This.
During Sundays, the first bus of Rathburn going westbound has all seats taken. That also applies to the first bus of Burnhamthorpe from Islington, which deaprts at 9:35 AM!!!!! Wow! I can't believe how late Burnhamthorpe starts on Sundays!!! Both these routes (especially 26) need to start earlier in Sundays. Burnhamthorpe's Sunday service is really a total neglect. I mean 33-minute service, with overcrowded conditions?!!?! That's insane! With so great service for weekdays, and decent service on Saturdays, you'll expect at least decent service on Sundays.
Hurontario, Burnhamthorpe, and Dundas have demand for 24/7 service.
Bloor, Dixie, and Westwood have demand for 24/5 service, or even 24/6.
Last buses are also crowded, I mean, Mavis and Rathburn end too early on Sundays. All seats are taken on the last buses of these routes leaving Square One. I think this is due to Square One extending their service hours to 9 on Saturdays and 7 on Sundays and MiWay hasn't made any adjustments in response to that.
Really, all buses that end at 7 on a Saturday must end at 10 PM. And those buses that end at 7 on Sundays must end at least 9 PM, if not later.
I have raised these issue for years, but falls on deaf ears.
I stated that just because TTC doesn't start subway service until 8:50am on Sunday, it doesn't mean TTC is not running service and therefore, service should start earlier. Since we are now 7/24, we need service to match it now.
There is another budget meeting coming up in Oct as far as I know at this time for MT, where the full budget for it will be on the table.
Council is great for saying we must have service out there to meet the demand, but unwilling to spend more dollars to do it without putting higher taxes on the property owners.
As the director of Transit said, if it cost $17 to put a rider in the seat for a poor performing route, it better to kill the route by using that money to put 5 rider on a higher performing route. I totally agree with him, but need to make sure we are not cutting our nose off doing this.
40% of MT routes are real money looser with very high seat cost and only going to get worse, as there is no new development or increase density for the routes in the pipeline, since they are well stable route over 5 years with no growth in them at this time or 10 years from now.
When I was a board member for the Santa Clause Parade, I either had to try to get a ride to the start of the parade route or walked to it at Erindale Station and Burnhamthorpe at 7:30 am on Sunday since there was no bus service to get me from the east side of Hurontario St to the start point.
I had store manger tell me they could not get to the 9:30 staff meeting at Sq One, as there was no bus to get them from Islington to it on Sunday, since the first bus left after the meeting started.
Based on my Europe trip, I found very few routes seeing no service on Sunday compare to the rest of the week and most started no later than 7:30 am. This is odd considering there very few store open on Sunday in the first place. Until about 11:30 am on Sunday, the headway's are close to 30 minutes max for some route with others being less. The headway then drops to 20 minutes or less depending on the routes. There are some that are 60 minutes all day.
What does MT do, it guts most of the service for Sunday and provide poor headway.
I strongly recommend people email both MT and every councilor, as well the city about what you want to see happen in the way of transit needs and why. You need to put yourself before council at General Committee meetings on transit issues, as that is the only way you are going to get their attention.
What every you do, do your bitching, but most of all, offer solutions for it, as it goes along way. Bitching just turns them off.
Do your homework on your issues, as it earn you points with council. Do a powerpoint presentation or use the overhead screen to make your case. You only need a USB stick for your powerpoint presentation. Take up a petition for your cause. You have 15 minutes to make your case.