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ETS Bus and General Transit Improvements
- Thread starter Daveography
- Start date
BrettB
Active Member
Good find! The most glaring problem/opportunity to my eye is getting buses into and out of Clareview, but it doesn't appear to have made the shortlist this year.
Clareview Transit Centre
(East and West approaches)
53, 54, 107, 113, 114, 117, 118, 119, 104,
108, 116, 121
Clareview Transit Centre
(East and West approaches)
53, 54, 107, 113, 114, 117, 118, 119, 104,
108, 116, 121
trevorhayden
Active Member
Seems that there is A LOT more work to be done than just 3 BRT routes.
BrettB
Active Member
Hot take: I'm not thrilled with ETS' infatuation with BRT. seems to be an excuse to keep studying, but not actually do much.
I would suggest there is a simpler solution. Take, for example, the routes to Northgate and North (the ones I know best).
It seems to me with only a few minor changes, you could convert the 110 and 120 into a single all-day frequent limited stop route with articulated buses and enhanced bus stops. You could extend it up Calgary Trail/Gateway to Southgate or Century Park to act as a relief line for the LRT or have it mirror the 9 with fewer stops.
The downside is choke points will remain what they are now: the CN tracks and the river, along with the city's willingness to create and enforce bus lanes.
I lean this way because of the most successful route in NA for a long time: the 99 B-line across Vancouver. It has stops every 4-8 blocks, peak hour bus lanes, and service every 2-3 minutes in the morning peak, 5-6 minutes from morning to evening and 10 minutes at other times.
I would suggest there is a simpler solution. Take, for example, the routes to Northgate and North (the ones I know best).
It seems to me with only a few minor changes, you could convert the 110 and 120 into a single all-day frequent limited stop route with articulated buses and enhanced bus stops. You could extend it up Calgary Trail/Gateway to Southgate or Century Park to act as a relief line for the LRT or have it mirror the 9 with fewer stops.
The downside is choke points will remain what they are now: the CN tracks and the river, along with the city's willingness to create and enforce bus lanes.
I lean this way because of the most successful route in NA for a long time: the 99 B-line across Vancouver. It has stops every 4-8 blocks, peak hour bus lanes, and service every 2-3 minutes in the morning peak, 5-6 minutes from morning to evening and 10 minutes at other times.
dkazzed
Active Member
The 99 was a bare minimum rapidbus implementation. Curb bus lanes in the peak hour direction that allowed parking otherwise, no special stops, no prioritization at major intersections, when you compare the time it takes for the 9 and 99 to get from UBC to Commercial-Broadway leaving at 4:20 and 4:30, it's 52 minutes vs. 47 minutes. It's just wildly successful as there is huge demand from Skytrain to South Granville business district and UBC. But if all we need is a dip our toes into the water "rapid" bus implementation while we study 98 B-Line in Richmond style rapid bus implementation for decades and decades, sure.
There used to be a UBC-Broadway Super Express (31 I believe) that used E 12th Ave all the way and made zero stops, and it was eventually canceled due to low ridership.
Kosy123
Senior Member
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have breached pre-pandemic LRT numbers, we're into the triple digits for daily ridership (100,000+) in the Q4 2024 APTA Ridership Report! That quarterly change is big.
thommyjo
Senior Member
Great to see. Anyone know VLSE latest numbers?
We need to keep filtering by the population growth though. Our ultimate goal is 50% of trips by transit, walking, biking. If we can’t even hit that in mature, central communities, we’ll never hit it in the burbs.
West valley will help a lot. More TODs, BRT, increased congestion driving mode changes. I still think we need bike share integrated with transit.
thommyjo
Senior Member
An area like Bonnie doon being 20% active modes in 2021, we need to see move to 30-40% in the next decade. Will that happen?
Blizzard
New Member
As always, I only have raw APC data before factoring for transfers, unique riders, or any other formulas that are applied along the way.
Kosy123
Senior Member
January 2025 having double the raw numbers from 2024 checks out. Just from anecdotal observation, the Valley Line has gotten much busier compared to last year.
Greenspace
Senior Member
Fiscal Gap Strategies Work Plan (from Fiscal Gap Report)
Evaluate City-controlled revenue streams: Evaluate all City-controlled revenue streams for opportunities to grow non-tax revenues, including opportunities to increase or introduce fees for services where insufficient or no cost is recovered from service consumers or directly benefiting parties. Revenue streams to be evaluated include, but are not limited to user fees; permits, licences and allowances; off-site levies and franchise fees.
Challenges
● User fee pricing for many categories has not kept pace with inflation, cost of service delivery, the growth in household incomes, or other economic benchmarks.
Examples include:
○ Recreation Adult Continuous Monthly Membership prices for Value Memberships in 2024 were 16 per cent below 2021 prices, when adjusting for inflation.
○ Transit Adult Cash Fares in 2024 were 16 per cent below their 2013 peak price, when adjusting for inflation.
○ Analysis shows similar trends for other ETS fare products and recreation admission/membership fees as evaluated in FCS02218 Capital and Operating Funding Shortfall Analysis Attachment 1 (October 2024).
● The growth of transit revenues, which consists largely of fare revenues, has not kept pace with the costs of delivering transit, with cost recovery rates declining sharply from 42 per cent in 2013 to 23 per cent in 2023. When transit revenues do not grow adequately and keep pace with the cost of service delivery, it places additional burden on the tax levy. The tax levy is already undergoing significant strain, and maintaining transit service levels through tax-support alone will be very challenging for the foreseeable future; to sustainably maintain transit service into the future and delivery on City Plan goals, transit revenues need to keep pace.
● Recreation and leisure centre user fee revenues have also not kept pace with the cost of service delivery, with cost recovery rates declining from 69 per cent in 2015 to 52 per cent in 2023. This has placed more burden on the tax levy. To ensure recreation services are sustainable, revenues from user fees need to keep pace.
Item 7.5 - https://pub-edmonton.escribemeeting...a=Agenda&lang=English&Item=24&Tab=attachments
Evaluate City-controlled revenue streams: Evaluate all City-controlled revenue streams for opportunities to grow non-tax revenues, including opportunities to increase or introduce fees for services where insufficient or no cost is recovered from service consumers or directly benefiting parties. Revenue streams to be evaluated include, but are not limited to user fees; permits, licences and allowances; off-site levies and franchise fees.
Challenges
● User fee pricing for many categories has not kept pace with inflation, cost of service delivery, the growth in household incomes, or other economic benchmarks.
Examples include:
○ Recreation Adult Continuous Monthly Membership prices for Value Memberships in 2024 were 16 per cent below 2021 prices, when adjusting for inflation.
○ Transit Adult Cash Fares in 2024 were 16 per cent below their 2013 peak price, when adjusting for inflation.
○ Analysis shows similar trends for other ETS fare products and recreation admission/membership fees as evaluated in FCS02218 Capital and Operating Funding Shortfall Analysis Attachment 1 (October 2024).
● The growth of transit revenues, which consists largely of fare revenues, has not kept pace with the costs of delivering transit, with cost recovery rates declining sharply from 42 per cent in 2013 to 23 per cent in 2023. When transit revenues do not grow adequately and keep pace with the cost of service delivery, it places additional burden on the tax levy. The tax levy is already undergoing significant strain, and maintaining transit service levels through tax-support alone will be very challenging for the foreseeable future; to sustainably maintain transit service into the future and delivery on City Plan goals, transit revenues need to keep pace.
● Recreation and leisure centre user fee revenues have also not kept pace with the cost of service delivery, with cost recovery rates declining from 69 per cent in 2015 to 52 per cent in 2023. This has placed more burden on the tax levy. To ensure recreation services are sustainable, revenues from user fees need to keep pace.
Item 7.5 - https://pub-edmonton.escribemeeting...a=Agenda&lang=English&Item=24&Tab=attachments
YEG Bus Rider
Active Member
thommyjo
Senior Member
The number of these under 70% is insane. We have to fix that. Glad they’re taking some steps currently, but we’ll need more.
YEG Bus Rider
Active Member
<70.0%:
Weekday: 2, 4, 7, 52, 54, 55, 56, 106, 110x, 111, 124, 128, 506, 508, 521, 524, 717, 726, 900x, 905, 918, 924, 925, 926
Saturday: 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 52, 54, 55, 56, 106, 107, 127, 128, 506, 511, 518, 521, 523, 524, 701, 726, 900x, 904, 907, 913, 914, 916, 918, 919, 923, 926
Sunday: 2, 7, 55, 56, 106, 107, 508, 518, 900x, 913, 916, 918, 923
Keep in mind, a number of routes have received travel time adjustments as of the Dec & Feb service changes.
Schedule blocking (interlining / deadheading), adjusted with each service change is also a factor, a delay on a trip/route can cascade.
YEG Bus Rider
Active Member
ETS Route Productivity - Fall 2024 vs Feb-Apr 2023
Bold - Route has more service hours (span of service, frequency)
Italics - Routing change.
Bold - Route has more service hours (span of service, frequency)
Italics - Routing change.