IRT_BMT_IND
Active Member
In the early 00s, a few years before the big service increases and when GRT was still mostly operating the services it inherited from the Kitchener and Cambridge transit systems, the only bus route that actually entered the U of W campus on late evenings and Sundays was one branch of route 7 every 30 minutes, plus route 8 (every 45 minutes with its inscrutable interlining pattern) and route 12 (every 60 minutes I think) that stopped in front of UW on University avenue. I think route 9 entered the campus during the day on Sunday (once an hour), though it may have short turned at King and University. These last two routes didn't go to downtown Kitchener, but route 9 roughly corresponded to the present LRT routing between UW and Conestoga mall.
Though with the all the capital spent on the LRT they should commit to a minimum service standard at all hours. This is how you end up with the situation like YRT with billion dollar busways with service every 25 minutes. KW is also a lot different than it was 20 years ago. It used to be when the place was almost dead on Sundays, and a lot of things weren't open Sunday despite being a bit over a decade after Sunday shopping was legalized. Some of the new subdivisions springing up near the University had no transit at all. Downtown Kitchener was full of vacant factories and didn't have a grocery store. There also was no U-pass, and there were shuttles (school buses) chartered by the university and the student union to take students to grocery stores and some off campus housing because the transit service was so limited. Those late night every 30 minute 7 buses could be crush loaded too, so there was more demand that GRT was not yet serving.
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