[sixrings]

I was out yesterday as well with similar observations.

I'm still able bodied, and for the most part this was an irritation/nuisance more than an insurmountable obstacle for me.

But I noted that anyone who normally requires a bus to deploy a ramp, particularly someone using a mobility aid was out of luck. At most stops, 2-4ft high snowbanks made that impossible.

In Toronto, as I assume elsewhere, crews are trying to manage this. Lets acknowledge, a relatively major snowfall will always take some time to address, cities/regions simply can't keep thousands of crews/contractors on standby, and there are equipment limitations and rest periods.

That said, I think most of us feel that the performance more than 24 hours on left something to be desired.

To that end, I offer 2 thoughts........In the first decade of this century, Toronto had 5 snow melters (vehicles) in its yards.......... today, it has only 2. I'll use that as a singular example of how services are quietly reduced to meet a tax freeze or like goal without much advertising. Equipment ages/falls into to disrepair and it isn't replaced....... anyone remember the public debate on reducing snow melters by 60%? Me neither.

Second thought, I have been, continue to be and plan on staying an advocate for using built-in snow melt tech in sidewalks, at bus stops, and around gutters/drains, when this infrastructure comes up for reconstruction.

Its not cheap, but its probably less expensive than you would think.......~$12-30 per ft2 depending on what tech you use, and should be towards the middle/low number if done when the asset is being rebuilt anyway.
That would make a bus stop, including sidewalk, curb, gutter and portion of the roadway, something in the 6-15k range.

I'm not suggesting one would do this for every stop, much as that might be nice, but for high priority locations, hills, high volume stops and those in front of LTCs and hospitals would seem obvious choices.

Rebuild 200 stops per year, for 10 years, that's 2,000 stops at a cost of ~30M or 3M per year., on an a18.8B budget.

Take that that number up 5x to 150M for some key stretches of sidewalks, and 50 intersections over a decade (all 4 corners)

It seems like a good investment to me, and the crews who wouldn't be needed for the above work could be redeployed.

Look at that. Two minds think alike. That’s literally what I suggested but you got the likes. Congrats.

 

[Bordercollie]

I was out yesterday as well with similar observations.

I'm still able bodied, and for the most part this was an irritation/nuisance more than an insurmountable obstacle for me.

But I noted that anyone who normally requires a bus to deploy a ramp, particularly someone using a mobility aid was out of luck. At most stops, 2-4ft high snowbanks made that impossible.

In Toronto, as I assume elsewhere, crews are trying to manage this. Lets acknowledge, a relatively major snowfall will always take some time to address, cities/regions simply can't keep thousands of crews/contractors on standby, and there are equipment limitations and rest periods.

That said, I think most of us feel that the performance more than 24 hours on left something to be desired.

To that end, I offer 2 thoughts........In the first decade of this century, Toronto had 5 snow melters (vehicles) in its yards.......... today, it has only 2. I'll use that as a singular example of how services are quietly reduced to meet a tax freeze or like goal without much advertising. Equipment ages/falls into to disrepair and it isn't replaced....... anyone remember the public debate on reducing snow melters by 60%? Me neither.

Second thought, I have been, continue to be and plan on staying an advocate for using built-in snow melt tech in sidewalks, at bus stops, and around gutters/drains, when this infrastructure comes up for reconstruction.

Its not cheap, but its probably less expensive than you would think.......~$12-30 per ft2 depending on what tech you use, and should be towards the middle/low number if done when the asset is being rebuilt anyway.
That would make a bus stop, including sidewalk, curb, gutter and portion of the roadway, something in the 6-15k range.

I'm not suggesting one would do this for every stop, much as that might be nice, but for high priority locations, hills, high volume stops and those in front of LTCs and hospitals would seem obvious choices.

Rebuild 200 stops per year, for 10 years, that's 2,000 stops at a cost of ~30M or 3M per year., on an a18.8B budget.

Take that that number up 5x to 150M for some key stretches of sidewalks, and 50 intersections over a decade (all 4 corners)

It seems like a good investment to me, and the crews who wouldn't be needed for the above work could be redeployed.

This time I have not seen crews clearing bus stops. Likely because they don't want to do it twice due to this weekend's storm. But that's means walking over snow banks for two days.

 

[KevinT]

Look at that. Two minds think alike. That’s literally what I suggested but you got the likes. Congrats.

Lol. I did like your post as I scrolled through playing catch up. It was one sentence however, whereas Northern Light's was multiple paragraphs that included a cost/effort analysis that no doubt took some time to compose. That's what people are liking.

 

[Jonny5]

Note to mods: can we investigate making Bluesky posts as embeddable media?

A note on this that I have connections to another website which exists on a different platform than this one and they too want to arrange to have automatically formatted Bluesky embeds but there have been major challenges with Bluesky coding which is still so new, and Bluesky has such a small team that they can't solve this quickly. Embedding anything from Bluesky has proven to give their website major indigestion, and sometimes the embeds don't work at all for reasons that are still not clear.

Essentially, the answer is it will take more time to get it going but I'm sure they will. Twitter required years of work to get easy embeds and I'm sure Bluesky will too, but the work is done mostly on the platform side so I don't think the site staff can do anything but wait for the platform to change its code.

 

[sixrings]

Lol. I did like your post as I scrolled through playing catch up. It was one sentence however, whereas Northern Light's was multiple paragraphs that included a cost/effort analysis that no doubt took some time to compose. That's what people are liking.

It’s alright. Northern things I’m a contrarian and basically doesn’t respond to me. So I found it interesting that he had the same fix.

 

[Towered]

It’s alright. Northern things I’m a contrarian and basically doesn’t respond to me. So I found it interesting that he had the same fix.

 

[sixrings]

Well I have sad news for everyone. Just got to Ottawa and my parents condo front patio which is heated is working but there’s so much ice it won’t melt. Bottom line is that no matter what you do… sometimes you’re the bird and sometimes you’re the statue.

 

[T3G]

Is the bird a metaphor for incompetent public authorities? If Mississauga was able to clear almost all their bus stops of snow, every other city is able, too.

I'm not asking for the impossible here - I'm not criticizing snowed in bus stops 30 minutes after a huge snow dump has ended. I'm talking more than 24 hours after the fall of the snow, when the sidewalks have gotten cleared, and cities like Mississauga have managed to free their bus stops. There is ***zero*** reason why, in the process of clearing the sidewalks, the bus stops in Milton could not have been cleared at the same time, too.

 

[sixrings]

Is the bird a metaphor for incompetent public authorities? If Mississauga was able to clear almost all their bus stops of snow, every other city is able, too.

I'm not asking for the impossible here - I'm not criticizing snowed in bus stops 30 minutes after a huge snow dump has ended. I'm talking more than 24 hours after the fall of the snow, when the sidewalks have gotten cleared, and cities like Mississauga have managed to free their bus stops. There is ***zero*** reason why, in the process of clearing the sidewalks, the bus stops in Milton could not have been cleared at the same time, too.

In fairness, there is nothing especially special about Mississauga, of all places. I'd say it has the edge over Brampton, or Milton, or York Region, just purely by virtue of having a shoreline.

But yeah, no, it sucks.

Yeah I was reading about your hate for Mississauga late last night. Well it’s nice you gave us two compliments. A waterfront and snow removal. This place sucks.

 

[kev1n1m]

Just a reminder to everyone that the ignore function works wonders to make this place more useful and less childish

 

[MiExpress]

According to a report on the next Niagara Region Transit board agenda, GO Transit is looking to implement bus service to downtown St Catherines (while maintaining existing service to Fairview Mall):

https://pub-ntc.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=493

 

[ShonTron]

According to a report on the next Niagara Region Transit board agenda, GO Transit is looking to implement bus service to downtown St Catherines (while maintaining existing service to Fairview Mall):

https://pub-ntc.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=493

GO really should choose one or the other, unless they were separate routes (say, the 11 that goes to Brock), but even then, I'm not convinced. I don't see the point of Route 12 (which is far too slow with too many stops) serving both locations; the only point of Fairview is to have an easy-ish on/off the QEW while still having a connection to local transit. There's no dedicated carpool/park-and-ride parking there, unlike at Beamsville or Grimsby.

 

[reaperexpress]

GO really should choose one or the other, unless they were separate routes (say, the 11 that goes to Brock), but even then, I'm not convinced. I don't see the point of Route 12 (which is far too slow with too many stops) serving both locations; the only point of Fairview is to have an easy-ish on/off the QEW while still having a connection to local transit. There's no dedicated carpool/park-and-ride parking there, unlike at Beamsville or Grimsby.

Exactly. Route 11 (Hamilton - St Catharines) already goes past downtown St. Catharines, so adding a stop at the downtown bus terminal would be a fairly minimal change.

But adding a stop to Route 12 (Burlington - Niagara) sems like an excessive deviation that would make travel times even longer than they already are.

 

[Metroscapes]

Exactly. Route 11 (Hamilton - St Catharines) already goes past downtown St. Catharines, so adding a stop at the downtown bus terminal would be a fairly minimal change.
View attachment 631636
But adding a stop to Route 12 (Burlington - Niagara) sems like an excessive deviation that would make travel times even longer than they already are.

Gosh, my partner and I could have used this and Route 17 for way more convenient visits to each other 15 years ago.

 

[reaperexpress]

Gosh, my partner and I could have used this and Route 17 for way more convenient visits to each other 15 years ago.

When I lived in Hamilton more than a decade ago, there was a Coach Canada bus line from Kitchener to Niagara Falls via Hamilton Centre and St Catharines Terminal. That was much faster between Hamilton and St Catharines than the current GO service.

In my opinion, the 11 should skip Beamsville P&R to improve journey times by about 5 minutes per direction. It's pretty close to Grimsby P&R by car and I doubt many people are parking in Beamsville to take a bus just to Hamilton or St Catharines. They're more likely to park to go to Toronto, in which case they'd be on Route 12, which also has express service so the additional stop is less impactful than on Route 11.