 as part of the Airport Accord Agreement. Long overdue and a sign of good things to come.

City of Leduc investing in Route 747 - The Leduc Rep
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This is good to hear, but its called the Edmonton International Airport and most of the travellers come from Edmonton.

So I wish the city would take more initiative to improve service, rather than passing around the begging bowl to other municipalities. Frankly as an Edmontonian I feel its a bit embarrassing
 
It's not about passing the begging bowl. It's about the way the three municipalities agreed to fund Route 747. If all three don't agree to improve service, it cannot be done. That was the main hold up until now.
 
I call bs on this. For instance, if someone wants to put money into a joint account, they can add it, no one will object. But it makes for a nice excuse for inaction, which our city is good at.
 
That's great. What I'm saying is that the agreement signed held each party (City of Leduc, the County of Leduc, City of Edmonton, Edmonton International Airport) to fund 25% of Route 747. Are you suggesting that the City not hold the parties accountable for the agreements they sign? The City is already required to provide and maintain all of the buses for this. Are you suggesting that the City also completely fund what is ultimately an EXTREMELY expensive - albeit economically advantageous - route completely by itself when the benefits are felt regionally?

 
David A said:
This is good to hear, but its called the Edmonton International Airport and most of the travellers come from Edmonton.

So I wish the city would take more initiative to improve service, rather than passing around the begging bowl to other municipalities. Frankly as an Edmontonian I feel its a bit embarrassing
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What makes me embarrassed is Edmontonians who don’t support the interests of their city. Why is it expected that Edmonton should carry the cost of all regional services and yet the outlying communities stand to benefit disproportionately from the increased tax base of said services. Time for everyone to realize that pooling resources to improve services for all is a more reasonable approach.
 
I believe the 65th Avenue/QE II overpass will be done by June 2025. This would give a link between the airport and Leduc.
 
I don't mind if Edmonton pays more than their fair share. Would rather we call the shots in metro Edmonton than Danielle Smith.
 
Glenco said:
What makes me embarrassed is Edmontonians who don’t support the interests of their city. Why is it expected that Edmonton should carry the cost of all regional services and yet the outlying communities stand to benefit disproportionately from the increased tax base of said services. Time for everyone to realize that pooling resources to improve services for all is a more reasonable approach.
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I don't have a problem if others agree to contribute. I just have a problem when it became an excuse for our city to delay funding more.
 
David A said:
I don't have a problem if others agree to contribute. I just have a problem when it became an excuse for our city to delay funding more.
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I'm not sure if you're trolling now or what but I can promise you that's not how any of this went down.
 
The_Cat said:
It's win-win for Leduc and Edmonton. There are also a lot of employees that work at the International Airport and area.
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I agree, but it seems like pulling teeth to get more transit service to our airport. I was very disappointed the city did not go ahead with some direct service to downtown earlier.

I don't think the tourist experience is Edmonton is very good because of some of the these issues we fail to address and it remains a real blind spot for this city.

I do hope with increasing passenger numbers and new routes, perhaps transit service to airport will continue to be improved.
 
Yes, one of the main issues is definitely the bad public transit connections between the airport and major visitor destinations.
 
Late last week, Statistics Canada reported the October data for Canadian transit agencies, and it includes some pretty good numbers for ETS.

From October 2023 to October 2024, monthly transit ridership rose 22.4% from 5,247,100 to 6,422,400, while revenues rose 5.8% in the same time frame to $10 million (no explanation is given for the different rates of increase).

Among major transit agencies, the ETS increase is second only to Metrolinx in the GTA, which saw ridership rise 30%.

For comparison, Calgary saw ridership rise 10.4%, Toronto (TTC) 5.2% and Metro Vancouver (Translink) 2.7%.

Leduc is the only other agency in the Edmonton area that reports its ridership to StatsCan. It saw monthly ridership rise 62% to 16,700.
 
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