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Grand River Transit Grand River Transit, or GRT, is the public transit system in the Region of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It operates daily bus services, primarily in the cities of Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge. It was named for the Grand River, which flows through the Region; the naming echoes the name Grand River Railway, an electric railway which served the same area in the early twentieth century (more about the Grand River Railway). GRT began its operation on January 1, 2000 by assuming the operations of the former Kitchener Transit (which also served Waterloo) and Cambridge Transit from the cities, and placing them under the jurisdiction of the regional government. By the end of that year, operations had been fully synchronised and services established to connect the two operating areas, which was not previously possible by public means. In recent years, many low-floor, wheelchair-accessible buses have been purchased, principally from Nova Bus, Orion, and New Flyer, and these now constitute the majority of the fleet. Most operating buses are less than twenty years old; a few older buses are used primarily for high-school special runs. GRT has also in recent years begun installing bicycle racks on the front of many of its buses in order to encourage the use of sustainable transport. In 2004, the Region began preliminary design work on an existing proposal to construct a light rail system. The initial stage would serve the main transportation corridor in Kitchener-Waterloo, using rail corridors and on-street lanes to carry 14 km of track to ten stations. Further expansion plans would bring the service south to Cambridge, and possibly north to St. Jacobs and Elmira. The Ontario government has given the plan its support, and the federal government has funded an environmental assessment, but no construction funding has been pledged. The light rail proposal has received some criticism because it would run relatively infrequently (compared to other such systems; it would still outperform the Region's best bus services) and be limited by the narrow (often only two lanes) main streets of the area. In the meantime, the Region will in September 2005 be launching, with the assistance of federal funding, an express bus service along the same central transit corridor projected for the light rail system. This corridor starts at Conestoga Mall in north Waterloo, and runs via Kitchener's Transportation Centre and Fairview Mall to Cambridge's Ainslie Street Terminal (the precise routing between the major malls and transit centres has not yet been announced). GRT reports that the bus will run every fifteen minutes during peak times (every half-hour at midday), bear a distinctive livery to separate it from existing local services, take advantage of queue-jump lanes and other transit priority measures, and offer real-time passenger information at stations. The express bus is seen as a way to build up ridership in order to demonstrate the viability of the rail plan. External links
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