Sorry, i searched several times for a transit network redesign thread (which i thought we had, idk sometimes this site doesn't search/organize properly for me) but couldn't find anything; so i'll share this here because it's somewhat related:
I was down on River Valley road today, thinking about transit. This area has a lot of our best-used river parks, with Victoria Park hosting all kinds of rentals in the summer and skating all winter. down the road, just across the river, Hawrelak hosts some of the biggest festivals in the province by daily attendance, with access via a single gate and some bike paths. It's perennially awkward for people outside of walking/biking distance to access these places, especially during festivals. There's nothing on the Bus Network Redsign map, butI think a transit solution could solve this.
I came up with a bus route that would connect the West-Central River Valley to the LRT, allowing for rider interchange and easy access to the entire transit system. Starting at U of A, the bus would drive down 87th and go down Groat Road. this would be limited stops, like an express. it would only stop at the Hawrelak/Emily Murphy parks stops, before continuing across the bridge. once on River Valley Road, the bus would stop at both Victoria Park parking lots, as well as the Glenora Club, before climbing the hill to the Legislature. the bus would stop at the TC there, before continuing to Corona Station, where it would stop along 107 street for. The bus would finally run up to 102nd, where it would turn right, stop next to Alex Decoteau, then continue around the block to Jasper, where it would do the return run. The end result is a circulator bus running from LRT stations (and all 3 lines) at both ends that connects two of our biggest festival/special event parks in the Valley. The logic of having the two end-points (instead of running out of just U of A the way Heritage Festival buses do, for example) is to reduce turnaround bottlenecks, provide better options and more convenient access to the rest of the transit network, and to accommodate park-hopping for riders not trying to leave the valley.
To make this work, the bus would have to run evenings and weekends, year-round. maybe not super frequently, but it needs to run during leisure hours so people use it, and it needs to run even when no special events are on. Evenings and weekends are when this area is busiest, and the bus would both see the most use and get the most exposure (so people think to use it another time) This is so people recognize/remember the bus is there, and trust it to run serviceably. that way they actually choose to take transit, rather than drive to the park and magically expect to find a parking spot in the middle of the river valley (for example, the victoria skating oval was a shitshow all winter this year, every friday-saturday-sunday. people weren't expecting crowds and no one planned to park and walk down, it was a mess. the city had marshals in the lot all the time to deal with it). People need to know that there is a reliable bus to get there where they want to go.
This would also improve accessibility to the valley for the mobility impaired; Hawrelak, Victoria, and the RVR trail are all pretty tame and walk/rollable, but getting to them requires a car right now. even one of those vincinity short buses would solve that. As well, having transit in the valley would help out-of-towners access it. we don't want parking and auto traffic in the valley, but that's how people coming in to Edmonton tend to navigate the city. by offering bussing, tied to the existing LRT and park and rides we have, transit becomes a more reasonable option. As well, we're pushing for more transit usage region-wide; transit to Edmonton's river valley festivals needs to be part of that. we gotta build habits and positive associations with the bus, a handy bus that gets you to the river valley from the train would be a big part of that.
