[Blizzard]

Murtaza at the UofA just commenting.

Indeed... and yet I can't help but feel the tone of Mr. Haider's frequent posts are always juuuuust on the edge of hinting something. As though there were a whistle blowing quietly in the distance... woof

Interesting that Murtaza Haider's Cities Institute was estabished as part of the School of Business with the help of a $5 million gift from the Gupta family, of course of Rohit Group fame. Especially interesting when the Bachelor's and Master's in Planning have been widely hailed as an incredible success, with the U of A now able to produce strong, Edmonton-born planners who care about our city long-term and aren't looking to jump ship at first chance. What an odd duplication of efforts.

A frequent favourite of his is RTO mandates and the differences between the unionized and non-unionized sectors. And I bring this up as someone who does not enjoy WFH and spends as much time in the office as I can.

I wouldn't discount the change in immigration policy, especially for students, TFWs, and sponsored relatives. All groups that heavily use transit, especially in the first few years of being in Canada.

Statscan again with an analysis of international students from the beginning of May. There is a sharp drop in Sep 2025, especially at the college-level and for incoming cohorts, which means it will likely drop again next year.

 

[EdwardEdm]

^’something doesnt make sense. we have tap,
we dont need counters.

While taps help, taps assume people tap in in the first place. While the average rider probably does, in particular I've watched post-secondary aged riders not tap at all, yet presumably they have UPass. Of course, there's the fare evaders who don't tap period. Having tap counts vs APC counts can help with determining fare evasion levels. There are of course people that don't tap off, who would still be captured by the APC counts, especially if they transfer to a different line. Yeah, it won't be as good of data as proper taps, but at least it is counted.
The thing with APCs are at this point in time they are pretty much standard features as transit vehicles have become packed with more and more technology. ETS purchases buses with APCs as standard equipment, rather than 15 years ago when a small selection had the necessary hardware. Even a $5000 APC system on a bus only amounts to about 0.05% of the cost of the bus. And while the SD160's are having APCs added, the Rotems will just have them from the start, so why not use them?

 

[EdwardEdm]

Question for the transit experts here, but when automated passenger counters are added to the Capital and Metro line trains, are we expecting a decrease or increase in reported ridership?

I'm curious if we're undercounting or overreporting with our current method

What even is the current method? Do they still hire people to ride the trains and count every rider manually? I know at least 1 LRV had a test APC at at least one door, while I didn't have time to check the entire car, for more, the other doors near me didn't have them deployed.