For example, every Sunday I take the same #9 bus to curling and every Sunday, it is almost 10 minutes late. It saves me enough time that it is quicker to wait the 10 minutes than to just outright walk, but it’s still so frustrating.

As a side note, your information about the amount of students west of Fischer-Hallman is a nice example of induced demand.

Tara, I’ve heard comments about the #9 too. I wonder if buses from the east or south (#7, #8) are any better. I don’t even want to know what the buses that have to deal with both Laurier and UW students look like.

One of the more frustrating aspects of this issue to me is the haphazard approach the GRT is taking w.r.t. this problem. I appreciate that sudden, seasonal student demand spikes are not the easiest thing to deal with, but they’ve got the data — even if the operator doesn’t call in and say she’s full, they beep in every passenger, so counting is trivial. This is the third fall of the UW U-Pass, so they even have something that might resemble historical data if they wish. And yet, the best they can come up with is a double bus, sometimes, not always? Yes, the doubling up can work, and sometimes it works, but they could do it so much better.

The #12 schedule which sees the bus get to UW around HH:17-19 makes sense, for a single run. To deal with too much passengers, they send through two buses at the same time and in practice they arrive around HH:22. This is obviously not enough, unless they are fine with regular crush-load-and-beyond conditions (and even if, passengers aren’t fine with that). The #29 which used to arrive at HH:14 or so has been moved up, because students like to get up earlier so much.

If they want to keep the #29 interlined, fine, have that arrive at HH:11. Then properly schedule a #12 to King, reliably passing UW a few minutes after, at HH:15. If you really want to, have two extra #12 runs, one past UW at HH:14, another at HH:18, and then the full-run to Conestoga at HH:21. If that’s too much of #12, or they don’t have enough buses to run to King and back, make one a #29.

That way, the first buses don’t have to wait for every late passenger, people who have class further away from University Ave can take earlier buses to allow time to walk and vice versa, and hopefully the full-run bus doesn’t leave behind people who are going beyond the universities (this was actually a big problem for a friend of mine who worked in north Waterloo a couple of terms back).

Same deal going back in the evenings: add in a short run 5 or 10 minutes before the full-length. You’ll pick up the early birds and eventually more people will start showing earlier to avoid the crush.

… This is working up into a proper rant :D.

They seem to have forgotten this or perhaps it’s just that they can’t predict the weather, just like we can’t, so it’s difficult to know on which evenings the buses with have heavy ridership.

I do however disagree with your statement about Route 29. I take the 29 everyday in the morning and I think your assumption that it is “relatively underused” is misinformed. I live west of Fischer-Hallman closer to Erbsville along Keats Way, and this is the 4th term I’ve lived at this location (since Winter 2008). I have noticed a huge increase in ridership in the 29 so much so that I often do not get a seat the mornings now. During my first term living at this location I was usually the second or third person on the bus. This is a very large difference in ridership and shows that students have expanded their area for off campus housing that GRT is largely unaware of this, or just don’t care.

Lets hope for all our sakes that we can get the word out about this because the winter is coming fast and more people will be attempting to take the buses.