Shaping a Region, The iXpress Route

How the iXpress Bus Route in Waterloo Region Sold the Region on Rapid Transit (Part 1 of 2)

Mike McConnell

7 min readSep 13, 2020

Series Introduction

This post will be a two part series on the iXpress transit corridor in Waterloo Region.

The first post, this one, will discuss the creation and impact of the iXpress transit route 200 from 2005–2009
The second post will evaluate how the success of this route was leveraged towards the construction of a rather significant rapid transit infrastructure, the Waterloo LRT (2009-present). It is unique for a region the size of Waterloo’s (620,000) to launch a LRT in Canada, especially in southern Ontario. Arguably (depending how you view some Toronto Streetcar routes), this is Ontario’s first LRT, soon to be followed by Ottawa’s system. The success of the iXpress 200 directly resulted in the launch of the $818m LRT.

Route 200 iXpress Summary: The Spine of Waterloo

The Region of Waterloo and Grand River Transit (Waterloo’s transit agency) were confronting tremendous growth back in the early 2000’s. This time represented the peak of Research in Motion, or The Blackberry phone, and thus the technology industry and the associated university populations were growing at a substantial rate. The region needed a quick transit win. Their response, the iXpress.

Beginning in 2005, this route was a limited stop transit service in the central spine of Waterloo Region. It ran 37km from Waterloo in the north to Cambridge in the south. The unique aspect of this route was it only serviced 13 stations over 37km of one-way service. This worked out to a stop spacing of 1700 metres on average. For context, a limited stop service aims for 500–600m spacing while a local service (the typical bus route) is between 300–400m. This means once a rider gets to these strategically placed iXpress stations, whether that be from walking, biking, or local routes, they will experience a quick trip to their destination with limited stops in-between. With enough frequency and density, this route was bound to be a well-planned success, and it was. The idea of this route was to demonstrate through results that a high quality, highly integrated, limited-stop express service linking major trip destinations will be able to increase transit ridership in a medium-sized urban area.

Where it Went:

The iXpress Route 200 formed the centre spine of the region. The Region’s traditional urban growth patterns were in a nice line via King Street. This is an excellent geometry for a high-order transit route. This route was able to connect four major shopping centres, the three downtowns, two universities, office complexes, and the hospital. The below map nicely illustrates how spaced out each bus stop was. The route only stopped at significant trip locations with special emphasis on integration with local GRT routes .

How Frequent Was It:

At launch, the iXpress frequency was 15-minute headways during weekday AM/PM peak and 30-minute headways during weekday midday. There was no service at night or on the weekend. For such a highly planned and marketed route, this is not a good frequency.

It’s a tough call, adding so much frequency and funding at launch is a big risk. However, to attract high numbers of riders, the service needs to be good. A kind of ‘chicken and egg’ scenario. I imagine the Transit Planners of the day would have liked to see more frequency, however funding is usually the number one inhibitor of transit.

Luckily, the route experienced the ridership it needed to expand the service to a service that is frequent and is ‘there when you want it’ kind of span as detailed below. This higher frequency in 2009 allows the iXpress route to satisfy 4/7 of the elements of ‘useful’ transit as identified within the book Human Transit by Jarret Walker. These are:

It takes me when I want to go.
It is a good use of my time.
I can trust it.
It gives me freedom to change my plans.

The Ridership:

It only took one month from launch for the iXpress service to reach the target and 3 years later to significantly exceed targets by upwards of 80%. This route grew twice as fast as the rate of growth in the overall GRT system. With improving frequency the ridership increased by 450% between 2005 and 2009. Another example that frequency and span of transit routes matter.

From Auto to iXpress Trips — Infrastructure Cost Savings

One significant finding is the amount of riders who switched from vehicle drivers or passengers to using the iXpress. Survey results in 2006 & 2007 indicate 15–19% of riders used to travel by car. If we take the lowest ridership month of 2009 (5800 boards per day) we can conclude that 1200 vehicle trips were no longer inefficiently using Waterloo’s road space. This kind of data really helps sell the value of high order transit to a Region.

It is difficult to determine the financial savings of transit in a Transportation Master Plan on infrastructure costs. For example, if a municipality were to choose a significant transit option Councillors tend to only see the cost of the transit service. What is not provided is the cost savings of not needing to expand roadways. This missing data helps with that ‘apples to apples’ comparison that is so needed. There are real and large savings to a City if more residents choose transit from a road widening perspective. This does not even include other negative externalities of auto trips as shown below.

Cost of Commuting Including Intangibles — Brent Toderian

Successes, Challenges, & Lessons Learned

To assist other agencies in creating their own iXpress like system there are a few successes and lessons learned during the first few years of the project.

Successes:

Ridership with U-Pass, the launch of University Transit Passes at the University of Waterloo and Laurier in September 2007. The timing of these passes resulted in significant ridership growth.
Distinct Transit Branding: The branding separate from the local routes resulted in a positive community profile. Rider’s knew to expect a frequent and quick transit ride from the distinct buses with the ‘X’.

Multi-Department Collaboration: The success of the iXpress project was a result of different staff bringing their specialties to the table including public consultation, transit planning, transit operations, marketing, and traffic operations.

Challenges

Technological Complexity: The technology provided on the iXpress Route 200 was new at the time. This includes APC/AVL, Next stop arrivals, signal priority, and automated electronic signs & announcements. This complexity technology features were not completed on time and budget. They were rolled out in phases.
Complexity of Coordination: Coordinating between 4 jurisdictions (City of Waterloo, City of Kitchener, City of Cambridge, & Region of Waterloo)inevitably results in delays. Plus, in order to construct stations and next stop arrival screens an electrical power hookup was needed. This meant staff were required to consult businesses and organizations which was at times complicated and time consuming.
Managing Staff Resourcing: Staff resources were stretched to the limit when completing the required hours for this project plus other competing responsibilities. This project was carried our in-house with Region Staff. It is recommended staff are exclusively placed on this project which could include contracted staff.

Guiding the Way To Rapid Transit

The significance of the original iXpress Route 200 cannot be understated for the Region of Waterloo. The success was leveraged towards the approval, construction, and operation of the $790m ION LRT which replaced this route. This LRT allowed the Region of Waterloo to focus their land use patterns in terms of intensification along the Route 200/LRT corridor and prevent sprawl. The costs savings of this development pattern are long term and significant. Part 2 will detail the LRT implications on the Region’s Transit and growth in general.