News   Jun 14, 2024
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Durham Region Transit / Pulse

I haven't had a chance to watch the lastest council meeting or read through reports... Sadly, council axed the DRT investments in half to cap at 1 percent which affects as follows (Source) :

There would be no increase in service for 2024 (service hours would remain at 2023 levels).

• Growth capital would be deferred, resulting in a further reduction of approximately $1.1 million in service enhancements beyond 2024 as growth buses would not be available to provide increased service.

• Durham Transit would not be able to reinstate the 23,000 hours of service that are being optimized in January 2024.

• Lower frequency, reliability and capacity to meet demand.

• No service to growth areas.

• Customers would be required to walk farther, wait longer and experience longer travel times.
 
I haven't had a chance to watch the lastest council meeting or read through reports... Sadly, council axed the DRT investments in half to cap at 1 percent which affects as follows (Source) :

There would be no increase in service for 2024 (service hours would remain at 2023 levels).

• Growth capital would be deferred, resulting in a further reduction of approximately $1.1 million in service enhancements beyond 2024 as growth buses would not be available to provide increased service.

• Durham Transit would not be able to reinstate the 23,000 hours of service that are being optimized in January 2024.

• Lower frequency, reliability and capacity to meet demand.

• No service to growth areas.

• Customers would be required to walk farther, wait longer and experience longer travel times.

The budget isn't final yet; hopefully DRT can get at least some funds reinstated.
 
DRT was always pretty bad for this, but this is a new ridiculous travel plan thanks to the new route network. A trip that used to take under ten minutes now takes 30 minutes.

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Is the route a one-way loop? They should provide counter-clockwise service, especially during rush hour.
It’s actually two routes shown. The 920 and 121. But buses no longer go up Altona Road. So you have to back track all the way and catch it at Liverpool near the beginning of the route. I tried planing the trip at rush hour and got the same result.
 
I think the whites service runs also.... But in this case, faster to walk (about 25min).

People are tired of tax hikes, so here we are with limited services and long walks.

In fairness, many (low density residential) areas outside of the Kingston Rd corridor have usually served as such - Outside of rush-hour this is typical (for Pickering at least). I believe the targets are generally 30 minute service for 'neighborhood routes' (e.g. 120, 101, 103).

The consistent underfunding is also preventing any service improvements to growing neighborhoods too... Try to get northwest Seaton (hint: you can't).
 
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Is it just me, or have the next-stop announcements disappeared/changed again? They're not playing when I was on DRT yesterday.
 
It might be that there were so many new routes on the jan 2 service changes that they are still programing into the buses still and they did the same thing on the setp 5 services changes but that only for one day also they are getting D40lfrs from miway 2006 models unknown bus numbers but it's going to be 4 buses
 
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Stopped by Ajax GO Station and spotted a few of the new leased buses from the south parking lot looking close to ready for service. I'm hearing that they will start to enter service in February. There are fifteen buses and they will be split between Ajax and Oshawa. For those interested in the equipment: it turns out there will be four former Mississauga D40LFRs joining the leased fleet.

 
Stopped by Ajax GO Station and spotted a few of the new leased buses from the south parking lot looking close to ready for service. I'm hearing that they will start to enter service in February. There are fifteen buses and they will be split between Ajax and Oshawa. For those interested in the equipment: it turns out there will be four former Mississauga D40LFRs joining the leased fleet.

Do we know if destination signs, announcements & PRESTO devices are going to be fitted onto them?
 
Do we know if destination signs, announcements & PRESTO devices are going to be fitted onto them?
Unfortunately I haven’t heard of a firm the plan for those items. A friend, who’s a mechanic at a different transit agency mentioned announcements might be too much work for the relatively short time these buses will be with DRT. Destination signs should be easy to do since they have the Luminator program. Though that was supposed to be the case with the TTC buses, but the file was uploaded incorrectly and they just printed route cards instead.
 
Unfortunately I haven’t heard of a firm the plan for those items. A friend, who’s a mechanic at a different transit agency mentioned announcements might be too much work for the relatively short time these buses will be with DRT. Destination signs should be easy to do since they have the Luminator program. Though that was supposed to be the case with the TTC buses, but the file was uploaded incorrectly and they just printed route cards instead.
I had no idea the TTC buses were suppose to get destination signs. Hopefully with the new leased ones, they will.
 

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