Blog Entry #38 Route 20 Victoria-Frederick BACK to Charles St. Terminal and Changes to Conestoga College Expresses

Today, GRT (Grand River Transit) made some amazing changes. I say amazing changes because the changes involve routes 20 Victoria-Frederick, 110 Fairview Park-Conestoga College Express and 116 Forest Glen-Conestoga College Express. To begin lets review the route 20 Victoria-Frederick:

Route 20 Victoria-Frederick - This route has former routes 15 Frederick, 19 Victoria South combined that creates a crosstown route that connects The Boardwalk and Stanley Park Mall via Downtown Kitchener and the Heritage Park neighbourhood along the Victoria Street and Frederick Street corridors, which is in fact an amazing route, but the main issue was route 20 was pulled from Charles St. terminal as a test to see how people would react and use the on-street stops along Victoria Street, Weber Street, and River Road as well as the Boardwalk and Stanley Park Mall terminals to make connections. The test for the 20 failed horribly. There were so many complaints it was unbelievable. I understand everything should get ready for ION LRT, but first the King-Victoria hub should have been built then that would make an easy transfer from Charles St. Terminal to the hub would be smooth. I still believe that route 20 should also be extended beyond the Stanley Park Mall into the Idlewood, Zeller Drive and Sims Estate neighbourhoods (thus replacing rt. 23 and having another Boardwalk-Fairview connection.)

Route 110 Fairview Park-Conestoga College Express and Route 116 Forest Glen-Conestoga College Express

With all respect to Conestoga College, it's growing and needs more bus service. Since, I understand that Conestoga will be getting their ONE cards with similar payments like the University students (Bus tuition within the card) then more service will be delivered. This means 203 iXpress would be extended to Fairview Park via Sportsworld, the College and Highway 401 and many new routes and current routes being redesigned. But since that's a bit far away, GRT looked at route 110 and increased the frequency during the PM peak hour from 30 minutes to 20 minutes with an extra trip to Fairview departing Conestoga College at 6:07pm.
The 116 changed departure times from 58-28 to 25 and 55.

I believe this is 'phase 1' of many to connect more and more people.

That's the blog for today, have a great day everyone,
David