What was the most number of riders you saw on those shuttles?
I don't have the figures from that time, however from what I recall from the staff report, ridership was increasing yearly especially since Mississauga Transit took over the running of the service with a new fleet, and increased frequency.
I used the shuttle almost daily when it was in operation, and it was well used throughout the day by office workers heading to lunch at square one or transit terminal, students heading to square one or the library from Father Michael Goetz (where I attended), seniors heading to the Older Adult Centre (the stop in front of the mall was very popular), families along Webb Drive and the odd tourist from Novotel Hotel.
This was an excellent service that was unique to a North America City Centre.
What percentage of vacancy for the office building existed then?
I have no clue what the vacancy back then, if anything the free shuttle service would have been a selling point to attract more companies to locate in the city centre. As I stated before, this was the primary purpose of the shuttle to promote economic development in the city centre, while to a certain extend it achieved that, it also became a local service for resident that made living in the city centre at the time more liveable.
Talk to your good friend about the cost and ridership since she call for the cancellation and support it. It is like the talk now that the City is considering selling the LAC as it is a money drain. The city just wrote off $125,000 out standing debit for a group and your friend gave them $60,000 to start fresh.
The city cancelled this service without any real public consultation, as I stated I spoke up and fought against it before City Council. I did talk to the Mayor at the time and expressed my views. She agreed with me, however at the time, there was no senior government for transit (no gas tax) and MT had to make the cut to save a few hundred thousand a year to direct to other routes. I want to point out that the local Councillor, Frank Dale who represents the City Centre also agreed with me and voted against the cancellation of the service.
If anyone outside of MT or the city is willing to fund the full cost of a free shuttle go for it. There is no such thing as free as someone has to pay for it.
Give me a break already. Of course running the service isn't free, as I stated this was a unique service and City Centre land owners at one point covered 100% of the cost of running the service for free. I do not know what percent the city began to cover when it was passed into MT hands, however I am certain it wasn't beyond 1/3 of the cost of the service.
You just said developers would charge the owners of those condo's the cost to fund it. Cost to operate such a free shuttle goes up yearly and now what do you do when that $.50 does cover the operation cost anymore?
You of all people would know that running a transit system NEVER breaks event. The fact that many people said they were willing to pay 50 cents said a lot. They didn't mind that it wasn't going to be free anymore, the important thing was that the service was there for them to use. As stated before, MT choose not to introduce fares because the drivers at the time were not part of the union and didn't want to go through the trouble of brining them on board.
Furthermore, as the population of the city centre has been growing each year, ridership would have gone up as well. Again if only had the city waited another 2-3 years, more demand would have arrived. It did arrive, and hence today the need for brining back the service.
As to the lost of hundreds of thousands riders, I did not know MT had that many riders. MT carries about 85,000 riders a day.
Who said anything about daily or even annual numbers? My point was that service was cut to countless numbers of people in the City Centre.
If you look closely to who was using the free shuttle, it was the residents on Webb. Rest of the routes saw next to no riders even at peak time.
Of course the residents on Webb were the primary users of the service. As I pointed out, that was one of the major problems with the service objective, it was economic development, not local transport. You are overly exggerating when you say no riders used the service even at peak time. The service would not have continued to run for YEARS if NOBODY WAS USING IT! There was clearly a demand and need there at the time, even more so TODAY!
The residents on Webb as well the other riders were not willing to pay anything toward to keep be the buses on the road unless it was free
.
Wrong, many resident expressed their willingess to pay for such a service, that's where the 50 cent idea came from.
The maximum walking time is 10 minutes from any point of the existing route to get to Sq One. Most of this time is lost by traffic lights. The area around Sq One falls within the 400m or 5 minute walking distance to a transit stop.
The area around Sq One is GOING to be residential not commercial as plan. The city has already reduce the sq footage for commercial.
Tell me something I don't know already. You were at the Moving Froward summit a year ago. At the end of the day, public transport is the number one issue in the city centre. Anything the city can do to encourage people to get out their cars is a good thing.
Louroz
