If you ride Winnipeg transit buses during rush hours — practising that five-days-a-week exercise in self-punishment known as commuting — you'll easily believe these are the most heavily used buses in North America.
And rush hours on the Winnipeg Transit System mean crowding, people packed shoulder-to-shoulder, always room for more, the driver simply orders passengers to move further back in the bus until every inch of space is covered.
Despite this discomfort Winnipeggers average 110 to 120 bus rides per person a year; Winnipeg buses carry about 60 million passengers a year, about twice the average for cities of a comparable size.
Winnipeg has 482 buses, considered a large fleet for a city this size; it would be larger if Flyer Industries Ltd. wasn't behind schedule on delivery of 58 buses. There are 250 buses in Edmonton, 306 in Calgary and 380 in Vancouver.
These statistics come from Winnipeg Transit System officials who believe more people ride the buses here because of a deliberate move by city council to get people out of their cars.
Who would have guessed at the height of freeway-building mania that in January, 1974, Winnipeg city council would make public transit a priority issue and design a five-year plan to streamline the system?
Certainly not the former Metro government which in 1969 released its Winnipeg Area Transportation Study, a 25-year $747 million grand design that envisioned five high speed freeways and a 37-mile suburban beltway.
The plan, which the provincial government refused to support, took for granted the automobile would reamin king, that cars would continue their rapid increase in numbers.
One study five years ago indicated this was the trend — it predicted 100,000 more cars on Winnipeg streets by 1980.
This kind of single-mindedness came as no surprise to Winnipeggers who remembered when the city's streets were tree-lined. It was assumed the trees must go to widen the streets, making room for more cars.
Then last year came transit's five year plan, a scheme intended to increase to 70 per cent from 40 per cent the number of commuters able to reach the city's core within 15 minutes.
Added to transit service since the five-year plan was approved are:
Seven special shelters, more elaborate than the present ones, are being built; the city will experiment with an improved shelter design, which should lead to heated replacements for the present aluminum and glass structures.
There are plans in the works for preferential use of Graham Avenue for transit vehicles and park-and-ride facilities on the express routes — suburban parking lots from which motorists would board the bus.
And now, in what could result in the most dramatic improvements in Winnipeg transit, the city is studying the feasibility of a seven-mile rapid transit corridor from Portage and Main, along the CNR Fort Garry right-of-way to the University of Manitoba.
The study, expected to be finished next year, is examining the different kinds of rapid transit — buses using exclusive bus lanes, trolleys, commuter trains, etc.
The key to the future of rapid transit will be the cost estimate in that study and how much help the federal and provincial governments are prepared to give.
No matter what comes of the study, exclusive right-of-ways for public transit vehicles are a certainty in the next few years.
Exclusive public transit lanes were proposed in the five year study; it was demonstrated that travelling time could be cut dramatically, especially in the eastern and southern corridors, with exclusive transit lanes.
It is likely the rapid transit study will recommend Winnipeg's rapid transit be simply buses using the exclusive CN right-of-way. Unpredictable gasoline prices will force planners to take a hard look at electric trolleys, ironic in that trolleys were removed from Winnipeg streets in the mid-1960s in favor of the more versatile diesel buses.
Transit officials are not expected to look seriously at a Toronto style subway or even a monorail system, although Mayor Stephen Juba has long been touting the monorail idea.
If the city goes ahead with rapid transit along the CN right-of-way "we are looking at millions of dollars in permanent structures, in roads and bridges," said Boris Hryhorczuk, the city's deuputy director of streets and transportation.
"If the results of the study indicate it would be an advantage to go in that direction we could be seeing an exclusive right-of-way with roads and bridges for the first time in Winnipeg."
"I believe whether or not it goes ahead will depend on the cost."
The study will also identify the areas of potential population growth, the implications of what would result from a public transit corridor. In Toronto, for example, the Yonge Street subway resulted in heavy apartment development along the route.
"The proximity of a rapid transit line would probably affect a person's decision about where to live, if living along the route meant just leaving the apartment door and climbing aboard a vehicle and getting off close to work," Mr. Hryhorczuk said.
The rapid transit stations would be far enough apart, perhaps half a mile, so vehicles wouldn't be continually stopping and starting.
There are several ways of getting passengers to the rapid transit stations.
In Fort Richmond, the dial-a-buses could be rerouted to the stations. It might be sensible in some areas to pick up passengers in the traditional slow moving away in the suburbs and take the same bus, with passengers already aboard, onto the rapid transit lane.
Stations would likely be built in areas of highest population density, where it would be convenient for the largest number of people working downtown.
But even if council approves the rapid transit line, it will take at least three years to build.
In the meantime Winnipeg transit regards its express buses as a form of rapid transit and is encouraging greater transit use through what it calls its innovative programs — DASH, dial-a-bus and suburban feeder buses.
Councillor Gerald Mercier, chariman of the city's works and operation committee, believes the provincial government should pay 75 per cent of innovative programs, a 25 per cent increase. The province pays for 50 per cent of innovative transit projects it approves, the same cost-sharing formula it uses to subsidize the system's operating deficit.
"In the '73 election the premier indicated $5 million would be available for improvments in the transit system, yet after that they agreed to pay only 50 per cent of the cost of innovative projects."
Estimated expenditures for the innovative projects approved to date is less than $1.5 million, the province paying half.
Coun. Mercier contends resistence to public transit stems from the fact it is often quicker to drive.
"That is the reason we're increasing the express service, to shorten the travelling time. Once you develop a service with favorable travelling time compared with the automobile you will attract more people to it."
Transit has introduced express routes on Henderson Highway and in Fort Richmond and has plans for three more.
Added Coun. Mercier: "In Fort Richmond an express service was started in February, 1974, and ridership increased 100 per cent in one month, the bus stops only four or five times going downtown.
"The travelling time compares favorably with using a car. When you consider a person has to park and walk to work the express service is probably faster for many people."
Bus travel is so much cheaper than driving a car, Coun. Mercier said, that if it was the most important factor in attracting people to transit the job would be simpler.
A recent study by the city showed that 60 per cent of people who drive their cars to work don't need their cars on the job.
DASH was designed to overcome that, said Coun. Mercier, who describes himself as one of the 40 per cent who does need his car at work, driving from his law practice to city hall.
DASH is a free downtown shuttle service operating from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. You wait no longer than five minutes for a bus, which runs a double loop covering downtown Winnipeg from city hall to the legislative building.
Says transit manager Roy Church: "People who have tried DASH are using it again and again. People are discussing it among themselves as a partial solution to commuting and parking in the downtown area.
"If groups have avoided the downtown area for meetigs during the day because of the pressures of parking space they now have the opportunity to get together in groups without the hassle for space."
"It becomes a free-flowing downtown between 9 and 4."
The service seems successful, hitting a peak of nearly 29,000 passengers during one week in April compared with 15,000 during its first week of operation in February. A survey of passengers was being conducted this month to learn whether people are leaving their cars at home.
Dial-a-bus in Fort Richmond is carrying as many as 1,600 passengers a day compared with an average 800 a day during its first week in November.
Dial-a-bus' biggest break may have been the first January blizzard; ridership increased sharply and never dropped again.
An in-depth survey of Fort Richmond residents, similar to one done before dial-a-bus began, will be conducted after the service has been running six months.
The survey, which will determine whether travel habits have changed, will help decide the future of dial-a-bus in Winnipeg.
"It was recognized dial-a-bus would cost substantially more to operate than the regular system," said Mr. Church. Two-year costs for dial-a-bus were estimated at between $428,000 and $550,000.
The aim was to determine how many people could be persuaded to change their travelling patterns with a higher quality service."
What does transit have in mind for the near future?
By late summer there could be preferential transit buses on Graham Avenue, from Main Street to Vaughan Avenue.
Graham would be narrowed from four lanes to three, leaving six-foot wider sidewalks on each side, which would be landscaped and contain about 10 bus shelters. The wider sidewalks would be temporary at first, in case the idea doesn't work.
Plans call for one-way transit traffic east and west on Graham, with regular traffic on the centre lane.
Transit is looking at park-and-ride facilities on the express routes.
If cost-sharing discussions with the province begain soon park-and-ride facilities could be a reality this year.
Mr. Hryhorczuk explains: "A person uses a car, travels to a conventional parking lot with plug-ins and hops onto an express bus to take him into town. It's an alternative to parking downtown.
"Park-and-ride facilities would be located at several points on express routes.
"The economics of it are there. You can probably provide parking in a suburban area for less than $1,000 a stall, whereas you are looking at parking stalls downtown at $5,000 to $6,000 a stall."
Transit is planning to build more and more comfortable shelters.
Seven shelters, four of them downtown, designed to compliment the surrounding architecture, should be ready by late summer.
Also, a prototype of a heated shelter to replace the present aluminum and glass ones — which many bus users complain are nothing more than windbreaks — will be tested this summer.
For anybody who has endured the cold, Prairie wind waiting for a bus it is welcome news.