Bus overhaul leaves gaps in service to Grace Hospital, Assiniboine clinic

By: Malak Abas Posted: 5:00 PM CDT Monday, Sep. 15, 2025 Last Modified: 11:25 AM CDT Tuesday, Sep. 16, 2025 | Updates

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Some St. James residents are up in arms after a shift in bus routes cut evening and weekend stops in front of Grace Hospital and nearby Assiniboine Medical Clinic.

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Some St. James residents are up in arms after a shift in bus routes cut evening and weekend stops in front of Grace Hospital and nearby Assiniboine Medical Clinic.

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Some St. James residents are up in arms after a shift in bus routes cut evening and weekend stops in front of Grace Hospital and nearby Assiniboine Medical Clinic.

As part of the city’s recent Transit overhaul, there are now three feeder routes that stop directly in front of the Booth Drive hospital and within a block of the Lodge Avenue clinic. But they don’t run on weekends and stop in the early evening on weekdays, leaving an unacceptable gap in service, said St. James Coun. Shawn Dobson.

“I can’t fathom you walking in the rain or the cold, all that distance from Portage Avenue up to the hospital, it makes no sense,” he said Monday.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS
As a result of Winnipeg Transit‘s bus route overhaul,
stops in front of Grace Hospital and nearby Assiniboine Medical Clinic have been affected. An online petition to have route service to the hospital and clinic restored has garnered nearly 900 signatures. — RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS
As a result of Winnipeg Transit‘s bus route overhaul, stops in front of Grace Hospital and nearby Assiniboine Medical Clinic have been affected. An online petition to have route service to the hospital and clinic restored has garnered nearly 900 signatures.

“A frequent express route, the FX3, stops at the nearby Sturgeon Road into the night all week, it’s too far of a walk for seniors and people with medically complex needs, and will only get more difficult for everyone in winter,” Dobson said.

A city spokesperson said an on-request route is now in service in the area, meaning bussers can request a ride and be dropped off in front of the hospital or at a feeder stop near Assiniboine Clinic by calling 311, requesting a ride online or through the Winnipeg Transit app.

Dobson said he’d like to see the rapid transit line go right up to both the hospital and the clinic.

“If you’ve looked at the parking lot at the at the hospital, it’s pretty full,” he said. “We should be encouraging people to bus there versus parking there.”

Winnipeg’s new primary transit network launched overnight on June 29.

One St. James resident was moved to launch an online petition calling on regular Transit service to return to the doors of the Grace Hospital and Assiniboine Clinic.

Myth busting the overhaul

The City of Winnipeg attempted to separate Transit fact from fiction in a recent “myth-busting” post on its website.

“We’re so grateful to everyone who has shared constructive criticism as we adjust together. It helps us focus our efforts to make improvements,” the post reads.

The City of Winnipeg attempted to separate Transit fact from fiction in a recent “myth-busting” post on its website.

“We’re so grateful to everyone who has shared constructive criticism as we adjust together. It helps us focus our efforts to make improvements,” the post reads.

“We’re less grateful to folks who’ve been spreading misinformation online.”

The post, which can be found at wfp.to/mythbusting, comes about two and a half months after the city introduced its new Transit system. The post highlights six points city staff have seen repeated by Winnipeggers, and offers rebuttals:

1. The network was designed by people who don’t take the bus (Transit planners are required to use the bus regularly).

2. It was changed to cut service and save money (There are more buses and operators on the road than there has been since 2020).

3. Service from central and downtown neighbourhoods has been cut (Access to high-frequency bus lines improves in the city centre).

4. Buses are passing up more passengers this fall (September is always an especially busy month, regardless of the overhaul).

5. Complaining to 311 does not work (Some changes, including six bus stop relocations, have already taken place).

6. “Everyone hates the new network” (the post says the city has received a “handful of commendations”).

“We recognize the span of service isn’t cutting it for customers on some routes and in some areas,” the post reads. “We expect this will be among the top priorities for when we make significant changes after a full year of gathering data and feedback.”

One lifelong Transit user, 82-year-old Jeanette Bodanruk, said Monday that while she acknowledged some people may benefit from the new network, she figured it was “not an awful lot.”

“The service wasn’t that great in some areas before, but now it’s just absolutely ridiculous,” she said.

— Malak Abas

The petition, created by Fred Morris in July, has received nearly 900 signatures.

“It definitely affects seniors, but there’s also health-care workers, the Grace Hospital employees, about 2,000 people, and they shouldn’t have to walk. For instance, if their shift ends at 11 or 12 o’clock in the evening, they shouldn’t have to walk to Portage Avenue to get a bus,” Morris said.

Morris, described as a “St. James historian” on the Assiniboia Chamber of Commerce website, said Transit service at the hospital was improved in 1969, two years after Grace Hospital opened, after a petition with nearly 10,000 signatures was presented to the Metro Council, which was responsible for transit at the time.

He’s hopeful another petition may do the same.

“We may take it to city hall, but hopefully we can somehow get the problem solved in the next few months, with winter coming,” he said.

Critiques and concerns about the Transit overhaul can be sent through 311.

malak.abas@freepress.mb.ca

Malak Abas
Reporter

Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg’s North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak.

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