Guelph Transit
Encyclopedia
Guelph
Guelph is a city in Ontario, Canada.Guelph may also refer to:* Guelph , consisting of the City of Guelph, Ontario* Guelph , as the above* University of Guelph, in the same city...
, Ontario, Canada. Established in 1929 after the closure of the Guelph Radial Railway Company streetcar lines, Guelph Transit has grown to comprise over 70 buses serving 28 transit routes.
The main terminus is located downtown at St. George's Square and at University of Guelph
University of Guelph
The University of Guelph, also known as U of G, is a comprehensive public research university in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. It was established in 1964 after the amalgamation of Ontario Agricultural College, the Macdonald Institute, and the Ontario Veterinary College...
, with a smaller facility at Stone Road Mall. GO Transit
GO Transit
GO Transit is an inter-regional public transit system in Southern Ontario, Canada. It primarily serves the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area conurbation, with operations extending to several communities beyond the GTHA proper in the Greater Golden Horseshoe...
buses on the Georgetown corridor terminate a couple of blocks away from St. George's Square (corner of Quebec and Wyndham Streets) at the Guelph Bus Terminal
Guelph Bus Terminal
The Guelph Bus Terminal, formerly located at 141 MacDonell Street, is temporarily located at 17 Wyndham St South in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. It currently is the main intercity bus station for the community, while the downtown hub for local Guelph Transit bus services is at the nearby St...
, as does Via Rail
VIA Rail
Via Rail Canada is an independent crown corporation offering intercity passenger rail services in Canada. It is headquartered near Montreal Central Station at 3 Place Ville-Marie in Montreal, Quebec....
at the Guelph railway station at Carden and Wyndham.
History
The City of Guelph is located approximately 55 miles (90 km) west of Toronto. Nicknamed the Royal City (reflecting the House of HanoverHouse of Hanover
The House of Hanover is a deposed German royal dynasty which has ruled the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg , the Kingdom of Hanover, the Kingdom of Great Britain, the Kingdom of Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
, known in its native Germany as the House of Welf), Guelph's street railway operated from 1895 until 1939 along five routes. It was also the western terminus of the Guelph line of the Toronto Suburban Railway
Toronto Suburban Railway
The Toronto Suburban Railway was an electric railway operator with local routes in west Toronto, and a radial route to Guelph.-History:...
.
By the late 19th century, Guelph had become such a size that public transportation had pretty much become a necessity. Serious discussion concerning a street railway began in 1875, and the Guelph Street Railway Company was formed in 1877. The company failed to get a charter for its proposed horse-car line, and the idea was abandoned.
In 1894, Guelph City Council
Guelph City Council
Guelph City Council is the governing body for the city of Guelph, Ontario.The council consists of the Mayor of Guelph and 12 ward councillors. Each ward elects 2 members to represent them. The council operates in the Guelph City Hall....
granted a street railway charter to local businessman George Sleeman
Sleeman Breweries
Sleeman Brewery Ltd. is a brewery located in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. John H. Sleeman originally began brewing beer in 1834. By 1933 the Sleeman brewery had ceased operations when their liquor licence was revoked for bootlegging, specifically, smuggling beer into Detroit, Michigan. The brewery was...
for the Guelph Railway Company for a term of twenty years. Construction began in April 1895 using 56 pound rail. The initial route of the GRC was south along Woolwich Street, through the downtown and along Dundas Road, with a second line running from the Sleeman owned Silvercreek Brewery on Waterloo Avenue, to the Canadian Pacific and Grand Trunk
Grand Trunk
Grand Trunk can refer to:*The Grand Trunk Company in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels*The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in Canada*The Grand Trunk Railway in North America*The Grand Trunk Road in South Asia...
(later Canadian National) Railway stations. Total distance of these two lines was approximately 4½ miles (7 km). Electrical equipment for 600 volt operation, three closed and two open cars were supplied by the Canadian General Electric
General Electric
General Electric Company , or GE, is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in Schenectady, New York and headquartered in Fairfield, Connecticut, United States...
Company. A stone car-barn and powerhouse were also built. The carbarn later served as the garage for the Guelph Transportation Commission buses until the 1970s, and still stands today at 371 Waterloo Avenue.
Sleeman operated a brewery on Waterloo Avenue and expected that his employees would travel back and forth to work on his system. He also built a skating rink and park behind his brewery.
Operation began on September 17, 1895, with 20 minute service being provided between 5 am and 11 pm, Monday to Saturday. New lines were soon built including Suffolk, added in 1896, O.A.C (Ontario Agricultural College
Ontario Agricultural College
The Ontario Agricultural College originated at the agricultural laboratories of the Toronto Normal School, and was officially founded in 1874 as an associate agricultural college of the University of Toronto...
) in 1902 and York Road in 1911. Sunday service did not begin until July 25, 1921.
George Sleeman continued to own the line until late 1902 when control passed to the Bank of Montreal
Bank of Montreal
The Bank of Montreal , , or BMO Financial Group, is the fourth largest bank in Canada by deposits. The Bank of Montreal was founded on June 23, 1817 by John Richardson and eight merchants in a rented house in Montreal, Quebec. On May 19, 1817 the Articles of Association were adopted, making it...
and the Traders Bank of Canada. The name of the company was also changed to the Guelph Radial Railway, as the new owners proposed extending the car lines to municipalites outside Guelph, but none were ever built.
Ridership doubled between 1902 and 1906 resulting in more rolling stock being purchased in 1906 and again in 1911. In 1903, the city of Guelph purchased the street railway for $78,000, which included eight miles of track, eight closed and three open cars.
Freight service had been introduced in 1900 using a small four-wheel locomotive, with traffic being interchanged with the Grand Trunk Railway
Grand Trunk Railway
The Grand Trunk Railway was a railway system which operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario, as well as the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The railway was operated from headquarters in Montreal, Quebec; however, corporate...
. This business increased to a point where in 1911 a new 27-short ton locomotive, #26, was purchased from Preston Car & Coach
Preston Car Company
The Preston Car Company was a Canadian manufacturer of streetcars and other railway equipment, founded in 1908. The company was located in the town of Preston, Ontario...
, along with two 2-truck 'Prairie' type streetcars, #60 and #70. In 1913, another 'Prairie' car, #80, was added with two more, #90 and #100, being acquired in 1914. The Prairie cars were 45 feet 10 inches (13.97 m) in length and were double ended. All five 'Prairie' cars were transferred to the Toronto and York Radial Railway
Toronto and York Radial Railway
The Toronto and York Radial Railway operated radial transit services outside of Toronto. Service began in 1904 with the merger of several operators:* Metropolitan Street Railway...
in 1925 and renumbered 151 to 155. A second freight interchange was added on Suffolk Street in 1915 and a connection was made with the new Toronto Suburban Railway
Toronto Suburban Railway
The Toronto Suburban Railway was an electric railway operator with local routes in west Toronto, and a radial route to Guelph.-History:...
line in 1917.
Both the Canadian Pacific Railway
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...
and Ontario Hydro
Ontario Hydro
Ontario Hydro was the official name from 1974 of the Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario which was established in 1906 by the provincial Power Commission Act to build transmission lines to supply municipal utilities with electricity generated by private companies already operating at Niagara...
made offers to buy the Guelph system. Ontario Hydro won out and took title to the Railway, under the name Ontario Hydro Electric Railways–Guelph District, on May 21, 1921. Some lines were rebuilt and some extended. Seven single-truck Birney cars numbered 219 to 225 were acquired in 1922. These were built by Canadian Brill
J.G. Brill and Company
The J. G. Brill Company manufactured streetcars and buses in the United States. The company was founded by John George Brill in 1868 as a horsecar manufacturing firm in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, merged with the American Car and Foundry Company in 1944 to become ACF-Brill and ceased production...
at the former Preston Car & Coach plant in nearby Preston, Ontario
Cambridge, Ontario
Cambridge is a city located in Southern Ontario at the confluence of the Grand and Speed rivers in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It is an amalgamation of the City of Galt, the towns of Preston and Hespeler, and the hamlet of Blair.Galt covers the largest portion of...
.
The first bus, a 29-seat Gotfredson, was placed in service in 1926 on Eramosa Road. This service was discontinued on October 31, 1927, due to significant losses, however, the service was reinstated the following year with a smaller bus. A second bus was used when streetcar tracks were under repair.
Operating losses began to climb beginning in 1927. The Suffolk line was removed in 1929 due to its poor condition and the cost of rebuilding, being replaced by bus service.
In 1926, Ontario Hydro tried to sell the system back to the City of Guelph, but were refused. Finally, in June 1937, City Council recommended the discontinuance of the streetcars, September 30, 1937, being the final day of operation, buses replacing them the next day. In 1939, the Ontario Legislature passed a bill transferring the system to the newly created Guelph Transportation Commission (now called Guelph Transit). Electric freight service continued to operate until May 26, 1939.
Present
Guelph Transit has bus routes that cover the entire city. Sunday service was added in 2001, new routes were added over the last five years. Guelph Transit's garage and other city works moved from Waterloo Avenue to 12 Municipal Street in the 1970s . In the late 1990s, a new transit facility was constructed on Watson Road.On June 20, 2007, Guelph Transit launched a web-based system known as Next Bus. Global positioning satellites (GPS) technology and advanced computer modeling provide riders via the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, handheld device
Handheld device
A mobile device is a small, hand-held computing device, typically having a display screen with touch input and/or a miniature keyboard and less than . Early pocket sized ones were joined in the late 2000s by larger but otherwise similar tablet computers...
s (including Palms, Blackberries
BlackBerry
BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...
, and Web-capable cellular phones), or their telephones to receive accurate, real-time arrival and departure information. This system has proven frustrating to some Guelphites, as Guelph Transit has removed posted information on bus arrival times and a user standing at a bus stop without a cell phone has no way of determining when the next bus will arrive. Additionally, the system's predictions have been known to be wildly inaccurate.
The new system features web-based map displays with local streets and routes, and real-time information available on the web. It will also incorporate dynamic transit display signs at key locations around the city. One such sign is already in place at Stone Road Mall. However, the service is limited in that the time displayed is linked to the scheduled arrival on the applicable timetable, not the anticipated arrival based upon the current location of the bus.
During the day it is quite common in southern Guelph for buses to pass by customers, including those who have already paid for the trip through a unlimited ride plan, as there are too few buses to handle the demand. This also means there is a high chance of not receiving a seat on the buses in Guelph.
Guelph Transit added holiday service in 2007 as well as additional routes serving the south end of the city. Services on these routes (56, 57, and 58) were suspended in April 2008, and the 54 Arkell route was extended to St Georges Square in July 2008.
As identified in the 2010 budget, Guelph Transit is modifying frequency and service hours in order to achieve targeted savings. These savings will be realized by shifting from a 20-minute service frequency to a 30-minute frequency in June, July, and August, making the weekday service schedules the same as Saturdays. Holiday service has also been cancelled for 2010.
Future
Work is underway to convert the Guelph railway station and current Greyhound Bus Terminal into a Regional Transit Facility by 2011.GO Train service will also be bringing back Train service for Kitchener.
In 2009 and 2010 Guelph Transit and Dillon Consulting developed a new Transit Growth Strategy and Plan for transit and mobility services. In developing a long term vision for transit in Guelph, the system was analyzed from customer, staff, technical and policy perspectives.
Routes
- 1 Woodlawn, ,
- 3 Waterloo/Fife ,
- 4 York Road ,
- 6 Auden/Eastview, ,
- 7 St. Joseph Hospital ,
- 8 General Hospital ,
- 9 Stone Road Mall, ,
- 10 College/Niska ,
- 22 Conestoga ,
- 23 Paisley/Imperial , (Regular Services only)
- 24 Industrial, ,
- 50 Stone Road Express
- 51 Gordon Street ,
- 52 University/Kortright, ,
- 54 Arkell,
- 55 University/College,
- 57 Harvard Express
- 58 Edinburgh Express
- 61 Victor Davis ,
- 70A/70B Perimeter,
denotes wheelchair accessible routes
Fleet
Fare
Fares effective September 1, 2011:Cash
- $ 3.00 per ride
Tickets
- Adult - 10 tickets for $ 22.00
- Student - 10 tickets for $ 18.50
- Senior - 10 tickets for $ 18.50
Passes
- Adult - $ 68.00 per month
- Student - $ 62.00 per month
- Senior - $ 57.00 per month
- Children under 5 - free
- Day Pass - $7.00
Monday-Friday the Day Pass is valid for one person after 9:15 a.m. and Saturday-Sunday valid all day. On Saturday-Sunday the Day Pass is also valid for a family/group pass consisting of the following:
- 1 adult and not more than 4 children/youths 18 years of age or under, or
- 2 adults and not more than 3 children/youths 18 years of age or under, or
- 2 adults