[drum118]

Shuttle returns to Mississauga Centre and 62-63 expansion

Mississauga Council approved the startup of the shuttle bus service for the city centre starting on Dec 3rd.

This service will run every 25 minutes 7 days a week. It will be not free thanks heaven and will be regular fare.

Reading the report at council for the first time it said you get no transfer if you want to transfer to another route. During discussion, it was stated that you could use a transfer to get on it and then it was said you would get a transfer. There was confusion on council as what was taking place with the fare.

I left with the understanding it will be like any other MT route.

An EZ will be added to this route.

The route is by Rathburn from Sq One Terminal, Confederation, Webb, Burnhamthorpe, Kariya, Enfield, Hurontario, Burnhamthorpe and then Robert Speck one way.

I made the recommendation of using Elm, in place of Enfield onto Mississauga Valley Blvd, Arista, Burnhamthorpe and then Robert Speck. This taps into the large condo's, apartment and senior buildings that only see 60 minutes on Sat, no service on Sunday and 35 minutes after 7pm along the route.

I know a number of owners from 1 Elm W buildings and the townhome condos to the west have made presentation before council asking for better service and this would help them.

Going the other route will attract no real riders in the first place.

At the end of the day, this shuttle will see poor ridership as the old one was cancel because of low ridership and no one wanting to pickup the cost of the free shuttle service in the first place.

The city is looking at Sq One to pickup some or all of the $376,600 operating cost as well other business. No wrap other than "MY Mississauga" at a cost of $12,00/bus is to be on the bus regardless who funds the shuttle. Will require 4 more drivers.

In 2008, the 2 GO shuttles that only operate at peak time will now become a regular route offer both direction service as well expanded into the city core. 62 and 63 shuttle as well the new shuttle expansion will be review in a years time as startup. I asked for a 6 month review with real numbers as well cost ratio. The cost ratio is to be apply to all MT routes and the info provided to council. This will require 3 more drivers as well $334,800.

All the shuttle routes will become regular routes with better service meeting with GO train/bus at Cooksville.

You will have the option of paying GO $.55 fare or regular fare to ride the 62-63 and I support this.

 

[doady]

Pointless...

 

[khris]

The city centre bus is pretty stupid.

However, the shuttle buses running all day could be alright. But then the idea of hearing those noisy stupid buses running on my street all day would possibly make me want to murder someone.

 

[doady]

Noisy buses take cars of the road, so there is less noise overall

 

[junctionist]

It's Mississauga, where cars make music and buses make noise

 

[khris]

Doady have you heard how loud those buses are? The long articulated buses are quieter than those tiny shuttle buses.

 

[doady]

Doady have you heard how loud those buses are? The long articulated buses are quieter than those tiny shuttle buses.

Yeah true they seem too noisy for their size. But they are actually quieter than the older minibuses they are replacing. Those old buses are extremely loud.

 

[khris]

Yeah true they seem too noisy for their size. But they are actually quieter than the older minibuses they are replacing. Those old buses are extremely loud.

Oh they won't be using those loud tiny ones anymore? NICE! I did see a weird bus the other day now that I think about it. It was kinda medium size.

 

[doady]

Oh, I thought you were refering to the new buses, so I was confused about your comment on the loudness of the buses. I understand you now, the old mini buses are indeed ridiculously loud. I think most of them have been retired in the past month now that their replacements have arrived.

 

[FutureMayor]

I'm going to have to challenge you when you state that the free city centre shuttle was cancelled because of poor ridership. Ridership was booming especially after Mississauga Transit took over the service and it introduced east and west routes.

It was well used and loved by many. As chair of the city's youth committee at the time, I was the only one who spoke against its cancellation at city council.

I successfully got city council to delay the decision by a month until further consultation was made. The consultation was basically transit management sitting down with me to explain their financial burden of running the service. This was before the condo boom in the city centre and my take was that the city should ask the developers for more money or charge 50 cents for the service. They weren't willing to pay more at the time, however if the city had just waited 2-3 more years, those new condo projects would have come on stream and would probably be willing to pay for the service as it would be a huge selling feature for buyers. At that time, the drivers weren't part of the union and we would have opened a can of worms if they had to start dealing with money. Lame excuses in my opinon and hundreds of thousands of riders lost a valuable service.

The major problem at the time, was that the service was an economic intiative to encourage development in the city centre. The primary purpose was to help office workers get around, not for residents.

It's one the biggest planning mistakes city council made, and many of them expressed to me that they regret the decision.

Louroz

 

[khris]

Oh, I thought you were refering to the new buses, so I was confused about your comment on the loudness of the buses. I understand you now, the old mini buses are indeed ridiculously loud. I think most of them have been retired in the past month now that their replacements have arrived.

Hmmm now that I think about it... I haven't heard them lately! Haha. Only once in awhile.

 

[drum118]

I'm going to have to challenge you when you state that the free city centre shuttle was cancelled because of poor ridership. Ridership was booming especially after Mississauga Transit took over the service and it introduced east and west routes.

It was well used and loved by many. As chair of the city's youth committee at the time, I was the only one who spoke against its cancellation at city council.

I successfully got city council to delay the decision by a month until further consultation was made. The consultation was basically transit management sitting down with me to explain their financial burden of running the service. This was before the condo boom in the city centre and my take was that the city should ask the developers for more money or charge 50 cents for the service. They weren't willing to pay more at the time, however if the city had just waited 2-3 more years, those new condo projects would have come on stream and would probably be willing to pay for the service as it would be a huge selling feature for buyers. At that time, the drivers weren't part of the union and we would have opened a can of worms if they had to start dealing with money. Lame excuses in my opinon and hundreds of thousands of riders lost a valuable service.

The major problem at the time, was that the service was an economic intiative to encourage development in the city centre. The primary purpose was to help office workers get around, not for residents.

It's one the biggest planning mistakes city council made, and many of them expressed to me that they regret the decision.

Louroz

Where do I start??????????

What was the most number of riders you saw on those shuttles?

What percentage of vacancy for the office building existed then?

Talk to your good friend about the cost and ridership since she call for the cancellation and support it. It is like the talk now that the City is considering selling the LAC as it is a money drain. The city just wrote off $125,000 out standing debit for a group and your friend gave them $60,000 to start fresh.

If anyone outside of MT or the city is willing to fund the full cost of a free shuttle go for it. There is no such thing as free as someone has to pay for it.

You just said developers would charge the owners of those condo's the cost to fund it. Cost to operate such a free shuttle goes up yearly and now what do you do when that $.50 does cover the operation cost anymore?

As to the lost of hundreds of thousands riders, I did not know MT had that many riders. MT carries about 85,000 riders a day.

If you look closely to who was using the free shuttle, it was the residents on Webb. Rest of the routes saw next to no riders even at peak time.

The residents on Webb as well the other riders were not willing to pay anything toward to keep be the buses on the road unless it was free.

The maximum walking time is 10 minutes from any point of the existing route to get to Sq One. Most of this time is lost by traffic lights. The area around Sq One falls within the 400m or 5 minute walking distance to a transit stop.

The area around Sq One is GOING to be residential not commercial as plan. The city has already reduce the sq footage for commercial.

Your serve.

 

[khris]

Is this the new buses?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pace_2692.jpg

That replaced these:
http://busexplorer.com/PHP/MidPage.php?id=284

 

[drum118]

I was just told that route 3 is been reline by using Elm and Kariya for Dec changes.

This mean that the 3 will not use Central Parkway anymore even for the Sunday change.

202 express stop at Central Parkway is been relocated to Elm and about time since I have call for this for this move from day one as it has the higher trip generator in the first place.

No longer have to deal with close doors on 19 now at that stop.

 

[Anth]

I was just told that route 3 is been reline by using Elm and Kariya for Dec changes.

This mean that the 3 will not use Central Parkway anymore even for the Sunday change.

This sounds like a good improvement. The 3 would avoid Hurontario altogether (not worth the two stops on it, one of which is on Elm anyway), especially the brutal left turn onto Central Parkway, where the driver has to sharply make three lane changes over from the curb and then usually wait an entire light cycle in the left turn lane since traffic is so heavy.