Your new bus won't actually be faster
Good morning from the Forest City — yes, the other London. The one that actually matters to us. Let's get into it.
You know, for years, it felt like all we talked about in London was Bus Rapid Transit. The debates, the delays, the fights over Dundas Street... Look, I've been covering this city for a decade, and that discussion was a constant hum, sometimes a roar. We finally get to the point where the rubber's supposed to hit the road, literally, and now we're hearing the system might be hobbled from the start. A recent report indicates that our fancy new BRT lines won't have all-door boarding, which is a pretty fundamental part of making rapid transit *rapid*.
### What This Means for Londoners
It's a head-scratcher, isn't it? The whole point of BRT is to speed things up, to connect places like Western University, downtown, and the White Oaks area more efficiently. Without all-door boarding, people still have to funnel through one door to tap their cards or pay fares, creating a bottleneck at every single stop. It's like building a beautiful new highway but then putting a single toll booth at every exit. This isn't just a minor technicality; it directly impacts how quickly buses can move and how smoothly your commute will be.
* **Slower Boarding:** Expect longer waits at stops, especially at peak times along busy corridors like Richmond Street or Wellington Road. * **Reduced Efficiency:** The system's ability to live up to its "rapid" name is compromised right out of the gate. * **A "Richmond Row Problem":** You can just imagine the frustration when a bus pulls up to a packed stop near Victoria Park or the Covent Garden Market, and everyone's still trying to squeeze through one door.
We spent all that time, all that political capital, to get this system off the ground. To hear now that a core feature designed for speed might be missing? It feels like we've built a beautiful new kitchen but forgot to plumb in the sink. It's an EOA issue, a Westmount issue, a problem for anyone who relies on public transit to get around our sprawling small town.
That's The Buzz for today.
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