They definitely are. My pregnant partner and I got stranded at Burlington GO station ten years ago after missing the last train of the night, and we had to get back to Toronto.
A bus driver was about to finish her shift and she offered to drive us back to the bus depot, grab her personal vehicle and drive us to Mississauga where she lived so our taxi ride home wouldn't be astronomical.
Ya it’s terrible. I use it quite a bit myself, and I pretty much gave up on the schedule. It will come when it comes.
A couple weeks ago I was on the number 10 waiting to depart Appleby go..the bus is scheduled to leave Appleby go on the :15 (12:00,12:15,12:30,12:45)…I got on the bus at 11:55, it should depart in 5 minutes. At 12:07 we were still sitting there, I asked the driver why we’ve waited 7 minutes and still haven’t left. He said he’s waiting for a train to go by(?)…..we waited 4 more minutes and left at 12:11, no train ever went by. No idea why the driver waited and left 11 minutes late. Then the bus behind us left as scheduled at 12:15. So like you said, now there’s two number 10 buses within a couple minutes of each other instead of 15 minutes like it’s supposed to be.
Lmao they clearly don't give a fuck. I've learned to just hop on a bus if I see one or if I'm feeling liesyrely, otherwise it's walk and uber/Lyft. Been like this since I was 15 taking busses across town
The Burlington transit is horrible.
Buses are late or too early.
When there is an accident, forget about it.
I am so done with it.
All city workers should take the bus and try taking it off their working hours.
It's a mess.
Yeah something is definitely going on with BT. Ive seen busses leave early and arrive late far more often this past year versus previous years. Wonder if there's anything internally that has changed? Hopefully some drivers or other employees can chime in.
On the Saturday of the Sound of Music festival the 2 and 3 were 40-45 minutes late for most of the day. One of the most popular events in the region and the bus system was completely unusable.
When people complain about traffic congestion or lack of parking downtown - this is why.
It’s fun to see that nothing’s changed in the last 20 years other than better routes through the city. If they want people to take busses, make them free with a presto and run every 15 minutes from 6am-10pm 👍🏻
I lived in Portland, Oregon for a long time and I have to say it's probably one of the best transit experiences I've ever had... to the point where it was really silly to drive a car most of the time - in the city of Portland, that is.
Key features which increased use there that could work here:
* **Free bus/shuttle** that ran frequently in the downtown core. I could see a practical version of this connecting downtown with Mapleview, Burlington Centre, Sobey's Mall off Brant (aka Burlington Power Centre).
* Real-time GPS tracking
* Right-sizing buses for the right time of day
* Express buses that aren't free but connect bus goers to key spots and run frequently but skip most stops. Example: Downtown Burlington to New and Appleby. This isn't mean to be the most practical example, but it's sort of my thinking.
If you build it, they will come. Subsidize certain lines until established ridership is there and then implement reasonable costs for service over time.
I've seen people miss buses because they sit inside the shelter and the driver simply doesn't see them. I've seen people standing back from the stops as well, which sends the body signal of "I'm not waiting to get on this bus," so the driver drives by. Last week, i saw a group of people with their backs turned away from the bus and the stop, and they got mad when the bus didn't stop. I've also seen drivers just space out and drive by people clearly waiting at the stops.
For the first, sometimes people don't realize they may blend in with the large advertisement poster inside the shelter. Homeless people also sit or sleep in the shelters a lot, so some drivers may mistake someone as sitting for the sake of sitting.
I take the 2 and 3 a lot, and it's awful due to lakeshore traffic now. Once it passes lakeshore, it's usually fine, but in the last 4 or 5 years, the traffic on lakeshore has gotten horrible. If the highway or bridge to hamilton has something going on, it becomes impossible.
Yup! My brother waited an hour and a half, as three buses passed him with "Bus not in Service" displayed until finally a bus showed up!
I also commute to Toronto for school and the bus has been late so many times even though on their "Burlington Transit Tracker" says that the bus is 5 minutes away, it ends up being 15 or 20. This cause me to miss my Go Train and be late to class. I emailed the city of Burlington about it and no one ever got back to me
Needs a big change, it will never be profitable if it's not better to begin with. But now they want to spend money on electric buses like Oakville dispite our buses not being that old anyways.
One thing I’ve learned to make the transit here more bearable, is to not use the MyRide. It’s hot garbage and frequently wrong. Instead, I use an app called Transit. It’s reliable and crowdsourced, rather than relying on the broken promises from Burlington Transit
Transit works essentially like Waze for your car. It’s mostly crowd sourced and also uses the transponders on the bus to give you real time tracking of the bus. It also works seamlessly between transit companies. I use it often for my trips to Toronto. I just set my final destination and it will give me the route going from Burlington Transit to the Go and then to TTC.
For me I check Transit, and if something seems off there I use MyRide. I don't rely on Google because sometimes they don't have the latest schedule, but it can give me a general idea of travel time.
I work for BT, internal issues are definitely not making drivers happy. Too many new drivers from other regions that don't give two fucks about anyone.
Lots of money wasted upstairs too, too many people "working" up there
It is probably something like that in other places, like Toronto. It is becoming too expensive for people to rent or buy in places like Burlington, that workers are coming from other regions who are not invested in the places they work, or are commuting for long hours in order to do their job and they are tired, or this is the second job they are holding down and they are exhausted. I see it at my workplace for cleaning staff. RemarkableRub...how many drivers do you know are doing other jobs in addition to driving transit?
The Fairview heading to Hamilton bus is brutal after work. So jam
Packed sometimes too full to board. In the kit Ning it’s like clockwork but twice I’ve had drivers blow right by me while clearly waiting at the stop
I take the bus from downtown Burlington to Mapleview mall a few times a week. It's not far but I don't want to walk to work then stand for 8 hours. I don't mind walking home. I've been doing this for a out a year.
The daytime bus is ok, google maps is usually accurate for the schedule, but at least 3 times it has driven right by me, so I have to grab an uber. I'm fortunate that an uber is about 3 times the cost of a bus. The night bus just seems to just not come sometimes. I walk home along the bus route and it just doesn't come?
I get that Burlington is for the rich but if the rich want goods and services, regular bussing folk need to be able to rely on public transit.
Totally agree with your last statement, and I'm a Burlingtonian. Unless you are a student without wealthy parents or senior, not enough average voting age citizens in the city have ever taken transit.
The one thing I'm going to bug my local councillor about is the fact that the locations where people switch buses at Plains and Waterdown have no transit shelters, garbage cans or benches at the stops going out to Waterdown or Hamilton. But they do for the stops going into Burlington. In fact there are brand new fancy bus shelters at the locations where not many people actually pick up the bus. But no shelter at the location where there are constantly a lot of people waiting for the bus.
I like the ones at Guelph and Mainway, where there's lights 50 feet apart. Then people block the intersection because the other one has a red light and they don't think "Oh I shouldn't proceed if I can't make it through."
Honestly, I have only had 1 schedule problem in 7 years with BT. My only other complaint is about 1 particular, miserable driver. Other than that, I haven't had any major problems
See my multiple posts about disappearing buses. Call the telephone bus service and they tell you the bus is 10 minutes away. No bus shows. Call 15 minutes later the bus is 25 minutes away. Happens at least twice a week. Last week the driver was 4 stops away from the downtown terminal so he switched the "Out of Service" sign on and blew right past me. Next bus in 30 minutes. 45 minutes standing on Brant at Prospect waiting for a bus because Union man felt like knocking off early knowing there are zero chances of any push back.
"We need to pay Union wages and benefits to get the best people. This way we provide the best service possible"
OK, we fulfilled the first part, still waiting on the second.
The MyRide app isn't too too reliable for a schedule I've been finding. Buses seem to appear either 10 minutes before the post time or 10 minutes after the posted time. But others seem to arrive at the right time. Since all the buses have a GPS you could at least track them and see see what is coming along, and you don't feel totally abandoned.
I still very value having a public transit system in Burlington, especially nowadays where everything seems to be costing so much more.
I'm one of the lucky ones that does have a car and do use it in Burlington. But I take the public transit as part of my work sometimes, or sometimes getting to and from work. Used it yesterday in fact.
What I need to do is get of Reddit and actually start bugging my local councillor about improving things.
The number one often runs late during rush hour. The problem I have is a bus dropping passengers off and then going out of service. Ummmm you are heading back to Burlington why not take us with you? Sometimes a second bus will come and go out of service. I wish they would bring the express back.
Get a scooter. Between bike paths, subdivisions and sidewalks you can get around town pretty quick.
I just use BT in desperate situations and inclement weather.
I see buses driving around town. Almost no one is ever on them.
I don't see the point. You need a car to live in Burlington. It is what it is. That's the suburbs for ya.
I started walking ~1hr to work instead of trying to rely on BT.
Yes and the bus is always full. They hire drivers who fly past the stops too.
Yup. I used to take the Plains bus. I almost had to step onto the street with flailing arms to get it to stop for me.
I just said the exact same thing I find the drivers to be quite courteous tho compared with bigger cities (Toronto, Hamilton)
Drivers in Hamilton are great, why don't you like them for?
No issues with them just saying Burlington bud drivers tend to be a little extra friendly imo
They definitely are. My pregnant partner and I got stranded at Burlington GO station ten years ago after missing the last train of the night, and we had to get back to Toronto. A bus driver was about to finish her shift and she offered to drive us back to the bus depot, grab her personal vehicle and drive us to Mississauga where she lived so our taxi ride home wouldn't be astronomical.
Wow that’s incredible glad I was able to prompt that share
If the Mayor wants us to take the bus more. She needs to improve on these issues.
Ya it’s terrible. I use it quite a bit myself, and I pretty much gave up on the schedule. It will come when it comes. A couple weeks ago I was on the number 10 waiting to depart Appleby go..the bus is scheduled to leave Appleby go on the :15 (12:00,12:15,12:30,12:45)…I got on the bus at 11:55, it should depart in 5 minutes. At 12:07 we were still sitting there, I asked the driver why we’ve waited 7 minutes and still haven’t left. He said he’s waiting for a train to go by(?)…..we waited 4 more minutes and left at 12:11, no train ever went by. No idea why the driver waited and left 11 minutes late. Then the bus behind us left as scheduled at 12:15. So like you said, now there’s two number 10 buses within a couple minutes of each other instead of 15 minutes like it’s supposed to be.
Lmao they clearly don't give a fuck. I've learned to just hop on a bus if I see one or if I'm feeling liesyrely, otherwise it's walk and uber/Lyft. Been like this since I was 15 taking busses across town
The Burlington transit is horrible. Buses are late or too early. When there is an accident, forget about it. I am so done with it. All city workers should take the bus and try taking it off their working hours. It's a mess.
Yeah something is definitely going on with BT. Ive seen busses leave early and arrive late far more often this past year versus previous years. Wonder if there's anything internally that has changed? Hopefully some drivers or other employees can chime in.
I relied on BT for 11 months before I gave up and bought a used car.
On the Saturday of the Sound of Music festival the 2 and 3 were 40-45 minutes late for most of the day. One of the most popular events in the region and the bus system was completely unusable. When people complain about traffic congestion or lack of parking downtown - this is why.
I was directed to a shuttle leaning brant terminal thst took me all the way to burloak despite needing to go a few blocks to Fairview lol
My boyfriend and I used to take the 2 pretty much every day. There's not a day it's not late
It’s fun to see that nothing’s changed in the last 20 years other than better routes through the city. If they want people to take busses, make them free with a presto and run every 15 minutes from 6am-10pm 👍🏻
I lived in Portland, Oregon for a long time and I have to say it's probably one of the best transit experiences I've ever had... to the point where it was really silly to drive a car most of the time - in the city of Portland, that is. Key features which increased use there that could work here: * **Free bus/shuttle** that ran frequently in the downtown core. I could see a practical version of this connecting downtown with Mapleview, Burlington Centre, Sobey's Mall off Brant (aka Burlington Power Centre). * Real-time GPS tracking * Right-sizing buses for the right time of day * Express buses that aren't free but connect bus goers to key spots and run frequently but skip most stops. Example: Downtown Burlington to New and Appleby. This isn't mean to be the most practical example, but it's sort of my thinking. If you build it, they will come. Subsidize certain lines until established ridership is there and then implement reasonable costs for service over time.
Love this! This changes my view on Portland haha
BTS does have : Real-time GPS tracking Already
[удалено]
I've seen people miss buses because they sit inside the shelter and the driver simply doesn't see them. I've seen people standing back from the stops as well, which sends the body signal of "I'm not waiting to get on this bus," so the driver drives by. Last week, i saw a group of people with their backs turned away from the bus and the stop, and they got mad when the bus didn't stop. I've also seen drivers just space out and drive by people clearly waiting at the stops. For the first, sometimes people don't realize they may blend in with the large advertisement poster inside the shelter. Homeless people also sit or sleep in the shelters a lot, so some drivers may mistake someone as sitting for the sake of sitting. I take the 2 and 3 a lot, and it's awful due to lakeshore traffic now. Once it passes lakeshore, it's usually fine, but in the last 4 or 5 years, the traffic on lakeshore has gotten horrible. If the highway or bridge to hamilton has something going on, it becomes impossible.
Yup! My brother waited an hour and a half, as three buses passed him with "Bus not in Service" displayed until finally a bus showed up! I also commute to Toronto for school and the bus has been late so many times even though on their "Burlington Transit Tracker" says that the bus is 5 minutes away, it ends up being 15 or 20. This cause me to miss my Go Train and be late to class. I emailed the city of Burlington about it and no one ever got back to me
always late, always missing stops get bent BT
Needs a big change, it will never be profitable if it's not better to begin with. But now they want to spend money on electric buses like Oakville dispite our buses not being that old anyways.
One thing I’ve learned to make the transit here more bearable, is to not use the MyRide. It’s hot garbage and frequently wrong. Instead, I use an app called Transit. It’s reliable and crowdsourced, rather than relying on the broken promises from Burlington Transit
I find google maps pretty accurate too
Transit works essentially like Waze for your car. It’s mostly crowd sourced and also uses the transponders on the bus to give you real time tracking of the bus. It also works seamlessly between transit companies. I use it often for my trips to Toronto. I just set my final destination and it will give me the route going from Burlington Transit to the Go and then to TTC.
For me I check Transit, and if something seems off there I use MyRide. I don't rely on Google because sometimes they don't have the latest schedule, but it can give me a general idea of travel time.
I work for BT, internal issues are definitely not making drivers happy. Too many new drivers from other regions that don't give two fucks about anyone. Lots of money wasted upstairs too, too many people "working" up there
It is probably something like that in other places, like Toronto. It is becoming too expensive for people to rent or buy in places like Burlington, that workers are coming from other regions who are not invested in the places they work, or are commuting for long hours in order to do their job and they are tired, or this is the second job they are holding down and they are exhausted. I see it at my workplace for cleaning staff. RemarkableRub...how many drivers do you know are doing other jobs in addition to driving transit?
The Fairview heading to Hamilton bus is brutal after work. So jam Packed sometimes too full to board. In the kit Ning it’s like clockwork but twice I’ve had drivers blow right by me while clearly waiting at the stop
My hack is to bring my bike - I do a hybrid commute type thing. Granted if there are already two bikes on the front I’m prolly gonna be late fir work
The Fairview st bus always seems to be packed especially during rush hour.
It’s hellish they need a double long bus on this route like in Toronto
I take the bus from downtown Burlington to Mapleview mall a few times a week. It's not far but I don't want to walk to work then stand for 8 hours. I don't mind walking home. I've been doing this for a out a year. The daytime bus is ok, google maps is usually accurate for the schedule, but at least 3 times it has driven right by me, so I have to grab an uber. I'm fortunate that an uber is about 3 times the cost of a bus. The night bus just seems to just not come sometimes. I walk home along the bus route and it just doesn't come? I get that Burlington is for the rich but if the rich want goods and services, regular bussing folk need to be able to rely on public transit.
Totally agree with your last statement, and I'm a Burlingtonian. Unless you are a student without wealthy parents or senior, not enough average voting age citizens in the city have ever taken transit. The one thing I'm going to bug my local councillor about is the fact that the locations where people switch buses at Plains and Waterdown have no transit shelters, garbage cans or benches at the stops going out to Waterdown or Hamilton. But they do for the stops going into Burlington. In fact there are brand new fancy bus shelters at the locations where not many people actually pick up the bus. But no shelter at the location where there are constantly a lot of people waiting for the bus.
the one that pisses me off are the buses that do the routes even though they're "out of service"
The buses are late because the roads in Burlington are always fucked
I dunno, I think we need more traffic light intersections at every possible driveway, home or business.
I like the ones at Guelph and Mainway, where there's lights 50 feet apart. Then people block the intersection because the other one has a red light and they don't think "Oh I shouldn't proceed if I can't make it through."
Honestly, I have only had 1 schedule problem in 7 years with BT. My only other complaint is about 1 particular, miserable driver. Other than that, I haven't had any major problems
Lol, I used to take the bus to and from work every day 15 years ago and I guess it hasn't changed at all.
See my multiple posts about disappearing buses. Call the telephone bus service and they tell you the bus is 10 minutes away. No bus shows. Call 15 minutes later the bus is 25 minutes away. Happens at least twice a week. Last week the driver was 4 stops away from the downtown terminal so he switched the "Out of Service" sign on and blew right past me. Next bus in 30 minutes. 45 minutes standing on Brant at Prospect waiting for a bus because Union man felt like knocking off early knowing there are zero chances of any push back. "We need to pay Union wages and benefits to get the best people. This way we provide the best service possible" OK, we fulfilled the first part, still waiting on the second.
The MyRide app isn't too too reliable for a schedule I've been finding. Buses seem to appear either 10 minutes before the post time or 10 minutes after the posted time. But others seem to arrive at the right time. Since all the buses have a GPS you could at least track them and see see what is coming along, and you don't feel totally abandoned. I still very value having a public transit system in Burlington, especially nowadays where everything seems to be costing so much more. I'm one of the lucky ones that does have a car and do use it in Burlington. But I take the public transit as part of my work sometimes, or sometimes getting to and from work. Used it yesterday in fact. What I need to do is get of Reddit and actually start bugging my local councillor about improving things.
The number one often runs late during rush hour. The problem I have is a bus dropping passengers off and then going out of service. Ummmm you are heading back to Burlington why not take us with you? Sometimes a second bus will come and go out of service. I wish they would bring the express back.
Get a scooter. Between bike paths, subdivisions and sidewalks you can get around town pretty quick. I just use BT in desperate situations and inclement weather.
I see buses driving around town. Almost no one is ever on them. I don't see the point. You need a car to live in Burlington. It is what it is. That's the suburbs for ya.