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York Region Transit: Viva service thread

doady said:
Does it matter? No matter what they they will always be higher than YRT's frequencies after 12am. Low frequency is always better than no frequency.
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Well that's the point of the recent change. I've always found it odd how bus service out of a station like Finch doesn't continue into the late hours, but I had come to accept it as part of the whole inter-region travel thing that generally sucks across the GTA. At least now they're making that change, but in the end it still doesn't mean much to most people since their final destinations aren't on Yonge. The connections that they would be taking end earlier in the night, so they'll only get half way home.

I agree that YRT service ends too early, but again, it was something I unfortunately came to accept as part of transit outside of Toronto. With the current ridership, I could never really expect buses to go for too long after the dinner hour.

In fact, I'm actually quite pleased to see the YRT bus on my nearby major road pass at 11:30pm even though there probably hasn't been a rider on it for the past 5 buses. It's sad, but it is truth. When ridership increases, service will go later into the night.
 
This is the chicken and egg problem. If there are no riders late at night there is no need for evening/night bus service. But if you remove a service, how will one know if there is a need for it?

On one hand some degree of empty buses is acceptable, but on the other, the current suburban development will never really be able to support good bus service. Heck, most of he buses are empty even during rush hours. Why would we waste taxpayers dollars on empty buses? That does nothing for the environment.

The suburban strategy should be to greatly improve service on busy routes and build up service on routes with good (re)development potential. This is the point of VIVA. However, only the Yonge and Hwy 7 lines are useful or busy. Until such time that a route is able to support night service, there is no need to provide it.
 
Hi guys.. just wanted to ask a question about viva.
So with school starting next week I need to get a YRT/viva monthly pass, but I was running into a bunch of problems.

The multiride station at YorkU has the option to buy one, but the debit and credit card functions are grayed out for some reason you can only buy it with cash, is there any other multiride stations on the Viva Purple line that I can buy a pass from that has the option of paying with debit?

If not.. is it possible to get a pass from local stores that sell tickets?

Thanks for the help!
 
urbanfan89 said:
Unless their computer crashes and reveals they're still using Windows 2000 NT as their OS.

I saw that at Downsview last week.
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Haha yes that tends to happen.. And the screens in the buses always show a Windows XP boot screen and desktop.

Anyone know why they decided to turn off all those in-bus TV screens?
 
I think YRT/VIVA has done a good job on the 'upper' end of the service scale. Between VIVA, and fairly regular YRT routes on other main streets (Major Mack, Rutherford, 16'th) their service for trunk routes is certainly getting better. However they have run into problems running out the remainder of the feeder routes. For example York has decent connections running east west and less so north south. So if you live on along one of the trunk routes you are going to get pretty good service, but if you are any distance north or south of any of the trunk routes you will run into trouble. Many feeder routes are poorly planned, duplicitous, and infrequent.

For example. VIVA serves York University pretty well but YRT still runs nearly a dozen routes to York U. I think they should make the VIVA routes the only ones to serve into York (improve service frequencies, use the artics if necessary) and stop all other routes entering York (many of these routes meet VIVA routes at some point anyway) and reinvest that time/service into better frequency/route 'depth' in York region. The same with duplicate routing along some streets, they have to find a way to reroute these services so that they are hitting more individual streets, instead of the same street over and over again.
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
I think YRT/VIVA has done a good job on the 'upper' end of the service scale. Between VIVA, and fairly regular YRT routes on other main streets (Major Mack, Rutherford, 16'th) their service for trunk routes is certainly getting better. However they have run into problems running out the remainder of the feeder routes. For example York has decent connections running east west and less so north south. So if you live on along one of the trunk routes you are going to get pretty good service, but if you are any distance north or south of any of the trunk routes you will run into trouble. Many feeder routes are poorly planned, duplicitous, and infrequent.

For example. VIVA serves York University pretty well but YRT still runs nearly a dozen routes to York U. I think they should make the VIVA routes the only ones to serve into York (improve service frequencies, use the artics if necessary) and stop all other routes entering York (many of these routes meet VIVA routes at some point anyway) and reinvest that time/service into better frequency/route 'depth' in York region. The same with duplicate routing along some streets, they have to find a way to reroute these services so that they are hitting more individual streets, instead of the same street over and over again.
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If anything, York University is underserviced by YRT. Only 3 routes run there and the frequencies aren't even all that great.

YRT has cut duplicate services. Shortly after Richmond Hill Centre opened, the Markham Highway 7 YRT bus was truncated at RHC instead of Finch, forcing riders to transfer to the frequent blue or 99 to Finch Station. They used these extra buses for service increases elsewhere.

When I moved to Markham in 2001, the Kennedy bus only ran during weekday rush hour only at 30 minute frequencies. Five years later, the bus runs 7 days a week now and up until 11pm. So definitely YRT has made big changes to parts of the system.
 
wilson_wu said:
If anything, York University is underserviced by YRT. Only 3 routes run there and the frequencies aren't even all that great.
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But the point is that they shouldn't be running there period. If they cut out the length that the bus takes to get to York YRT could improve frequencies or extend the route into other parts of the region

YRT has cut duplicate services. Shortly after Richmond Hill Centre opened, the Markham Highway 7 YRT bus was truncated at RHC instead of Finch, forcing riders to transfer to the frequent blue or 99 to Finch Station. They used these extra buses for service increases elsewhere.

For example if route 3/3B were terminated at Promenade or New Westminster/Steeles it could be extended further east to meet VIVA Green, or just improve service frequency.

Route 10 could be removed all together (it duplicates routes along most of it's lenghth), or re purposed to serve more areas of the region that don't have bus service.

Route 20 could, and should terminate as a loop at the AMC complex improving route frequency.
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
However they have run into problems running out the remainder of the feeder routes. For example York has decent connections running east west and less so north south.
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I'd say I agree, but probably not for the same reasons. The north/south routes that I would like to see improved are unfortunately contracted to the TTC. McCowan, Warden, Woodbine, etc. These are all major roads in York Region that are serviced by TTC routes (and if there are any YRT routes along it, they veer off to some side street half way through).

I would like to see increased service on routes like McCowan and Warden especially, because those are pretty big routes and pass through some major centers of potential ridership. Especially Warden, now that Downtown Markham is starting to build up. They need to find a more efficient way of operating these routes instead of just contracting them out.
 
xtremesniper said:
Haha yes that tends to happen.. And the screens in the buses always show a Windows XP boot screen and desktop.

Anyone know why they decided to turn off all those in-bus TV screens?
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its better then realizing that Delta airlines uses linux for their in flight entertainment
 
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