{"id":504326441,"date":"2019-01-14T11:48:00","date_gmt":"2019-01-14T17:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.winnipegfreepress.com\/our-communities\/metro\/2019\/01\/14\/city-considering-transit-service-extension"},"modified":"2019-01-14T11:51:46","modified_gmt":"2019-01-14T17:51:46","slug":"city-considering-transit-service-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.winnipegfreepress.com\/our-communities\/metro\/2019\/01\/14\/city-considering-transit-service-extension","title":{"rendered":"City considering transit service extension"},"content":{"rendered":"

The wheels on the bus could be travelling beyond the <\/div>\n
Perimeter Highway year-round in the future if a group of local stakeholders get their way.<\/div>\n
Charleswood-Tuxedo councillor Kevin Klein raised the idea of extending the City’s transit routes to include regular service to the Bell MTS Iceplex, Red River Exhibition Park and Assiniboia Downs at a recent Assiniboia Community Committee meeting.<\/div>\n
 City bus service is currently only offered during the Red River Ex each June.<\/div>\n
“This is one of the items that resonated an awful lot at doorsteps during the campaign,” Klein said. “I see this as a really good opportunity to improve service as well as increase revenue.”<\/div>\n
Red River Exhibition chief executive officer Garth Rogerson said the idea of extending bus service, and possibly adding a park and ride site on the exhibition grounds to accommodate Headingley commuters and others entering the city from the west, isn’t new.<\/div>\n
“I’ve been working with Transit for a couple of years to get this whole area serviced,” Rogerson said.<\/div>\n
“It has to be a profitable route,” he said, adding that factors such as the ability of roads to handle bus traffic have to be considered.<\/div>\n
“It really relies on the retail development at Westport Festival to get going,” he said, referring to a retail, hotel and commercial development planned for the area.<\/div>\n
He would also like to see an active transportation route for cyclists coming into the area from Winnipeg.<\/div>\n
The road system and utility services for Westport Festival went in a few years ago and since that time, the only regular use of the site has occurred during the Red River Ex when guests are directed to park in a large lot constructed on the west side of Exhibition Park. <\/div>\n
Rogerson said he expects the property owner and developer Shindico Realty to make an announcement about Westport Festival within the next few months.<\/div>\n
He also said all the stakeholders involved in a future transit expansion, such as the City of Winnipeg, Manitoba Infrastructure, Winnipeg Metropolitan Region (WMR), Peguis First Nation and the Manitoba Jockey Club that co-own Assiniboia Downs, True North Sports and Entertainment that owns the Iceplex and others, met in December to discuss the concept.<\/div>\n
The WMR — along with the City and Winnipeg Transit — is undertaking a transportation feasibility study to identify the costs and benefits of a transit route and park and ride program on the western edge of the city. <\/div>\n
The preliminary findings are expected to be released in a few months and will likely set the tone for park and ride sites in other municipalities surrounding the City said WMR executive director, Colleen Sklar.<\/div>\n
“We’re hoping it becomes a model to begin to explore other routes and we’re hoping maybe that’s a north route, a south route and east route, but this will have to be developed as we move forward,” Sklar said. “We’re at the very early stages of this conversation.”<\/div>\n
The City is also looking at the proposed service extension through the lens of its transit master plan, which will be a long-term investigation into improving bus ridership and transit infrastructure in Winnipeg. With both studies currently underway, a timeline for year-round service beyond the Perimeter has not yet been set.<\/div>\n
“My hope is that when that information is made available, Transit will put together and present a strategy that may also benefit the (Metropolitan) region,” Klein said.<\/div>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":280828771,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"_classifai_error":"","_classifai_text_to_speech_error":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21,12],"tags":[],"education-subject":[],"media-literacy-topic":[],"post_topic":[],"content_type":[24],"class_list":["post-504326441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-metro"],"acf":{"short_title":"","seo_title":"","deck":"","story_tag":"","byline":"Eva Wasney and Andrea Geary","updates":null},"apple_news_notices":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/winnipegfreepress.com\/our-communities\/metro\/2019\/01\/14\/city-considering-transit-service-extension","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"City considering transit service extension","url":"http:\/\/www.winnipegfreepress.com\/our-communities\/metro\/2019\/01\/14\/city-considering-transit-service-extension","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.winnipegfreepress.com\/our-communities\/metro\/2019\/01\/14\/city-considering-transit-service-extension"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.winnipegfreepress.com\/our-communities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2022\/04\/181227_transit_inspector_station_08_DL.jpg?w=150&h=150&crop=1","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.winnipegfreepress.com\/our-communities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2022\/04\/181227_transit_inspector_station_08_DL.jpg"},"articleSection":"News","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"feedloaderapi"}],"creator":["feedloaderapi"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Our Communities","logo":""},"keywords":[],"dateCreated":"2019-01-14T17:48:00Z","datePublished":"2019-01-14T17:48:00Z","dateModified":"2019-01-14T17:51:46Z"},"rendered":"