Winnipeg Transit on board for improvements
Mayor Sam Katz rides transit wave
Morgan Modjeski, Staff
The City of Winnipeg Transit Improvement Program (TIP) was touted as the solution to Winnipeg bus riders’ woes at a press conference held in the Graham Skywalk on Nov. 16.
Mayor Sam Katz announced that have steps already been taken to upgrade a good portion of Winnipeg’s transit system.
MP Vic Toews seconded Katz, saying a lot of improvements will be seen in the near future. “The city of Winnipeg’s Transit Improvement Program will improve speed, reliability, and accessibility,” Toews said.
The TIP includes the replacing of 104 new transit shelters. A total of 37 of them will be heated. Also, new bus stop signs will be put in place along with improved transit lanes.
These new bus shelters have been installed at Polo Park Shopping Centre, St. Vital Centre, Kildonan Place, Henderson Highway, Pembina Highway, Regent Avenue West, the Osborne Junction, and a number of places in the downtown area.
Steven Hurst, a university 1 student who rides the bus one or two times a day, said, “The new bus shelters are not as good as the old ones, they are colder and smaller.”
John Einarson, another student at the University of Manitoba, also agreed the old bus shelters at the moment were better, “If [the new bus shelters] had the doors on them, they would be a lot better, there is definitely potential.”
Even though the bus shelters are a large change in the Winnipeg Transit system Jim Jaworski, a co-founder of the transit riders union of Winnipeg, said, “ [The new bus shelters] are just a speck of an investment in out transit system when we really need a huge boulder.”
According to Katz, new diamond lanes will decrease the time spent on buses to the downtown area from St. Mary’s Road and Pembina by three minutes on both routes.
Along with the new diamond lanes, Katz said, is a plan to enforce misuse of the bus- and bike-only right lanes with a standard traffic ticket. Katz said that despite the fact we are “Friendly Manitoba” you can see downtown that people do not acknowledge the bus lanes.
Currently, cars driving in the diamond lane if the law were enforced would receive a fine according to the City of Winnipeg website. The traffic division of Winnipeg Police Services said that driving in a diamond lane would merit a “disobey traffic control” citation and a fine of $167. Winnipeg Police Services does not keep statistics on how many tickets have been assessed for driving in diamond lanes.
Katz also said that the comfort of bus riders is a priority.
He added that he is embarrassed at the fact that Winnipeg does not have heated bus shelters, the current budget set aside for Winnipeg transit is $119.7 million.
“Half of this money is from [Winnipeg Transit] revenue and the other half is subsidized from Winnipeg tax dollars,” said Katz.
—With files from Chelse McKee.
