Bus service convenient for just 53% of city residents, local study determines

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This article was published 08/02/2018 (2831 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Barely half of this city’s residents live within easy access of a Winnipeg Transit bus route, says a study conducted by a local independent think tank promoting sustainable solutions.

The report from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) found 53 per cent of Winnipeggers have convenient access to a transit route, while 33 per cent have inconvenient access.  Convenient access is defined as living within 500 metres of a bus stop where at least one bus departs every 15 minutes.

The report also said 22.36 per cent potentially have to wait 15 to 30 minutes for a bus, and 10.4 per cent can wait longer than 30 minutes.

“We saw a need for a better tool to be developed following the debate over the proposed transit cuts in the 2018 city budget,” said Kyle Wiebe the IISD’s project officer.

“We heard a lot of people were upset with the possible lack of access to transit with the looming cuts but there was no way to measure what the impact would be.”

The report, titled Measuring Winnipeggers’ Convenient Access to Public Transit, not only looked at distance to a bus stop from home or work, but also considered wait times, frequency of buses and trip length.

Wiebe said transit is considered one of the measures for a sustainable community, but there was no benchmark in Winnipeg, adding the IISD plans to delve deeper into transit services in the future, studying each route for convenience and access.

“This (report) is a stepping stone to improving the narrative even more,” he said.

The IISD, while headquartered in Winnipeg, has offices in Toronto, New York, Geneva and Ottawa. Its mandate is to promote human development and environmental sustainability by addressing challenges such as ecological destruction, social exclusion, unfair laws, changing climate and economic and social rules.

The report is part of a larger body of research the IISD is conducting for a long-term study measuring progress on the sustainable development goals of 13 cities across the country, including Winnipeg.

Wiebe said the cross-country study will put Winnipeg’s transit convenience in a national context, adding the second report should be ready in a couple of months.

“Is Winnipeg’s score of 53 per cent good for cities, or are we below the average? We’re going to put Winnipeg on a relative scale,” he said.

The transit report breaks down the convenient access to public transit by neighbourhood via an interactive map, available here.

The report found that the majority of people who have convenient access to public transit live downtown, in Point Douglas, River Heights or along the Southwest Transitway Rapid Transit Corridor.

Of the 14.3 per cent of Winnipeggers who have no convenient access to transit, most live primarily on the periphery of the city.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca