The 2016 service changes at GRT (Grand River Transit) won't be as major as mentioned in previous blog entries. This is because the college declined the U-Pass, so there will be no expansion for routes 10, 16, 61, 110, 111, 116. There will be changes to the BusPlus routes and vehicles.
BusPlus Changes
- New low floor 19 seat buses, with a front destination sign, INIT system, and new fair boxes (if not postponed again)
- New Hamburg BusPlus - routing and schedule unknown at this time
- Hayward Industrial BusPlus - this new route will operate out of Forest Glen terminal and service Family and Childrens Services and the Hayward Industrial Park. This route will operate every 15-30 minutes.
These are just minor changes to some of the lower dense neighbourhoods that GRT provides service to. There will come a time where each of the BusPluses will end up like the Cambridge route 75 Saginaw, which started off as a BusPlus and is now a 40 foot conventional bus route that operates Monday to Friday from 5:45am to 9:30pm.
Northfield Garage
With GRT (Grand River Transit) expanding rapidly with new routes and current routes being modified, there is no more room at the Strasburg garage (Central Division) or the Conestoga Boulevard garage (South Division). Grand River Transit is has been looking at building a garage up on Northfield Drive (which would be come the North Division) so GRT operators that live out in the townships close to Conestoga Mall would have a garage to start and end at. The idea of having a route or routes service the garage like the route 3 servicing Strasburg and the 22 servicing Strasburg (walk to Strasburg @ Ottawa) and the 53 Franklin, 61 Conestoga College-Cambridge Centre, 200 iXpress and the 67 Lovell Industrial service the Conestoga Boulevard garage. The routes that could service the Northfield garage could the the 6 Bridge, 31 Columbia and 202 iXpress. Having these routes service the garage would provide the bus drivers that work out of Conestoga Mall would have more than one option to grab a bus back to the garage.
