Almost 90 Grand River Transit stops to be removed as of April 28

Transit travellers will soon have fewer bus stops to choose from. CTV’s Heather Senoran explains why.

Public transit users in the Region of Waterloo will soon have fewer bus stops to choose from.

Grand River Transit has listed 88 stops on their website that will be removed from service as of April 28, as well as two others that will be relocated.

They said the decision was made “to improve travel times and make bus service more reliable.”

Grand River Transit currently has close to 2,500 bus stops across the region. Their guidelines state that each one should be between 350 metres to 400 metres apart.

Officials said each location being removed or consolidated is close enough to other stops that it should not inconvenience riders.

Signs have already been put up near most of the 90 locations, showing where the next closest stop can be found.

Decision process

Neil Malcolm, the director of transit services, said Grand River Transit carefully considered each stop before making a final decision.

“‘Who’s using the stop? Is there a lot of people boarding every hour at the bus stop location? Is there another stop nearby that’s equally accessible for all customers?’”

Most of the stops, he added, do not have benches or shelters.

“We don’t remove stops from really busy locations or a major destination,” Malcolm explained. “Those stops have high ridership, high boardings. They are very important.”

Eliminating stops is part of the normal transit process.

“We do a regular review of all our routes and stops,” said Malcolm. “We haven’t consolidated this many stops in the last couple of years but, with a real evaluation of the routes and the stop spacing, now was the time to consolidate some stops that weren’t really necessary anymore.”

Last month, the transit service announced it would receive approximately $72 million over a 10-year period through Canada’s Public Transit Fund’s Baseline Funding stream. They said the money will be used to upgrade, replace and modernize the region’s infrastructure.

Mobility concerns

Edward Faruzel, the executive director at KW Accessibility, called the transit changes concerning.

“My first thought is that that’s quite a few bus stops to be moving and taking away all at once,” he told CTV News. “I hope that they’ve done a lot of research on that.”

Faruzel said it might be easy for some people to get to next nearest bus stop – but not everyone.

“[For] someone with visual issues, if you move the bus stop even 50 yards, they’re not going to know that it’s been moved. That can create all sorts of safety issues if it is late at night and they’re by themselves.”

Grand River Transit is encouraging riders to reach out to the region for any questions about the changes.

“[We] always welcome feedback from our customers on how things are operating,” Malcolm said.

Eligible MobilityPlus customers also have access to door-to-door services, which are reserved for anyone who is not able to use conventional transit options.