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ETS Bus and General Transit Improvements

fromyeg said:
People who know more about buses than me, what are we going to be getting?

25 New Flyer Xcelsior Clean Diesels?
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ETS has a long term contract, so yes.
These 25 buses should be growth buses as that was an unfunded profile that was included in the Supplemental Capital Budget Adjustment. Presumably they approved the associated operating costs. Some of the buses will go towards converting some On Demand to fixed route that have achieved sufficient ridership.

It should be noted that replacement buses are dangerously underfunded.
 
CplKlinger said:
They'll also accept e-bikes and children's bikes!
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Principe and Elliott proposed to cancel funding for bike racks. Other new councillors - Morgan, Clarke, Parmar voted against that proposal along with rest of council.

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Blizzard said:
These numbers are very positive and a source of pride right now at ETS. Just everyone don't freak out too much when Q4 numbers are released and it shows a huge decline. The three weeks of school strike had ridership down 25% on the buses. LRT is not as affected but Q4 numbers will be brutal.
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Well, there's good new and bad news with September and October transit ridership. At first I thought things looked pretty good for October ridership. September was 5,853,408 October was 5,369, 681. Less than 500K less in October.
However. the numbers don't look as good compared to 2024 numbers. September 2024 was 6,082,678 and October 2024 6,447,161. About 230K difference September 2024 vs September 2025, and over 1,000,000 difference October 2024 vs October 2025.

So on one hand comparing 2025 to 2025 it looks ok, on the other hand comparing 2024 to 2025 though is significantly different.

Data from: https://data.edmonton.ca/Transit/Transit-Ridership/wj6v-epas/data_preview

Ridership in November 2024 then dropped to 5,471,805. I don't recall if there was anything that could have inflated the October 2024 number, but it does seem like an anomaly. I will be curious to see where November 2025 ridership ends up.
 
EdwardEdm said:
Well, there's good new and bad news with September and October transit ridership. At first I thought things looked pretty good for October ridership. September was 5,853,408 October was 5,369, 681. Less than 500K less in October.
However. the numbers don't look as good compared to 2024 numbers. September 2024 was 6,082,678 and October 2024 6,447,161. About 230K difference September 2024 vs September 2025, and over 1,000,000 difference October 2024 vs October 2025.

So on one hand comparing 2025 to 2025 it looks ok, on the other hand comparing 2024 to 2025 though is significantly different.

Data from: https://data.edmonton.ca/Transit/Transit-Ridership/wj6v-epas/data_preview

Ridership in November 2024 then dropped to 5,471,805. I don't recall if there was anything that could have inflated the October 2024 number, but it does seem like an anomaly. I will be curious to see where November 2025 ridership ends up.
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We've been mulling this over as well. The 500-level routes are noticibly down from 2024 to 2025. Valley Line took a minor ridership hit as well in November year/year. We only had vague ideas why but then this story was published out of Brampton that gave us something to chew on --> https://www.bramptonguardian.com/ne...cle_75df02a1-01da-5133-a1e2-ebf9be07e46a.html

We really try our best to remove demographics and assumptions about areas of the city from the equation when looking holistically at city-wide trends but I think - specifically in the case of southeast Edmonton - there might be something going on here.
 
EdwardEdm said:
Well, there's good new and bad news with September and October transit ridership. At first I thought things looked pretty good for October ridership. September was 5,853,408 October was 5,369, 681. Less than 500K less in October.
However. the numbers don't look as good compared to 2024 numbers. September 2024 was 6,082,678 and October 2024 6,447,161. About 230K difference September 2024 vs September 2025, and over 1,000,000 difference October 2024 vs October 2025.
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Bus:
Sep 2024 - 4.2M
Sep 2025 - 4.06M (4% decline YOY)

Oct 2024 - 4.45M
Oct 2025 - 3.69M (17.2% decline, weekday down 18% due to the teacher’s strike)

Valley Line:
Sep 2024 - 279,000
Sep 2025 - 288,000 (3% increase)

Oct 2024 - 296,685
Oct 2025 - 279,003 (5.9% decline)
 
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YEG Bus Rider said:
Bus:
Sep 2024 - 4.2M
Sep 2025 - 4.06M (4% decline YOY)

Oct 2024 - 4.45M
Oct 2025 - 3.69M (17.2% decline, weekday down 18% due to the teacher’s strike)

Valley Line:
Sep 2024 - 279,000
Sep 2025 - 288,000 (3% increase)

Oct 2024 - 296,685
Oct 2025 - 279,003 (5.9% decline)

I’ve been concerned about immigration policy & ridership implications for a while. TransLink is also forecasting slower ridership growth. I'll even suspect immigration policy changes is why the federal budget made changes to CPTF funding and scope.

Hopefully transit safety efforts, open payment for Arc, bus priority lanes and ongoing adjustment to routes will mitigate reverse/potential decline between now and upcoming 4-year budget deliberations...

I assume the decline is route 500x and weekday peak/midday on other 500 routes? City wide - How are the non-500 series routes doing?

How is route 516 doing in particular?
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We need the valley line to get up over 500k/month. West leg will help SE ridership I’m sure by just adding norquest/macewan.

But man. The net increase in ridership for 2bil needs to be stronger.
 
thommyjo said:
We need the valley line to get up over 500k/month. West leg will help SE ridership I’m sure by just adding norquest/macewan.

But man. The net increase in ridership for 2bil needs to be stronger.
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norquest/macewan + all of downtown & oliver connected and WEM. I would expect the west leg to more than double the numbers of the SE leg
 
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