‘It’s got to be efficient’: Transit advocate calls for change on major Winnipeg routes

A local transit advocate says Winnipeg’s controversial new transit network is a vast improvement over the old system, but in order to fully see its potential, the city needs to get buses out of traffic.

Brian Pincott, a former board member of Functional Transit Winnipeg, told 680 CJOB’s Connecting Winnipeg that one solution would be to create more priority bus lanes by taking a page from other cities’ books and moving buses to the middle of major streets.

Pincott — who previously served as a city councillor in Calgary — said that the city has already made a similar change on a stretch of major roadway and that it is seeing a lot of success.

“We moved the buses to the middle. We built platforms. It moved all of that away from the edges,” he said.

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“It gave a better route for buses, bus ridership went way up, the buses were faster and more efficient … and it changed the nature of the streetscape — it’s better for businesses, there’s more people walking.”

Pincott’s comments come after Coun. Janice Lukes, chair of Winnipeg’s public works committee, told 680 CJOB’s The News on Tuesday that the city is considering the creation of more bus-only diamond lanes on major routes like Portage Avenue and Pembina Highway — but a change like that can’t happen overnight.

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“We cannot do these changes on a dime,” Lukes said. “I know this drives people crazy, but factually, it takes time to make these changes.

“Everyone thinks that I designed the routes — I didn’t design the routes, I didn’t design the system, but this system has proven to be true and true and works in other cities. We’re getting the bugs out here.

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“I think, eventually, this system will be embraced.”

Pincott said the current network is a good start, but there needs to be more done to encourage Winnipeggers to use transit.

“We put in a good network, but it’s got to be efficient for people — the bus has to come when it says it’s going to come and it has to get you there efficiently,” he said.

“The next step, what we need to do, is to get more buses and more drivers going … but we need to start getting buses out of traffic.”