Winnipeg Transit – Big Changes Ahoy!

This post is a bit of an ode to “my” bus route: good old #11. And because at the end of June, the #11 will be retired, I thought it would be fun (yes, I’m a huge nerd) to document a bit about it, and my general experiences with Winnipeg Transit, for posterity: the good, the bad, and what’s in store for transit after some major changes taking place very soon.

#11 FTW

The #11 is a big reason that my family’s now in year six of our “not owning a car” experiment. It’s basically a dream route, making the bus a viable transportation option much of the time. (When we need a car, we use Peg City Car Co-op, which at long last has expanded into our neighbourhood!)

We’ve got bus stops roughly 200 metres from home, where we can grab an 11. Going north, it takes us to any number of destinations on Henderson: the Freshco at Kimberley, the Sobeys/LC/Rexall and Henderson Library just south of McLeod.

Going south, it’s a super quick ride into the Exchange and downtown. From Main St or Portage, it’s just a short walk to a TON of easily accessed destinations. If we stay on the #11 through downtown, it goes down Portage Ave all the way to Polo Park mall. (This is something I really love: I can hop on the bus, pop in a podcast, and then let someone else worry about the traffic, and be dropped off literally at the doors of the mall.)

On paper, the #11 is a great bus route, not just because it’s a one-bus ride to so many destinations, but because it’s got relatively frequent service: at peak times there’s a scheduled bus roughly every ten minutes, and at lower demand times it increases to every 15 minutes. That’s the sort of frequency where, if you don’t need to transfer, you hardly need to look at a schedule – you can just go to the bus stop and a bus will come. But I say “on paper” because reality is sometimes quite different.

When the bus is running on time as it should, it feels almost like magic. I leave my house, walk half a block, hop on a bus, and less than 20 minutes later I can be sitting in the hot tub at the Downtown Y. Amazing! No traffic, no parking… brilliant.

But when the bus ISN’T running on time, it’s the worst feeling. Sometimes it’s just annoyance, like if my trip wasn’t hugely time-sensitive, and a 20-minute delay is not the end of the world. Other times it’s beyond frustrating, like when I plan to take an earlier bus than necessary as a buffer in case of delays, but both buses wind up being late, so I miss my transfer anyway… yeah, pure rage!

Winnipeg Transit has a bunch of open data that’s fun to dig around in. We can find out how often buses are late by looking at On-Time Performance Stats. In the past year, the #11 was on time 53% of the time. Ouch. (A bus is considered to be “on time” when it arrives between up to a minute earlier than scheduled, or three minutes after scheduled.) This definitely tracks with my experience: sometimes transit is great! And sometimes it’s awful! But you never which which is going to be. The stats back it up: it’s pretty much 50/50.

Adding to the unreliability of arrival times is the overcrowding. After the BLUE line, the #11 is the route with the most “pass-ups” in the city – meaning: it’s so busy that often the bus doesn’t stop to pick up passengers (especially those with wheelchairs) because it’s too full.

With transit service like this, it’s not hard to see why, if they’ve got the choice, more people don’t take the bus. Some days it feels like if you’re on the bus, it’s because of one of two extremes: because you have no alternative, or you have the luxury of having endless time. Something is wrong with this picture. We should be rolling out the red carpet to make transit as appealing as possible!

The more people on transit, the fewer people in vehicles creating congestion, emissions, and wear & tear on roads. This provides benefits to society in endless ways. Why aren’t we treating transit riders like the superheroes they are??

So when I heard that for the first time in its history, Winnipeg Transit was going to be doing a complete overhaul of its routes, I was excited but also nervous. The devil you know, and all.

Enter the new Primary Transit Network and feeder routes, which will launch on June 29, 2025!

There will be so many things that are different, it’s hard to know where to begin. Some of the notable changes are:

• Major routes have been “straightened out” to eliminate turns, which are a major cause of delays
• The new network will work better for getting to destinations throughout the city. Right now the system is designed for getting downtown although only 1 in 5 trips ends up there.
• There will be improved frequency for certain routes, and more on-request zones.
• Transit Plus will be expanded to better serve folks who can’t use “regular” transit due to a physical disability, making it easier to use Transit Plus without booking in advance.
• Tons more details here: https://www.winnipeg.ca/services-programs/transportation-roads-parking/transit/new-bus-network-launches-june-29

As a regular transit rider, I’ve been thinking a lot about what these changes will mean for me & my family & neighbourhood.

Like everyone, I hate transfers. And on the whole, many more transfers are going to be required by the new network design. There’s really no two ways about it: we’ll need to get used to walking more and transferring more. Personally, walking more doesn’t bother me much – it’s a primary way that I get my steps in – and I am hopeful that with improved reliability of arrival times, transfers won’t be as much of a pain. There should be less chance of missed connections. Walking & transferring more could be good trade-offs for more frequent and reliable service.

That said, I am concerned for folks who have mobility issues and now must walk a lot further to their stops. Transit should serve everyone, and people with mobility issues often have fewer transportation options than the average person, making it that much more vital that transit meets their needs. I hope that the expansion of the Transit Plus system helps to address these challenges in a significant way.

On the whole, I’m optimistic, but perhaps cautiously so. The changes sound like they are justified and well thought out. But will they work as well in real life as they do on paper? I think that’s the thing all transit users are wondering. The city will release schedules for the new system on April 30. I can’t wait to dig in!

RIP #11 … welcome F8!

I wanted to capture what’s happening with “my” routes for posterity. The north part of the #11 route will be the same with the F8. From the Exchange all the way up to north of Chief Peguis, the route will stay pretty well the same, for my purposes anyway.

But on the other side of downtown, rather than heading west down Portage as the 11 does, the F8 will head south, eventually making its way down Pembina. Although I’m a little bummed to be losing my “direct to Polo Park” route, the F8 will take me through downtown, through Osborne Village, to all the destinations on Pembina and drop me off right at the University of Manitoba. This is pretty exciting.

The F8 will be considered a “Frequent” route. Transit says this will mean at peak and off-peak times, buses will come every 10-15 minutes, and nights and weekends, every 10-30 minutes. I worry here; right now the 11’s scheduled frequency is much closer to every 10 minutes than every 30, even on nights and weekends. Are we going to get downgraded?

See ya, #20

Oh, the 20. So handy as an alternate way of getting home from downtown, but a 56-minute milk run to the airport is really a last-case resort. I won’t miss it much. But I’m curious to see what airport service does look like. From the route maps it looks like there are two routes (D12, which runs down Ellice and D13, which runs down Sargent) that go from the Forks to the airport, which is kind of cool, but also seems a little redundant? But maybe I’m missing something!

Elmwood – St B gets better with FX4

As a bilingual family in Elmwood, it’s always been a major source of frustration that while our neighbourhoods are adjacent, it’s a huge pain to get in and out of St Boniface using transit. Now that I have a teen who is starting to take the city bus home following after-school sports or events, this challenge has been brought into sharper focus. Sometimes it’s faster to simply walk the 4km home than to wait for a bus and subsequent transfer!

Now, with the new network, if we’re willing to make the 15-minute walk from home to Watt St, we’ll be able to catch an FX4, which is a “Frequent Express” bus that will drop us on Provencher, the main street that runs between my kids’ schools.

With this being a Frequent Express route, two factors will make this a huge improvement over our current routes for getting to St B: buses will come fairly frequently (peak 5-15 minutes; off-peak 10-15), and with “express” level service there will be few stops along the way, making it a very direct and logical way of getting into St B, following virtually the same route we take when driving. I anticipate the bus ride will only be a couple of minutes.

And of course, there will still be the option of taking the F8 downtown and transferring to an F7 or the FX4 to go to St B. This is reassuring, because I’m not sure how much I’ll feel like doing that 15-minute walk to Watt in deep winter (or a heat wave, for that matter).

And as a bonus, this express route also goes out to Polo Park.

Hello, #38

Lucky for us here in Elmwood, our neighbourhood will be newly served by the 38, which is an east-west “Connector” route that takes riders all the way to the Leila/Garden City shopping area at one end, and the Regent/Kildonan Place shopping area at the other. These are the two closest major shopping areas to where I live, but right now, both require a transfer to get to. Frequencies for Connector routes are peak: 15-30 minutes, off-peak: 15-30 minutes, and night/weekend: 20-60 minutes. Not as frequent as the F8 or FX4, but again, if it’s reliably on-time, then that’s not the end of the world.

Overall, more options

To sum up, I think my neighbourhood will be better served by transit with the new network, and I’m nervous but excited. Add to that a new fare system (hopefully coming next year??) and I think our transit system could really become a lot better in a relatively short time frame.

Part of what is exciting for me is the prospect of the new routes opening up more destinations. I’m curious to see how my “usual” or “easy” destinations will evolve, based on the new routes I can access from my home area.

What are your thoughts about the new network? Would love to know what you think.

More on the new Primary Network + Feeder Routes!

• Individual route maps: https://clkapps.winnipeg.ca/DMIS/ViewPdf.asp?SectionId=763919
• Entire system map: https://www.winnipeg.ca/media/4770