Thread by @BramRecorder

1/ The 504 Chinguacousy Zum is going to be a bellweather for #Brampton, if it doesn't get built by 2023, this is likely going to herald the start of a series of significant problems for Brampton. It won't be the cause of it, it'll be the symptom of growing problems.

2/ The 504 Chinguacousy was supposed to be completed in 2022, to relieve significant ridership pressure on the 4/4A/104 Chinguacousy routes, the ridership pressure, but it is now being delayed until 2024+. Why? Because of other delays, and the 504 delay, will delay other things.

3/ the 504 is being delayed, because #Brampton is (running) out of bus storage space. See, the City delayed building the third transit facility so long, it was guaranteed to blow up in our face. When they started the planning it was 2018, and they expected it in 2024.

4/ The problem with 2024, is, by 2018, they knew we were going to run out of bus storage completely by 2022, so two years, that's a problem, good thing the LRT was going to be completed in 2022, freeing up a number of Zum buses. Except there is a problem, delays happened.

5/ the Hurontario LRT when the contract finally got signed and done, the new date was Fall 2024, which means the 504 will be delayed until then. But there is another problem, according to higher levels of government, the City didn't do the bus facility funding paperwork right.

6/ So that means that, plus COVID, means now the new facility will done maybe in 2026, if we get the funding. Oh, and that 2024 date for the LRT? That was pre-COVID, it could always slip a year or two, or more. Remember how well the Ottawa LRT is doing?

7/ Ottawa sold their buses and then had to buy buses back, because their LRT has had, uh, issues, with both heat and cold. Maybe reallocating those buses in the first year isn't so great an idea, now we are talking 2026+

8/ Okay, so no new Zum route until 2026, how bad can that affect the city, other than kind of whole west 1/4 of the city the Chinguacousy serves? Well, since the City only wants to build like 1 a year, at max, this means now the Bramalea, Kennedy, & Sandalwood ones are delayed.

9/ What we need to keep in mind is that when Zum was being built, the city was doing a new route or extensions almost every year.
2010: Queen
2011: Main
2012: Steeles

2014: Steeles West
2015: Bovaird
2016: Queen West

2018: Bovaird extension to Malton GO

10/ When you build routes like this, you get really good at it, because the people doing it keep getting better, and if people get replaced, the new people can be brought up to speed. The Bovaird extension to the Airport has been done, the city doesn't want to run it.

11/ Look, I get why they don't want to run the Airport extension, the airport has really low ridership, what this means is before, there was never a gap of more than a year between major extensions, now it will be minimum 4, could be 6 or more, you get institutional memory loss..

12/ So Zums will get delayed, that sucks. The issue is the bus storage issue is basically going to block peak service expansion from 2023 to whenever the new transit facility is done, except for a little bump after the LRT is proven.

13/ Which doesn't sound like a big issue, it's just three years, right? Well, given how Brampton is growing, we could add 80k+ people, (30k added in 2019) when we add no peak service. So, the vast majority of the adults will need to get cars, blowing the city climate targets.

14/ But it gets worse, by 2026, because Brampton keeps buses for 18 years, that means the buses arriving then will be used until the mid 2040s, which means to meet corporate targets, it can't be buying diesel buses anymore, plus pent up ridership.

15/ What does that mean? It means we will need to cough up $100m+ in one year if we want to vaguely attempt the climate targets, except where do we get the money? Rapid ridership growth has partially been holding congestion at bay, without peak ridership growth it could soar

16/ It's not just a congestion issue, it's also a cost issue, Brampton has the highest concentration of census tracts with severe debt burden, a third of the top 100 in the country are here. What happens when the kids become adults, how do the households afford more cars?

17/ People are going to get crushed on both sides by high housing burden and high transportation burden. The only way to lighten that load on a mass scale is better transit. Now, if we have a hard bus storage limit, how do you grow the fleet size? 24/7 service is how.

18/ You only need storage for the maximum number of buses that are being stored. If you have 24/7 service, you will always have some buses on the road, those buses don't need to be stored, freeing up space. The more 24/7 service we run, the more total buses the fleet can be.

19/ How can we afford it, how many people are really taking the bus really early or late? Pre-COVID, Brampton Transit was averaging 7k trips between 5 and 6 am on weekdays mostly on a handful of routes, the 11/511 is moving 1k+ that hour, 1/501 is 800+, 2/502 is 500+.

20/ So early morning there are still tons of people moving on only a few trips, moving a number of these to start by 4 am or early has merit. Evening ridership is poor because there is little to do in the evenings, because the system is shut down when they would want to come back

21/ Doing 24/7 service would boost evening and weekend ridership, because then they could make the return trip. Part of the reason Toronto can sustain night life is 24/7 TTC service allows people to return home safely and affordably at 2:30 am.

22/ This would also be one way #Brampton could pass Mississauga, they introduced 24 hour service weekdays in 2019, why not be the first suburb to offer 24/7 service like a real city? Or do we want to be a dumpy suburb forever?

23/ So to sum up, if Brampton doesn't do 24/7 service, Zum routes will get delayed, congestion will get much worse, residents are going to be poorer, climate targets will be blown, and new subdivisions can't really get transit service (or it'll come at the expense of elsewhere).