The New (Bus) Order, Reaction.

This morning's Saskatoon Star Phoenix has an article on some initial reactions to the new bus routes. As you can imagine there is a lot of confusion, and customer service is fielding a lot of calls. Dan Bichel, head of Amalgamated Transit Union local 615 comments in the article that he thinks some stops may have to be moved. A good example I know of is the new bus stop on Acadia Drive just at the intersection with 8th Street. Whoever decided it should go there really should have spent some time watching the traffic patterns there, as it is right beside the exit to a strip mall that contains a Tim Hortons, resulting in lots of traffic coming out of that exit. Then you have the people who go across 8th on Acadia in the right hand lane, where the bus will be stopping. In other words they've taken an intersection that's already got considerable potential for accidents and increased that potential. Sure, the bus might only stop at that stop say once an hour, but its still likely to cause trouble.

As for me the new route through my area actually makes things a little bit more flexible. If I catch the bus on one side of the street I can go to Circle Park Mall as I could on the old route. Catch the bus on the other side and I can go downtown through a bit of Sutherland and via the University of Saskatchewan, where I go occasionally to use the main library. A much better scenario than those folks who suddenly have to walk several blocks because the bus stop they previously used is no longer serviced by the new routes. I did get on the wrong bus yesterday, but that could happen going certain places on the old routes as well.