North America’s Next Big City Has a Great Transit Plan
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- Опубликовано: 27 окт 2024
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You probably haven’t heard of the city Winnipeg if you aren’t Canadian or well-versed with Canadian geography, but this medium-sized provincial capital might just be quietly becoming the next big Canadian transit city with its… buses?
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8:38 The thing is, Winnipeg has infinite rail corridors in every nook and cranny of the city, as well as some of the biggest urban rail yards in the world. Winnipeg may be a bus city as you say, but is just as much of a rail city, historically and to this very day. Trains are everywhere, it's just that none of them carry passengers any more 😿
Winnipeg should have an intercity rail system that doesn't just better connect with the rest of Canada, but also one that is integrated into the US Amtrak system. Winnipeg to Minneapolis-Saint Paul or even to Chicago should be a no brainer.
@@goldenstarmusic1689 apparently bringing back the train from Winnipeg to Saint Paul is being looked at as part of Minnesota's State Rail Plan
@@goldenstarmusic1689 Winnipeg to Chicago via Minneapolis and Milwaukee would be such an underrated route
@@YoungThos That would be amazing. I would 110% take that.
@@YoungThos Good luck getting CN/CP/BNSF to even entertain that idea.
1: as an Ottawa resident, rail was definitely an upgrade over the transitway, I think you are spending too much time listening to suburbanites on r/ottawa
2: there are cities in Europe half of size of Winnipeg that have Full built out LRT networks or even a metro line or 2, it is truly ridiculous that these plans aren’t for rail, yet another entry on the ever growing pile of North American transit projects that should be rail.
I haven't watched the video yet, but I know that Winnipeg's BRT plan is designed to be able to be easily converted to rail at a later time, the idea being that BRT is cheaper and faster to implement.
Don't get me wrong, I'm fully supportive of LRT over BRT, but thanks to sprawl and years and years of property tax freezes, Winnipeg has no money to play with.
maybe those european cities don't have the same density
They would be rail if it weren't for the Anglosphere method of managing the planning, design, and construction of railway projects that makes rail transit construction inordinately expensive. Over my lifetime transit new system construction has gone from heavy rail metro to light rail to streetcar to bus rapid transit. And BRT is subject to BRT creep which turns a plan for genuine BRT into a fancy bus line in mixed traffic.
@@samul7531 part of the problem of comparing NA to Europe is density. Winnipeg has some of the biggest urban sprawl of any city in Canada and even NA. We do not have density. At all. Our footprint is massive with minimal hubs. So where a European city may have density to support a lrt or two, it may not make sense here.
@@kevinandrew_ The money argument against LRT comes up a lot in Winnipeg, but I just don't buy it. Realistically any major transit project would involve significant provincial and federal funding anyway. If Winnipeg genuinely does have less fiscal capacity to build high-quality transit than other cities in Canada, that's just another reason the city can ask higher levels of government to fund an increased share of these projects. Winnipeg is far from the only major-ish city in Canada to struggle with sprawl and property taxes (Toronto comes to mind...) and the province receives equalization payments from the federal government for the specific purpose of alleviating regional disparities in the quality of services. Winnipeg needs to commit to an ambitious plan, the province needs to champion it, and all three levels of government need to share the cost fairly in order to get it done.
WINNIPEG MENTIONED
LET"S GOOO!
On that note, shout-out to the Dear Winnipeg blog, one of the best Strong Towns finance blogs out there, all about Winnipeg! It's seriously great, whether you're from there or not.
Worst capital in Canada lol
Winterpeg was indeed mentioned
@@idontevenhavestuffWinnipeg hater
Halifax just elected a new mayor who ran ads about the need to build MORE LANES! to the subburbs despite our already impenetrable downtown traffic. HELP!
Luckily most of the councillors elected go directly against his ideas and are far more progressive towards the animist than the incumbents they replaced. So unfortunate that he’s a former planner who agrees with very little in modern planning practice.
Same here (Winnipeg) with our current mayor actually. Which is why the above mentioned, really nice TMP currently has an implementation date of 2050 but nobody expects it to actually happen that "fast". Because instead we really need to widen one of our already widest roads because ONE MORE LANE is really gonna fix it this time.
He also campaigned on implementing the BRT that we've been talking about for years. He is pro transit.
More bus lanes please
@@RMTransit now how many bus lanes is too much? Does more bus lanes improve bus traffic. Whereas too much car lanes doesn’t improve car traffic
I live in a Canadian city that's "too small" for rail based rapid transit. If you need transit take the bus. The bus service is horrible so there's major pressure to drive. This has created a population that pushes for stroads, highway expansions and lots of parking. Pedestrianization and bike lane projects face significant backlash from the driving "majority." By the time we've grown enough to be worthy rail based rapid transit, the sprawl and car dependency will make refitting the area with rail based rapid transit much harder than it would be if we started today. Even now, the issues caused by car dependency are pretty brutal, so it's going to be a looong wait until we reach that magic 1 million population number that gets the rail conversation started
4:47 Portage and Main is currently in the process of being reopened to pedestrians for the first time in my lifetime (and I'm old 😅). I think I might fly back on the day it opens just to experience the wondrous magic of finally crossing the street at grade 🎉
As someone who has had to cross the street upstream of Portage & Main, you don't want to have to cross at street level. It sucks.
@@BrenBrenMartin I've crossed upstream, downstream and weststream of our beloved historic Portage and Main, the Windiest Intersection in Canada™. And now I want to cross in the heart of the beast and marvel at the skyscrapers on all four corners while remembering the time Bobby Hull signed the first million dollar contract in the history of pro hockey in the middle of that very same intersection.
Really exciting, sad it took this situation for it to happen.
Winnipeg has great transit... If you live in 3 specific spots, and only ever need to get to 3 other specific spots. Mostly along that shiny BRT route that isn't even remotely like any other route in the city.
The other 99% of the city is a joke for transit - nothing like hiking half a mile in the dead of winter, getting to your fully exposed stop 20 minutes early, waiting up to an hour for multiple busses that never come, then watching the one and only bus that does arrive pass you by because it's full. Great experience.
Winnipeg's transit is (currently) ... not great. I hope you're willing to wait 35 min for a bus that's on average 5-10 min late. In winter, 4x that delay. Started bike commuting because it's on average about the same speed AND don't have to worry about delays. The final nail in the coffin is although we have a very ambitious 2050 transportation overhaul plan, the city council just recently announced that they've already begun to make cuts to transit (bus garage) because they're worried it will cut into the funding of the Kenaston (stroad) widening project :/
That Main Street bus garage is ancient and decrepit, it needed replacement decades ago.
its a pretty good plan, as someone who takes the blue line everyday to university, i just wish it had more capacity. often busses are filled to the brim by the time it goes by. also offpeak wait times are a bit excessive. another thing i felt was missing is the transit connection to the Blue Bombers stadium, which has really improved the stadium experience
If you glance through the master transit plan map as I have, you will see that they plan to extend the blue line so that it goes through the U of M grounds and crosses the Red to get to St. Vital Mall on a new proposed multi-use Transit/pedestrian/cycling bridge. They plan on building it to go through some of the university's agricultural land and connect to River Rd. across the river and catch either the proposed Rose or Orange lines.
Winnipeg should be where an Edmonton-Saskatoon-Winnipeg and Calgary-Regina-Winnipeg line for VIA meet but for whatever reason no one has the ambition for VIA to do that or reopen the Saskatoon-Regina line.
There should be a Twin Cities to Winnipeg train line by way of Fargo as well. We don't even have a proper intercity bus in that corridor!
A high speed intercity rail corridor on the prairies would be incredible. And just imagine what a line running (one day) on TGV speeds between Calgary and Vancouver could do.
@@planefan082 Far too much distance, far too little people, and the terrain is insane, both in the Rockies and the Prairies. Having seen the millions of tiny lakes and water holes that dot Saskatchewan, the amount of necessary groundwork even in this relatively flat area would be massive.
@@goldenstarmusic1689 apparently bringing back the Winnipeg to Saint Paul train is being looked at as part of Minnesota's State Rail Plan 👀
@@ZontarDow I believe this used to be the case, as the "union" in Union Station was where CN and CP came together, and I think one of them went to Calgary while the other one went Edmonton (?), but VIA was only able to keep the Edmonton route going when they took over.
That map of a proposed Winnipeg subway system looks like every early game of Mini-Metro that I ever played.
It really is the "optimal" subway!
I spent some time in Winnipeg this past spring, and I was surprised at just how easy it was to get around without a car. The buses are surprisingly frequent (much more so than any equivalent city in the States), even on weekends and at night. The biggest issue is that outside the busway the bus stops are not at all well maintained.
Part of that has to do with rampant vandalism, honestly the glass at the local bus shelter got broken multiple times per week before transit just stopped bothering to replace the glass because of cost. The people breaking the glass are homeless with mental health and addictions issues and for whatever reason smashing the glass is something they do here that I don't really understand.
Bus stops are important! Especially in a city with a climate like Winnipeg! Its obviously not the most important thing, but it makes a real difference for passengers.
From Edmonton here - I really enjoyed this analysis of Winnipeg's transit system - so much potential with those plans. Hope the funding falls in place soon. And I'm so envious of Winnipeg's Union Station. Love these profiles of Canadian city transit systems including the one in YEG. Thanks!
Thanks for watching!
Sounds great! The only problem is Winnipeg is full of Winnipeggers and will automatically dislike anything involving downtown, transit, and change. (Not they like how it is now, they just have no vision). In my hippy street car suburb, I have already seen a petition complaining about adding buses to my street (because of noise/people) and how it will make bus stops farther away (?)
Yeah, small prairie cities have a terrible attitude to transit -- people see it as something for 'the poors' and assume that it will be dangerous and will bring dangerous people into their nice safe suburb. The default assumption is that everybody drives, and anyone who doesn't can be driven around by their family, since they're obviously a child or a dependent adult.
As a Winnipegger who grew up in the city, I think this isn't as true as pessimistic people say it is, and I don't think I grew up that far from where you live. To be fair though that neighborhood's always been... a certain way about things. I think you'll find that it's, at least from an urban planning perspective, more conservative than a lot of the folks around it, either just across the river or just across Portage.
Of course people who know nothing about transit know nothing about how it would affect their lives. We're asking people the wrong questions; figure out what broader change people want in their lives, what's bothering them and why, and let the professionals figure out the best way to serve those priorities
@@kathrynstemler6331 the Winnipegger is to Winnipeg as the Parisian is to Paris 😅
@@jrochest4642Winnipeg is already a crime-ridden, random assault dump.
Norman Wilson's 1959 Winnipeg Subway Plan mentioned! 🥳
700k+ population is NOT SMALL
In Germany 90% of cities >100k population have trams. You don't always need long ones.
Busses have advantages for low ridership, for areas with lower density. But trams result in better air quality/lower asthma rates and with extra lanes there could just be rails.
And it's not like you could only have one or the other. You just have trams for heavy duty lines and busses otherwise.
Have you been to Winnipeg. It's tough work maintaining roads with harsh long winters. And you want to make that order of magnitude harder with trams?
Plus trams to where? A transfer station to another transfer station? You're likely getting on a bus no matter what. Yes 100k is smaller than 700k but you're only thinking budget with that statement. Winnipeg is 7x the population but probably 9x the area. You'd simply be awkwardly be placing an alternative form or transit in the middle of a greater network. Causing huge problems in the decades of interm, all for the virtue of potential small increase in air quality in a city that already has amazing air quality(when there aren't forest fires).
As a Winnipeger yeah I would love to ride a LRT too. But I'm also a realist. We need to rebuild our neighborhoods first and reduce our need to commute so far across the city also. And frankly that's decades away.
Europe got to do a lot of what they did largely thanks to a more stable population growth and greater existing infrastructure. Western Canada meanwhile was like laying track as the train was already rolling. And now we are reorganizating from that chaos.
You do not think it is small. You have a different definition and mental scale from me, that is ok!
@@RMTransit What about the other points in the post. Sure all terms subjective are just that subjective. But the point of @cyrusol was that apparently cities with 700 000/800 000 can just use busses, it may even be preffered. That raises the question if you were to build transit from the ground up in basically almost all cities in Europe would choose to use just busses? If not, there may be a lot more at play than big or small whatever your subjective concept of those terms may be.
I was with you until you said that there was no need for rail. I'm all for building BRT and I think that it's a good way to get a transit system started, but Winnipeg is absolutely big enough to have a Stadtbahn-style system, or a French-style minimetro. 750000 people is well into "rail city" territory. It should expand, develop and improve bus service, but should definitely also plan for rail in the medium term. That said, the current plans are pretty cool, and we shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of good. But still, rail should be on the drawing board.
@@wasmic5z if rail is warranted in Quebec City, it is also warranted in Winnipeg. Both cities have identical metro populations. The idea that buses are good enough for a city like Winnipeg is mildly patronizing, but one that we are used to hearing, even from the former mayor (Sam Katz)
YES YES YES! I was so confused when he said that. Other Cities that Size have a Stadtbahn and a Tram and Suburban Rail, so that Statement was just baffling to me.
Yes but you also are discounting the presence of NFI in Winnipeg. When the biggest bus factory in Canada is 5km from Winnipeg Transit's main facility. That's an economic factor that's very hard to discount. Then remember that unlike Europe, Winnipeg doesn't have light rail workers, builders, designers, and technicians in adjacent cities. And while Winnipeg has stupidly cheap electricity, we kinda also have very cheap fuel prices compared to Europe too.
It's a matter of not letting Great interfere with this enough. While the designs are cool, he didn't talk about the timelines which are far longer than is encouraging. And require things like new bridges being built and the like.
Also this is only discussing major lines, there's massive rework needed on secondary routes too. Like my condo has a bus stop out front, but it only operates Monday to Friday and only during regular work commute. There is a nearby stop that goes to the nearest bus hub. But we are talking 3-5 transfers to get to any possible location in the city. Or the the double number route (all long range routes in Winnipeg are double numbered eg 11, 77, 55) is over a km of walking to the nearest stop.
Those smaller cities actually have it easier because they have that much less area to service with LRT.
New Flyer isn't a reason for bidding the wrong system. That's just politics skewing the discussion. Get out of here with that, we don't owe them everything.
@@YoungThos Metro population is only one factor in a long list that are needed to determine whether rail is *needed*. I think the idea that someone suggesting a mode or not is patronizing is a real stretch. Rails aren't what makes transit good! Toronto has a whole streetcar network that absolutely is worse than many bus networks.
I took the train from Winnipeg to Churchill in 2006 and will never forget it. Every aspect of the trip - arriving in Winnipeg, waiting for my train in Union Station, traveling north into the tundra - was exceptionally pleasant. If Churchill wasn't located in such an ecologically sensitive area, I'd gladly repeat the trip again. Winnipeg itself was a treat to visit even then, and I loved how active and lively the downtown core felt.
And that train currently has no meal service.
@@andrewinnj I took the Winnipeg - Churchill train in May 2006. What I do remember is that very few Churchill passengers boarded in Winnipeg. It was much faster to take a bus to one of the intermediate stops (possibly Thompson).
@@jameslovestokyo on the journey back from Churchill, our train was cleared because of track condition issues and we took a bus the rest of the way back to Winnipeg from Thompson. That was still incredible because the bus was warm and very comfortable and the Northern Lights put on a show through the night.
On the point about Ottawa, my experience here has been that the O-train has had some high profile problems which I think has soured people's evaluations of it, but in terms of rider experience it has been (at least for me) a huge improvement over any bus I've taken in the city. I also bike, bus, walk, and sometimes drive, but if it makes sense for my trip, the O-train is by far my favourite way to get around the city. There are certainly good practical arguments you can make for buses over trains, but pound for pound trains are just more enjoyable imo.
As a former Winnipeger I found this video amusing. A lot of Ifs that will never come to pass. So sad that there used to be a streetcar system and a planned subway. Subway plans were scrapped due to cost and the streetcars routes were all replaced with buses. If they had built the subway in the 1950s then the city and its downtown would now be a thriving metropolis. Instead it’s never going to be more than it currently is.
@@travisjohnston2333 as a fellow former Winnipegger, I also look at all of this with a fair bit of skepticism. I don't know if we would have become a thriving metropolis, but I think we could have prevented much of the ensuing sprawl and kept the urban core from falling apart - which would have already been a huge improvement! So much wasted potential with all the great old neighbourhoods in and around the city centre 😿
And cost of living would be more expensive
I live in London, Ontario. It used to have streetcar lines up until 1949 or so. They were yanked out and replaced with busses. To sweeten the deal, GM Diesel built a bus manufacturing plant in the east end of the city. Today, that plant is owned by General Dynamics and it manufactures wheeled fighting vehicles for the US and Canadian military.
In its current form, the public transit system in London is a dog's breakfast. It's slow, inconvenient, and persists in using the downtown core as a sort of makeshift transit hub. This is because city council have had a Quixotic obsession with trying to revitalize the downtown core, and think that if you just put the bus stops there, people will shop and dine just like they did when the downtown area had its heyday in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Problem is, despite 30 years of efforts to revitalize the core, nothing has worked. Nobody goes downtown unless they must, because the junkies, the homeless and the street drug dealers have invaded and the city won't do anything about them. There is little to go downtown for, anyway. Parking is scarce, hard to access, and expensive.
A bus rapid transit transit system is supposed to be in place by 2027, but it's shaping up to be a fraction of what was promised, and as an added bonus, there is a $150 million cost overrun that will prevent the BRT system from ever reaching its full potential.
Winnipeg is thousands of miles ahead of London.
As someone who moved here from Toronto 4 years ago I think you're wrong. Things are slowly changing and I feel like even since I've gotten here I've seen several good changes; bike lanes in osborne village, infill development in osborne village and river heights, densification downtown etc. I'm excited to see the future, and honestly I feel like the biggest barrier is people who want better but tell themselves it can't happen
A subway system could have served as the spine of a Montreal-style underground city. Would have helped take the edge off in the winter
I live in a French city half the population of Winnipeg - which has a comprehensive tram network (plus a couple of proper BRTs to temporarily plug the gaps). This is hilarious.
Yes hilarious how you assume it's just so simple. But hey assume infinite budget but not infinitely quick build times. And you let me know how you would layout a tram network in Winnipeg. Btw you only get 8 months a year to build because winter here equals full stop on that type of construction.
Winnipeg used to have a great streetcar system that served pretty much the entire city at the time. Our short-sighted forefathers ripped everything up in the 50s and replaced it with the bus network you see today. It really is laughable, especially considering the rails have outlived the roads that were paved over them.
Winnipeg had a light rail system it was ripped up to make room for cars like pretty much all the others in North America.
France has a long history of tram construction at low costs as well as enormous rail engineering expertise that Canada does not have.
Half the population In terms of the metro area size or in terms of the city limits size?
Keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of the Winnipeg area's population is within Winnipeg city limits.
I'm a big fan of a lot of the plans for the future of our city, especially the Transit Master Plan (but the city also has other great urban development plans in general). We got some really visionary planners working here. Unfortunately what the city has lacked so far is funding and equally visionary politicians who care about more than just their re-election to get that funding in and spend it appropriately.
Work on the rapid transit system started 12 years ago and so far we only managed to get one line out of it. The TMP has been in development since 2019 and next summer will finally see the first step of implementation, but it will only be restructuring of the network, still no further expansion of the rapid transit in sight. We're moving at the absolute slowest possible snail pace here, which as a resident is extremely frustrating.
It does seem that pols aren't nearly enterprising enough, and its unfortunate because transit money has been flying from this federal government since 2015!
I very much enjoyed this video, never thought I'd see the day 🥹
The one issue I see with this plan is that the North American stigma around riding the bus is very present in Winnipeg, where it is mostly seen as a mode of transportation for the young and the poor with no other options.
Modern-day Winnipeg is a sprawling car-centric collection of stroads, and whenever I am back in town and explain to people that I am getting around by bus they look at me as if I were a space alien.
In my opinion, North Americans can more easily be "tricked" into using public transportation with a shiny new futuristic looking rail option than with regular old buses. Rightly or wrongly 😅
Speaking of open payment, you should do a video on tap tap cap, where riders can tap in and out as much as they need and only get charged the max day, week and month rate as long as they are using the same payment card. Offer everyone the opportunity to save without the stress to make additional decision in your day.
@@jonathangot this is the holy grail of fare simplification that every transit agency should be in the process of implementing. Not having to think about it makes for a much better experience for transit users and can only lead to more ridership. Here in Montreal I am constantly doing calculations to figure out what my best fare options are for any given day, week or month when I have multiple trips to make.
We at least now have integrated fares across the region and a way to buy them on our phones (instead of having to line up at the one machine they saw fit to install at the metro station), but it could be so much better
@@YoungThos SwissPass has nationally integrated fares and DB's rail+city option solves first- and last-mile transportation. Even if we could take high-speed rail from Kingston to Trois-Rivieres, you'd still need a car to get around reliably in the local area and buy three fares. I used to pay around $400 a month for national travel in Switzerland, I don't mind paying the same in Ontario if it includes absolutely everything from Windsor to Hawkesbury.
As a regular Winnipeg Transit user, there are multiple problems with our system, however, it does feel like there are people that work for the city that actually care about making the city a better more connected place to live. Lots of active transit is being built out, more protected bike paths and connections off the main roads. Its actually not the worst city to bike in.
The biggest issue has been and continues to be the idea that public transit needs to be profitable. They increase fares, don't have a good payment system, unless you're a student or have a monthly/season pass. We need free fare public transit, could easily afford to do so, but the more conservative and corruptable aspects of the city governance really doesn't want those surface parking lots to disappear.
On rail? I do think that we're just about at the point where this RT upgrade could and should be at least trolley style busses. NewFlyer (I used to work there) makes the electric double deckers and the trolley buses for other cities. We just don't use them in Manitoba because our other infrastructure is not the best. We're supposedly getting some electric busses soon, but haven't seen anything recently about it. The cost difference between going LRT and the buildout of the electric bus transitways, was not that much different. The bus system is just more efficient, for now. But the city wants to keep growing, so it just makes more sense to not do the work twice. Rose and Blue could and should be LRT.
@@itsgusgusmeow couldn't have said it better myself. In a province that has hydro, electrify as much as possible - I think Alberta already has enough money 🙃
Where light rail is concerned, if it's good enough for Quebec City (exact same metro population), it's good enough for Winnipeg.
I do hope that Winnipeg gets the funding it needs to put these plans in motion, and doesn't just get ignored by the province for years in favour of more highway projects like some other parts of the country.
Winnipeg is the only major city in Manitoba and there's an NDP government in so there's a pretty fair shot it's gonna get the funding, but you never know with these things.
That being said a lot of funding is going to necessary highway work. They are just finishing up the much needed Portage la Prairie Western bypass interchange.
They are doing the decades plus project of turning all intersections into interchanges on hwy 100(south Winnipeg bypass). First intersection at St Mary's Rd is nearly done now.
Lastly there is the final 18km doubling of hwy 1 through the Whiteshell provincial park. Now that Ontario is doing so on their side connecting to Kenora.
These all are big and long term projects that are for trade infrastructure and are costly too. And then there is massive expansion on healthcare facilities in the province too. I'm a builder and I've spent zero days this year on projects that weren't hospital expansions or new builds. And I'm not in a hospital targeted trade either.
@@MideoKuzeNDP government chose to freeze the gas tax for its citizens, that kinda defeats the purpose of getting transit funding. Wab hasn’t said anything about transit
Re Peggo: no points whatsoever on that one, no matter who we "beat" to getting a card. We were literally using the same fareboxes as the original trams right up until the Peggo card was introduced...which was about 3 years behind schedule, and it can take up to 48 hours for your card to register that you loaded money on it. If this card had been rolled out in 1995, that would be great. In 2016 or whenever they finally graced Winnipeggers with the 21st century innovation of a transit card, it's woefully inadequate.
Thanks for making a video I can send to my family and friends! I've been telling people about the transit plan and it's crazy how people who live here don't even consider Winnipeg transit as anything with potential and then just make jokes about stabbings.
I’m so impressed and in awe of this! As a Winnipegger thank you. This city is so backwards tho. We have roads that haven’t changed fr the 1950s and just seem stuck because yes we lack funding. There is vision but highly doubt it will happen as there needs someone with big ambitions to actually make it happen! The current rapid bus line had such hurdles then the first phase opened and then the second phases open sooooo many years later. The old mayor tried hard to get other rapid bus lines but wanted them to be able to change to lrt but it was like just build lrt off the bag. Then they want to move the train yards out of the city so maybe use those lines as a lrt lines. Anyway. The current mayor is working on opening portage and main to pedestrians. I do wish the city would do a SkyTrain like Vancouver. I always thought the first line should be Airport-Polo Park Mall- U of W - downtown - Union- u of m/stadium. That would have been such a good first SkyTrain line. Anyway good job on this vid!!
I mean should Winnipeg have better? Absolutely for a city its size, but all things considered, this 4 line BRT plan seems really good and ambitious! Like routing the busway through the train station canopy is genious! The only thing I can think might be missing might be an extension of the purple line up to the airport but apart from that this is an excellent and seemingly very feasible plan! The quicker they can start, the better!
But also I think youre seeing battery electric buses as more problematic than they really are. In the Nordics we've gone full steam ahead on electric buses across both Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Sweden, and they work just fine, more than fine even. I dont see how electric buses would be an issue in Winnipeg unless you just buy exceptionally bad battery electric buses like Proterra or Ebusco. And if you buy from New Flyer or Solaris then it shouldn't really be an issue. Heck Solaris has already built Bi-articulated battery buses for the Plusbus BRT line in Aalborg Denmark, and Malmö in Sweden are ordering the type too now. Plus they've built several buses for Bergen and Oslo, which have a similarly cold climate to Winnipeg. Adapting their BRT buses for North American use should be a piece of cake.
Being that the New Flyer factory is in our city, we would definitely be buying from them, there's too much economic incentive not to.
I'd love to see your take on the Cancelation of the green line in Calgary since it was recently canceled. I liked your video on the green line.
Buses are great, but I’m personally going to disagree on the rail argument. While I agree a subway or light rail system would probably be a boondoggle, a light-commuter rail system like the O-Train trillium line is the way to go for Winnipeg, in my opinion. I don’t know how many mainline tracks there are to be used for such a system, but even running a 15-minute service with FLIRTs along the VIA tracks would be great. Rail is something any city needs, even if it’s just light commuter rail running on freight tracks.
edit: there are LOTS of tracks that can and should be used! on the rolling stock side i would recommend a mix of bombardier bilevels, fast and powerful locomotives, and FLIRTs!
You've given me so much hope for the new transit plans! Thanks so much for making this, it's so valuable to get an outside perspective from someone who agrees we're on the right track (I mean, busway).
As for intercity rail, it's definitely worth considering restoring the connection to St Paul, which is set to become a significant intercity rail hub in its own right. A daily service from Winnipeg to St Paul could provide connections to Duluth, Chicago and other points in the north-central United States. Adding frequencies between Winnipeg and Saskatoon or Regina would also probably be beneficial if VIA can get any sort of negotiation power (*sigh*)
The CP railway is so easy to build tracks right beside being open country and large swats of land even passing through towns and cities. But alas Saskatchewan would never agree to help out for transport, since Saskatchewan Party abolished the provincial bus system
My home away from home mentioned? LFG!!!!!! Great video as always Reece!
Thank you!
I think you’re hyping Winnipeg up too much. Winnipeg is a massive town, not because of population but because of sprawl. These rapid transit lines will be nice but I wouldn’t be surprised if it still takes 3 transfers and 1+ hours to go anywhere by bus that isn’t a major hub.
@@Pscribbled most places should need max 2 transfers, but there are places where 3 can be expected. I happen to live in such a place, but I also wouldn't call it the normal either.
@@jeremyO9F911O2 My trip to work would require 3 transfers, and it would take over an hour and a half... And that assumes clean, precise timing without delays, missed connections, early busses, late busses, outright missing busses, etc. Actual, realistic time would likely be somewhere between 2 to 2.5 hours.
My actual drive to work?? TWENTY MINUTES. No way in HELL am I EVER even thinking about Transit!
@@Arclite02 well yes this is my point. Did I not already use my home as an example of how it can be? Now that assumes I take the express route only stop in front of my home. If I walk 1 km I get to a double number route and it's a lot more direct from those. When I grew up in NK and had access to the 11 at the end of my steel, life was pretty decent. It was actually easier to go to Polo Park than Kildonan Place, and Polo is a better mall anyway. Murphy3 this effect hits new developing areas of the city. And if you're going from say a new development to say an industrial park. Yeah it can be hell.
Right now if I wanted a reasonable walk and regular service I would walk about 200m and catch a bus to St Vital Mall. Transfer, most likely have to transfer again downtown, and possibly need to transfer one last time if my designation is similar to my origin.
Under the new plan the G line actually will go right past me. Now I personally don't need the bus, I work construction and actually have a personal and a company vehicle. The nature of my life is that I don't have a fixed workplace and a vehicle is so much more nessesary. But I actually don't have an issue with transit as a concept. If there were regular 15 Minute service and I could just read a book instead of dealing with moron drivers, no problem for me. I like driving and am skilled at it too. But even I get tired of the boring routine it becomes in a commute.
A few things to remember about Winnipeg (and the province of Manitoba generally):
(1) It's very isolated geographically: the nearest urban centre with 1M population is about 800km away - the Twin Cities in Minnesota. Within the province, the largest population centre has 50k population and the entire Prairie region is heavily agricultural and therefore sparsely populated. That's not a recipe for economical inter-city rail transit. Like it or not, air and road transport is going to dominate for the foreseeable future.
(2) On the other hand, with its abundance of hydroelectric power (both in place and potential), "going electric" is a natural for the city and the province.
(3) The province is about as immigration-friendly as they come (even by Canadian standards). The province (and Winnipeg in particular) is and has long been a defiantly multicultural place with enough of a diversity of "home countries" among recent immigrants to make it easier to draw on "family-draw" immigration. Though its recent population growth has not been as high as in many of the larger Canadian centres, it's still been surprisingly high.
(4) Whereas Canadians already know of the Manitoba capital as "Winterpeg", foreign observers probably need to appreciate just how brutal winters can be in high-latitude continental climates far from any ocean: think Siberia. That's a big challenge to any transit system - and to attracting immigrants from almost invariantly more moderate climes without the benefit of any resource-related booms of the sort that have built other major centres in North America. So yes: the 1M population mark in the metropolitan area is slowly approaching, but Winnipeg is still far from a boom town.
I think t needs to be something like Skytrain in Vancouver. Driverless well above ground (which alows people to enjoy the ride and connect the dots it facilitates a cinnection if you can see it. Driverless. No real development is going to locate next to a bus stop. It needs to be fixed. Two of us were able to live with one car, the Skytrain was accross the street and it was 17 mins to Downtown and 6 mins to Douglas College where I worked. The service is so flexible two cars, 6 cars, every 90 seconds at peak. Thanks RM we have watched you from the beginning. Way-to-go! no doubt a transit slogan..OMG what's a slogan!
Love Reece's pragmatism. You only get real progress by staying realistic.
they just got some new XD60 (the seat sucks🤣)
The curren transitway is certainly better than nothing, but there's some obvious upgrades they should do. 1) You shouldn't have to buy your fare or scan your card when you get on at the front of the bus. It creates a bottleneck on boarding and slows things down a lot. Rather, tickets should be bought on the platform and checked randomly by transit employees. 2) The busses need a way to control the stop lights. That's pretty standard for BRT. 3) Busses should be spaced a bit further apart so that they can leave at set times from the south end of the line. Busses get constantly delayed and you'll wait 30 minutes for a bus, and then two will come literally back-to-back. 4) There are two separate destinations that are both named the "blue line", and myself and others I know have gotten on the wrong bus more than once. One should be named blue and the other yellow, or something. Lastly, if you want people to ride the bus at night you gotta reduce crime. IMO, it's too scary to ride after 10pm unless you have no other option.
If you're worried about big trains causing a decrease in service, start out with smaller rail vehicles. They would still have energy efficiency and air quality advantages over buses (even electric buses, which still make tire particles), and in winter weather they would also have traction advantages. And in the cases in Winnipeg where they are already running articulated buses, streetcars would also have the advantage of not jackniving when going around a curve in the snow. We used to have networks providing good service running bus-sized streetcars, but we threw them away.
Is it really that much cheaper, considering the busway is just as grade separated as a typical light rail and not converted from existing streets? With just a few extra grade separations it couldve been an automated Skytrain-esque system, eliminating the problem of reduced service without adding much more to the cost. And they could run it overnight a la Copenhagen with enough crossovers
As long as winni isn't subject to driver shortage, this bus network sounds nice
I don't get the emphasis on 24 hour service in Winnipeg. Nothing is open past 2 am. There really isn't any ridership. Plus, Winnipeg Transit has become very dangerous, with lots of crime occurring. I don't see how no service between 2:00 and 6:00 am is an issue.
finally,winnipeg transit
Winnipeg should try and keep 3-4 tracks for trains (Just in case they need extra capacity for VIA, but I guess you can always put them back for regional rail if desired)
I knew it was Winnipeg as soon as I saw the thumbnail 🇨🇦😎🙏
Edit: He changed the thumbnail
What was it before? My shot in the dark is a photo of the BRT terminal over Osbourne.
@@TukaihaHithlec Same photo pretty sure but the text was different, it didn't say Winnipeg. Cool shot!
YT has a system for automatically testing different thumbnails these days.
@@RMTransit Ohhh, thanks for letting me know, keep up the great work!
Nothing like hearing Reece's relaxing voice on a rainy day.
Winnipeg once had streetcars for several decades, up until the 50s when, as in so many N. American cities, they fell victim to "progress." Once read somewhere they (or some of them?) were acquired second-hand from T.O. And some of the routes extended much further than today's bus transit, all the way to Headingly and Selkirk. Wouldn't you think Winnipeg's extra-wide thoroughfares are well-suited for a revival of LRT/streetcar/tram or whatever you want to call it?
12:49 Interesting use of space: making buses drive on the left on the station concourse so passengers can alight onto a single, island, platform thus reducing the overall width of the bus corridor.
There is another cool proposal image that depicts the blue/rose line elevated on a new bridge crossing Queen Elizabeth way, aligning with the rail line so that people can transfer at Union Station.
While I've never been there, I'm super excited for Winnipeg's development plans; it sounds great!
A minor note: There's actually plenty of Canada East of Montreal!
Halifax has a mobile transit app, is working on tap payments, and is also on the cusp of enhancing its bus service into what the city calls a BRT (though it's really just a network of bus lanes, not the offboard payment half, less transit signal priority than it needs, and no biartics planned), plus an additional two ferry lines. Our bus terminal is at our Via station, though both could use a lot more service. In our recent municipal election we sadly went for the most car-friendly mayor, but even he wants to finish our Integrated Mobility Plan and bike network.
That's it, back to Winnipeg!
🎶Late afternoon, another day is nearly done
A darker grey is breaking through a lighter one
A thousand sharpened elbows in the underground
That hollow, hurried sound
Of feet on polished floor
And in the dollar store
The clerk is closing up
And counting loonies, trying not to say
I hate Winnipeg 🎶
Viva is York Region, not Toronto.
A long time since my last visit to charming Winnipeg. Some in what was long ago Canada's third largest city might feel pain on hearing it referred to as a small city. Now how about a rail route to Fargo (Little Winnipeg) and Minneapolis? The transit problems are clear. Coming up from the States to visit the University I often stayed near the south edge, and realized that it's a long way to downtown. Could the existing rail lines be used to boost transit oriented development?
There's tons of TOD along the blue line scheduled for construction, including a new 10,000 person development called Southwood Circle on an abandoned golf course.
The remaining entirely grade separated Transitway in Ottawa is great! Dedicated "full size" stations, ticket machines, and some are even fare paid zones with fare gates and transfers to LRT. The Rapibus in Gatineau is excellent too. But to maximize their effectiveness, the Transitway and Rapibus aren't used for just one single route- several local busses hop on and off the right of way at various points as well. If you're building a dedicated bus right of way for just one route, end to end, you might as well be building light rail. Use those busways to your advantage!
Still hope Hamilton can win the race to a million, but Winnipeg will probably win.
And, yes. Inside bus terminals is nice. Thunder Bay's Waterfront terminal is good. (And buses deserve more love. Ottawa's night bus network shows a smaller metro can do that, and matching the quality level of Swedish buses + stops would be nice.)
actually who knows maybe Quebec City, Brampton, or Mississauga will beat it. All the other city with LRT/tramways planned for their growing city like Hamilton, maybe someday Winnipeg
"Vancouver with its natural and architectural beauty." Say what? Natural, perhaps, but those buildings are nothing to shout about.
Maybe not beautiful in the traditional sense, but downtown Van and even the suburban towns do boast some of the most well designed TODs in North America: dense mixed use communities well connected to rail and bus transit and very walkable. It’s not neoclassical beauty, but it is modern, well designed, and functional.
Van is one and only NA city that reminds me of being in an Asian city.
There is the Marine building (completed in 1930) at least.
@@kiddo817 You mean downtown Van reminded you of being in an Asian city until the homeless population from DTES/East Hasting started spreading to the area
Why is it easier to operate busses 24/7? One driver regardless of whether it's a tram or bus. I would have also thought that light rail was cheaper to operate. Shouldn't an electric tram on steel rails both use less energy and have less wear and tear than a bus with rubber tires on asphalt using diesel?
RMTransit hates light rail for some obscure reason.
@@crowmob-yo6ry I mean there must be some reason why, it’s so common to shut down rail service at night and operate a separate night bus service.
Maintenance maybe? But then it should be enough to occasionally shut down tracks and not every night.
@@crowmob-yo6ryThe O-Train line 1 disaster is why
Maintenance is the most likely reason alongside generally lower ridership. Unless you have multiple tracks (see NYC, the alternative is to shut down a line entirely for some time for maintenance.
@@crowmob-yo6ryhe’s made a bunch of videos on Light rail on how it works, where it’s appropriate, and where you should have something else.
Hey New Flyer! Listen to Reese and build some super-accordion buses! And hey TransLink! Buy some for the 99 B-Line and R4!
99 B-Line would barely need more of it when Broadway Extension opens, and especially when if it ever keeps going to UBC; the final B-Line will be gone.
Winnipeg transit had a plan at one point for a bus depo in Union station. It involved kicking out the railway museum and building an over pass to get from street level to the third floor in a very short distance. I have a though that Via had a problem with this for one reason or another because they signed a very long term lease with the railway museum
Well now this plan has a proposal to elevate the blue line to be at grade with the railway so riders can get off behind the station under the railway shed
aren’t they kicking out the railway museum right now anyways for station expansion?
@@TheRandCrews no the muesum has to fix the roof over the shed that they are in, but they have a long term lease that was signed recently
Thanks for doing an awesome video about my city!! Hoping the Master Plan comes to life at a decent rate. Transit here is not great currently but as you do an excellent job of explaining, has tons of potential to do good things for a city this small and isolated. I agree with your take that bus makes more sense over rail here but we need the improvements to lane dedication, fare collection, station amenities, etc. Hoping it comes to fruition so that this city can continue what it does on a consistent basis: punch above its weight. Thank you again.
A t shaped light rail system supported by good transfers to buses with an airport connection would also work.
It would work *in theory*, but would never get the funding needed. If it did, we would have had enacted that 1950s Subway proposal
Fun fact:
Winnipeg Transit operates the oldest buses in North America (1995 D40LF bought from Calgary Transit second hand due to fleet shortages ) and also the newest new flyer buses in their fleet (2024 XD60 and XD40 with bus 919 being out a few days ago for the first time)
As somebody from a German city half the size of Winnipeg I couldn’t imagine our transit system operating only buses. We currently have 5 tram lines on top of ~every 10mins regional trains which can be used for certain inner city journeys. All of our important bus lines already use big articulated buses and we’re still looking at converting the busiest of them to a tram line in the next 5-10 years because it’s just not economically possible to keep up with demand on buses.
For replacement services our transit agency calculates two articulated buses per tram. Our tram lines used to run every 5mins before Covid and currently run every 7,5mins and they are packed. So to get the same capacity on buses we’d need a bus every 2,5-3,5mins per line. For one, our current reduced frequency is due to a shortage of staff, so those frequencies would probably be impossible not to say very expensive. Secondly on the interlined sections we’d be looking at like 30-45s frequencies per direction, which seems like it would need much beefier and expensive infrastructure then a pair of steel rails.
Density density density. Manitoba is the size of Germany and has 1.4 million people. Tough to have the fancy infrastructure the German tax base can provide in a similar sized polity.
It is a good plan, but the mayor seems intent on spending it's budget on a billion dollar road widening project to 'fix traffic'
Which project are you referring to?
Route 90 expansion
RAAAHH WINNIPEG TRANSIT MENTIONED!!!
Union Station was renovated into mixed-use in the 1990s. It was called Union Station Market and it had shops, etc. However, it didn't do well and was forced to close. My sister used to work at the bookstore there when she was in high school.
There's a lot of crime and assaults going on with busses lately. We've got some new safety offers being deployed but it's still a regular thing to hear of someone being assaulted and police needing to be called. Downtown has a LOT of homelessness and lots of parks along rivers and green spaces have become homeless encampments. Some of the most central bus shelters downtown often just have someone setup in there and no one can use them, especially the one just south of Portage and Main. Further away from downtown, bus shelters regularly get their glass walls smashed and sometimes Winnipeg Transit just stops replacing them. We expect to hit -40 every winter and the rapid transit corrodor is very exposed to wind.
You do more harm than help praising our BRT.
Winnipeg is 20 years behind on getting LRT. We should have it now. Building a system for yesterdays needs is not going to cut it.
At this point, better late than never is better than never at all.
Good video in theory but I think you are missing a lot of context that you don't see by just looking at maps and documents. Trains are absolutely a necessity, Winnipeg cannot operate on busses alone. We are already unable to meet transit demand as it is, it is extremely normal to be unable to board two or even three busses in a row because they are simply full. This is extremely common on the cross city lines like BLUE, NW Super Express, Kildonan and Crosstown East, but also happens frequently for purpose routes like our West End lines. These are the lines that require trains, not for speed or reliability necessarily (though they are nice benefits) but simply for capacity. They have already tried simply sending waves of busses in groups to handle this, like having groups of 3 Crosstown East busses for a single scheduled timeslot, but that still fails to meet capacity.
The new transit route plan for next year is a step in the right direction but only really a baby step. While I'm sure revising route paths and adjusting frequency and allocation will make some kind of improvement, it seems to be ignorant of the fact that busses today are mostly late due to traffic and people's schedules are disrupted due to lack of bus capacity. Higher frequency busses doesn't solve the lottery of whether you will actually be able to board any bus that shows up, and any transit that comingles with car traffic on our tiny roads will always end up late. Even our Blue line, a route that is supposed to be fast, frequent, and reliable, completely fails because it has to travel some blocks through downtown before it can hit the rapid transit express way. Half of the Blue busses also have to travel down Pembina to St Norbert. I expect extending the Blue to also travel west down Portage with no dedicated, isolated lane will be completely catastrophic to what is supposed to be the backbone of our transit network.
The new route plan also fails to address that we need new routes to connect Fort Garry and Transcona, Fort Garry and West End, and our North end and South end. Any students trying to attend UofM while living in Transcona, Charleswood or Maples will continue to have no reliable transit routes to get to campus. These are all long distance routes that require long distance express service. Normal bus routes that require a transfer downtown are not a solution as these are 90+ minute commutes each way.
The key here is that a Winnipeg is as much a train city as it is a bus city. There are existing train corridors absolutely everywhere going every direction. If these were adapted to add commuter rail lines, many of our problems would be at least somewhat alleviated. Unfortunately for now, they are currently used exclusively for cargo.
Here me out. We ban parked cars on all major roadways as a first step. St Anne's Rd South of AM is street parking free and amazing. While North of AM has parked cars and is just the worst. Grant Ave, Henderson Hwy, Osborne, all ruined roadways by parked cars. Exactly where the buses want to drive also.
@@jeremyO9F911O2 Yep I completely agree. Sargent and Ellice are another problematic example as they have the primary bus routes going to and from the airport (Ellice going to the airport starting next year), and despite how important that service is to be reliable and on-time, it's impossible to depend on because half of the lanes aren't usable for through traffic due to parked cars. All across the city so many busses get stuck waiting around sometimes for several minutes for a break in traffic so they can get out from a bus stop and around parked cars into a lane with any forward movement. We'd see far less delays if a bus could just stick in the rightmost lane for the entire route, but right now they have to weave in and out of traffic for every single stop on many routes.
Unfortunately we have so little underground parking and parkades in Winnipeg and I don't know why. Outside of downtown, it's all just free street parking and sprawling parking lots. Yes underground parking is extremely expensive to build, but this cost is easily subsidized by the high hourly parking rates that we already see today for downtown street parking. Outside of residential neighbourhoods it doesn't make sense to offer free street parking, it just congests traffic while providing nothing to the city in return. If you don't like paying to park in a parkade, find a retail parking lot or use public transit. That's what it's there for.
...is what I would say if our public transit was any good
Excellent video! One thing I would mention is that there are plans to redevelop the parking lot just East of Union Station into a mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented community called Railside. Also, there are plans to re-open Portage & Main to pedestrians. The plan was rejected by referendum a few years ago, but the underground plaza is reaching the end of its design life and council determined it's cheaper to just re-open the intersection - who would've thought?
Insider perspective: you can't just add enclosed bis shelters or they become a crack house. There no point in expanding union station because there are no Hugh density areas nearby (portage and main being 10 min walk at least. Nobody's in a rush to go nowhere.
And third, the downtown was never a problem, it's the burbs making the whole city poor.
suburbs doing what they do best. ruin everything.
Liked your video on Winnipeg. Hope to see something about Thunder Bay soon though it is much smaller and no trains.
I live in Wpg and bus service in the suburban areas aren't that great. I am old enough to remember electric troll buses. Often when drivers wrnt around the corner the bus would leave the over head wires and driver would have to get out and put the bus back on the wires. Not great in minus 20. Also during rush hour busses were crammed and so cold windows were frozen up so you needed to count on driver to shout out stop names. Oh and at that time no air conditioning in summer. I hope any plans are swiftly implemented because if you think how low the cost would have been had they implemented rapid transit in the 50s but sadly they just wait as costs keep rising. As a senior I expect my need for rapid transit will increase as it did during my work days downtown Wpg. Any improvement is welcomed.
Love your videos man: informative, positive and constructive.
I use the Q70, and there’s not much else one can do, but it sucks wind, and the reason for that is incredible traffic.
Your mention of the farecard's limitations matches those here in Waterloo Region, where we use a system called EasyGO which is honestly not so easy-going. We really need open payment like you mention, and the amount of GO service we're now seeing would mean a switch to Presto would be ideal. Hopefully that happens reasonably soon.
Winnipeg needs a monorail, just like Brockway, Ogdenville, and North Haverbrook.
Even in Latin America the BRT still works quite well despite space being pushed to the absolute limit. It's not comfortable but in most cities it's still the preferable choice compared to driving or taxi. For the US and Canada true BRT would be amazing, the way I think of busses when travelling in the US is fundamentally different than in Latin America (Seattle is an exception).
Let the BRT overcrowding worsen, and you have stampede container deathtraps on wheels unless the articulated buses are extended to three cabs
@@trainsandmore2319 CDMX has biarticulated busses and they're still totally packed. The reason people are so willing to pack on is the dedicated lanes which make moving much faster once you manage to actually get on one.
This city is completely riddled with existing rail. It's a no-brainer to set up a light rail system in Winnipeg. Other cities of that size are having to fork out billions of dollars to regain land to establish right of ways for rail, and Winnipeg has it all right there ready to use.
Just run GO Transit-style services on the existing rail
@@trainsandmore2319 yeah baby
Except that's all 100% cargo rail, with absolutely no capacity for any form of passenger service whatsoever?
@@Arclite02 negotiate, negotiate.
@@darynvoss7883 It also doesn't really go anywhere particularly useful for passenger service, unless you're trying to get to the Symington or Transcona rail yards...
It looks actually great... I'd really appreciate it if you can also make a video on how to optimize transit in Prince Edward Island, because there's only little public transport for a suprisingly growing population here.
It looks great because it's pretty much only footage of the fancy, shiny new BRT line that only serves one tiny little sliver of the city. Go 50 feet in either direction and all that fancy infrastructure is nowhere to be seen.
The other 99% of the system is basically just a patch of concrete with a little sign on the side of a road, no bench, no shelter, and a bus MIGHT wander past you every hour-ish or so... Sometimes.
@@Arclite02that is how it has been for the longest time, but they are making a major shift in how the routes are organized, and they're looking to finish the reorganization by next year in alignment with their master plan.
Thank You Reese
I read through the Transit master plan, and I think it's great, but one major hurdle that they have to overcome is the demolition and remodeling of the Main St. Transit Bus Garage, a century plus year old building designed for Winnipeg's streetcar golden age. It's been at capacity for years now and can't even accommodate buses with front mounted bike racks, nevermind an expanding fleet of electric buses. The Osborne terminal which connects to the Blue line is also in need of renovations, but I think those just finished.
As always, the major hurdle for any transit project in Winnipeg is how quickly the funds can be secured.
Do Kelowna next! Canada's fastest growing city!
I think it's worth mentioning that Winnipeg has 1 of 7 Canadian NHL teams. Maybe that scope could be broadened for other sports, but transit options for any home game is important.
The only one that doesn’t have a rail rapid transit system albeit too
Video 15 of asking for a Cleveland Video.
So you've been pretty supportive of Ottawa's LRT so far, but it's this video you starting to acknowledge that the O-Train really is NOT working out?
That was pretty interesting. It would make for a good videos series, whit videos like this, about transit improvements in upper-mid-sized, north american cities like Halifax, Tacoma, Grand Rapids, Tulsa, Windsor, London Ontario or Milwaukee. Everyone allways just talks about the really massive cities.
New Flyer is based in Winnipeg.
hey! if you like mid sized north american cities with a decent bus system you should come to spokane, i maintain strongly that we actually kind of kick seattles ass with our bus network (no rail though :/). the STA is our MPO so we have a more integrated system thats run by one government entity instead of a bunch of small providers poorly coordinating, our payment system is WAY better, and the busses are better at connecting destinations, but seattle does beat us on frequency and hours unfortunately. still we're doing a lot of cool things, we just installed our first BRT line around 1 1/2 years ago and we're currently working on the second!
My husband and I visited Winnipeg in 2022 and we were surprised by how great the transit is. Coming from Calgary, we weren't used to buses coming on time! And fairly frequent and well-connected.
as a winnipegger, i'm also not used to the buses coming on time 😅
@@honeybee4839 It depends where you're going, but yeah. Service is pretty good in the inner city and along the Southwest Transitway, but if you have to go between the inner city and any suburban area other than Fort Garry (especially in the opposite direction from most commuters, like my friend who lives downtown and works in North Kildonan) it's problematic. And if you have to go _between_ two suburban areas, it's even worse.
@@honeybee4839 Same lol Glad their experience was good at least.
Winnipegger here... You're clearly confused, and visited some other city by mistake. Absolutely none of that describes our transit system in any way, unless you just rode up and down the tiny little BRT line the whole time.
Winnipeg has "been on the precipice" of being the next big city for over a century.
Seems like Winnipeg planners have been watching your videos...
"I've talked about transit all across Canada, from Vancouver to Montreal"
*Cries in Haligonian
To be fair our city can't even get a single BRT line up and running, so not much to talk about.
Such a beautiful trolley like a tram filling 13:30
As a resident of Saskatoon, having heard your thoughts on Winnipeg, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Saskatoon's planned Link system (formerly BRT).
Winnipeg finally got wifi? Good for them.
I would like to see some kind of improved regional transit for Winnipeg, maybe some frequent train/bus service to Selkirk and Semi frequent trains to Brandon and Regina. Would also be cool to see some cross boarder Via/Amtrak service to Fargo, Minneapolis and Duluth