Grand River Transit
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On January 1, 2000 the Region of Waterloo created GRT by assuming the operations of the former Kitchener Transit (which also served Waterloo) and Cambridge Transit from the cities. By the end of that year, operations had been fully synchronised and buses began running between Cambridge and Kitchener; as a result, ridership in Cambridge improved dramatically.
In recent years, many new low-floor, wheelchair-accessible buses have been purchased, principally from Nova Bus, Orion, and New Flyer, and these now constitute the majority of the fleet. Most operating buses are less than twenty years old, though a few older buses are used primarily for high-school special runs. GRT has also in recent years installed bicycle racks on the front of its buses in order to encourage the use of sustainable transport; all standard and express buses now have these racks.
At present, GRT operates only buses, but in 2004, the Region began preliminary design work on an existing proposal to construct a light railway to provide higher-grade public transport. The initial stage would serve the main transportation corridor in Kitchener-Waterloo, using existing railway lines and on-street lanes to carry trains along 14 km of track to ten stations. Further expansion plans would bring the service south to Cambridge, and possibly north to St. Jacobs and Elmira. The Ontario government has given the plan its support, and the federal government has funded an environmental assessment, but no construction funding has been pledged. The light-rail proposal has received some criticism because it would run relatively infrequently (compared to other such systems; it would still outperform the Region's best bus services in its overall service capacity) and be limited by the narrow main streets of the area, which are often only two lanes in key downtown areas where it would not be feasible to remove any capacity for car traffic.
In the meantime, the Region will in September 2005 be launching, with the assistance of federal funding, an express bus service along the same central transit corridor to be served by the light railway. This corridor starts at Conestoga Mall in north Waterloo, and runs via Kitchener's Transportation Centre, Fairview Park Mall, the Bridgecam Power Centre, and the Cambridge Centre to Cambridge's downtown Ainslie Street bus terminal. GRT reports that the bus will run every fifteen minutes during peak times and every half-hour at midday, bear a distinctive livery to separate it from existing local services, take advantage of queue-jump lanes and other transit priority measures, and offer real-time passenger information at stations. The express bus is seen as a way to build up ridership in order to demonstrate the viability of the rail plan, though it alone is not considered sufficient to meet the Region's long-term needs.
Buses
- Motor Coach Industries TC40102N (Classic)
- Orion Bus Industries I 01.507
- Orion Bus Industries V 05.501
- Orion Bus Industries VI 06.501 Missing image
Wheelchair.jpg
- Orion Bus Industries VII 07.501 Missing image
Wheelchair.jpg
- New Flyer Industries D40LF Missing image
Wheelchair.jpg
- New Flyer Industries C40LF Missing image
Wheelchair.jpg
- NovaBus LFS Missing image
Wheelchair.jpg
- Ford minibus - F450 chassis Missing image
Wheelchair.jpg
Missing image
Wheelchair.jpg
Denotes wheelchair-accessible vehicles.
External links
- Grand River Transit web site (http://www.grt.ca/)
- Site for the express bus project (http://www.grt.ca/web/transit.nsf/vwArticles/TE-GR-TRA-LIN-3020?OpenDocument)
- Announcement of light-rail study work (http://www.region.waterloo.on.ca/web/region.nsf/%24All/16C470A0EF982A2A85256E95005C583A?OpenDocument)
- Region of Waterloo (http://www.region.waterloo.on.ca/)