For East Coast Post.

Groups, city float plans to make system more efficient

Metro Transit, now Halifax Transit, will soon be changing a lot more than its name.

Members of It’s More Than Buses, a grassroots campaign geared towards fixing problems with the city’s transit, have been lobbying for years to have the system in Halifax re-designed.

Sean Gillis, the chair of the group, calls the current system “fatally flawed.”

“The routes themselves are poorly thought out and don’t work together to do a lot. It’s an exceptionally complex system that doesn’t provide really good frequency.”

On Monday, Gillis presented It’s More Than Buses’ transit system model to a small group, explaining the logic behind the design.

The model addresses what they feel to be the major issues with the current system, namely excessive wait times for passengers and unreliable schedules.

The model features what is called a high-frequency network design, which translates into shorter wait times for passengers, more opportunities for route transfers, as well as “dramatically fewer” transit routes, says Gillis.

“Right now, what Halifax Transit tries to provide is called the ‘single-seat model’ where … almost every neighbourhood has a bus that goes downtown,” Gillis explains.

“Now at some point, because we only have so many roads downtown, they all overlap. So It’s More Than Buses is proposing, and what Halifax Transit is actually suggesting that they’ll be doing with their new network, is a transfer-based network.”

Gillis says having multiple buses covering a single route is inefficient whereas the proposed design has fewer routes but more opportunities for passengers to transfer onto other routes.

It also includes more terminals, in addition to the existing Mumford and Dartmouth Bridge terminals.

“Right now, if you have to wait for a bus, you have to wait 15 – 20 minutes. If the buses are running every 10 minutes, you might wait three, five, six minutes, and a transfer becomes quick because the buses are just coming a lot,” Gillis explains.

With fewer routes, drivers are able to visit stops on their respective routes more often.

This means both shorter wait times for passengers and less crowding at stops and on-board buses.

“A rider should be able to walk up to a stop, in the urban core, knowing that a bus will arrive within minutes, versus planning his or her day around the transit schedule,” says Natalie Irwin, the director of urban development for Fusion Halifax, the organization that co-founded It’s More Than Buses with the Halifax Planning and Design Centre.

“That is how it works in other larger cities and how it could work in Halifax with a high-frequency transfer system.”

It’s More Than Buses was formed in 2010 after members of the Planning and Design Centre launched a sustainable task force that caught the interest of Fusion Halifax’s Urban Development Action Team and Sustainability Action Team.

The two groups got together naturally, Irwin says, since their “goals for improving the city of Halifax are aligned.”

“Fusion ended up being one of the groups who was most interested in pushing the transit ideas forward,” explains Sarah Ravlic, a representative from the Planning and Design Centre.

“So we worked together on the first three forums that laid the ground work today for It’s More Than Buses.

“It’s More Than Buses serves to better engage the community in discussion and education about transit services. It provides a forum for discussion and sharing of ideas on how Halifax can be better served,” says Ravlic.

Halifax Transit will be releasing their blueprint for a completely re-designed system next week, on Feb. 17.

“We don’t know what they’re doing,” Gillis says. “We don’t know how far it will take the transfer idea, we don’t know how committed they are to doing it and we don’t know what it will look like.”

At least one person has seen Halifax Transit’s plan.

Waye Mason, councillor of Halifax South Downtown, district seven, says many elements from the model reflect the design proposed by It’s More Than Buses, including the high-transfer, high-reliability corridors.

“So you’re going to see a lot of that in the new plan.”

However, although Mason says there are “more transfers than in the current system,” he doesn’t think the official proposed design is quite as transfer-based as the one brought forth by It’s More Than Buses.

“But I think the reasons why they’re (Halifax Transit) not doing that are very good, as people will see on the 17th.”

The main difference between the two plans, according to Mason, is It’s More Than Buses is Halifax-centric, while Halifax Transit takes into account the need to have routes running to and from the ferry terminals, located in Woodside and Cole Harbour.

“I think that Dartmouth and Bedford and Sackville are the best gainers on the new proposal,” he says, adding people will get excited about some of the new innovative routes.

Currently, for a fare of $2.50, Haligonians have access to more than 100 different bus routes and four ferries.

In 2013-14, passengers surveyed in Halifax Transit’s annual service report had a satisfaction rating of only 61 per cent, the same percentage from the previous year.

The report also says 98,000 people took the bus that year, three per cent more than the previous year.