Grand River Transit shares 10-year expansion plan

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Grand River Transit (GRT) is sharing an ambitious ten-year plan that could expand transit services in Waterloo Region.

Officials shared the proposed plan with members of the media on Thursday, after collecting feedback from residents.

The plan has three main focuses: expanding existing services and routes, providing transit options to the townships and increasing MobilityPlus and specialized services.

“It’s using these key corridors across our community. When we invest in transit priority measures that make it easier and consistent to use transit, these are the opportunities we have in front of us today,” Kevan Marshall, Transit Development Manager for the Region of Waterloo, said.

The plan aims to expand the fleet and increase services across regular routes. With the potential to add a dedicated route on the highway to better connect the three cities in the region.

“What we’re proposing should save residents traveling from Cambridge to Kitchener-Waterloo up to 20 minutes on their transit trips,” Marshall said.

Officials also want to expand the options for transit connections to the townships, by providing fixed route services on a consistent schedule to some, and an on-demand service to others.

“We see township residents as well as city residents looking to connect to rural destinations, which I think demonstrates an excitement. And, again, that idea that we are a Waterloo Region wide transit system,” Marshall said.

The third focus of the plan is increasing the number of specialized and MobilityPlus services. According to GRT, there is a growing demand for these services and customers are unhappy with trip lengths and drop-off times. The proposed plan would introduce new staff resources, modernize technologies and increase the fleet size to meet growing demand for MobilityPlus services.

“One thing we’re excited about is we’ve heard a lot about stop accessibility. We’re really happy to say that council has previously approved our capital program that helps us accelerate improving the accessibility of our stop infrastructure across the network,” Marshall said.

Along with the main focuses, the plan also aims to change fare pricing. Officials are proposing cheaper fares for people in need and free fares for kids under 12 riding with a fare-paying customer. The transit service also wants to try to align any future fare increases with inflation and make the cost comparable with other similar transit systems. When the service expands by offering new services or routes, GRT said they will try to keep fare increases level with the actual change in operating costs.

“When we started this plan, we were talking about could we help people potentially not have a second car? As we talk about the affordability question, this may be the option that people need. It’s important that we’ve got this plan. It’s entirely scalable, to council’s desires and the difficult decisions they need to make,” Doug Spooner, Acting Commissioner of Transportation Services for the Region of Waterloo, said.

According to Spooner, expanding services locally is also a great way to get the region more connected to the province.

“It’s a really strong show to our provincial partners and also our partners on the boundaries of the region that we’re ready. We’re going to start running more and more transit. So that connectivity piece becomes a much easier conversation,” Spooner said.

So far, it is just a plan. Officials will present it to the Sustainability, Infrastructure and Development Committee on Tuesday.

The public will be able to offer comments at a meeting on April 16.

Residents can check out the full details of the plan on GRT’s website.