GO buses underway
November 02, 2009
By Jeff Outhit, Record staff
WATERLOO REGION — Maureen Dooley took a bus Sunday to see her daughter in Mississauga and was pretty happy about it.
She was among the first passengers on the new GO Transit bus service that launched Saturday.
“It’s great. It’s about time,†Dooley said. “We really need it.â€
Dooley and her husband Brian paid just under $25 for two return tickets to Mississauga, at the senior discount rate. The noon-hour bus took them from the Kitchener bus terminal on Charles Street to the Square One mall.
“We’ll be using it probably every other week,†she said. “We’re thrilled.â€
There were 38 people heading to Mississauga on her bus Sunday. It was slightly more than half full, after collecting some passengers in Waterloo.
Driver Alexis Gene said there were about 25 people per bus on Saturday, fewer on Sunday morning.
Commuter service kicks off Monday. The provincial transit service expects its buses will eventually carry 800 to 1,200 passengers a day between this region and Mississauga.
GO buses stop at two Waterloo universities and in Cambridge at Hespeler Road and Highway 401. Other park-and-ride sites are planned.
The buses do not go directly to Toronto.
On weekday mornings, two buses take passengers to the Milton GO station, where trains leave for Union Station. Kitchener to Union Station takes up to two hours, 12 minutes.
Most GO buses end at the Square One transit terminal. This trip takes up to one hour, 22 minutes.
Buses are pitched as a precursor to GO trains, which are under consideration for this region.
Bruce Norgren is happy to see GO service arrive and would be thrilled to see trains extended here. He drives to the Milton GO station, on his daily commute from Waterloo to downtown Toronto.
But he does not plan to ride the GO buses to Milton.
That’s because there’s no parking where passengers are collected, and because his current commute would get even longer, perhaps by an hour or more per day.
“For the five-day-a-week working commuter, this schedule just does not work. It adds extra time,†Norgren said. He sees GO buses as catering to students and casual travellers.
Sunday bus passengers Graham Goulet and Ana Perunicic said they too would prefer trains over buses.
“It may be faster,†said Perunicic. She was taking the GO bus to visit a library in Mississauga.
jouthit@therecord.com