|
Grand River Transit, or GRT, is the public transport operator for the Region of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It operates daily bus services in the region, primarily in the cities of Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge. It was named for the Grand River, which flows through the Region; the naming also echoes the Grand River Railway, a former electric railway which served the area in the early twentieth century. GRT is a member of the Canadian Urban Transit Association. ==Overview== On January 1, 2000, the Region of Waterloo created GRT by assuming the operations of the former Kitchener Transit (which also served Waterloo) and Cambridge Transit from these cities. By the end of that year, operations had been fully synchronized and buses began running between Cambridge and Kitchener; as a result, ridership in Cambridge improved dramatically,and there have been increases in service, including Sundays and late evenings Monday-Saturday. In recent years, many new 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, though a few older buses are used primarily for high-school special runs. GRT has installed bicycle racks on the front of its buses in order to encourage the use of sustainable transport; all standard and express buses now have these racks. Service to less dense areas is provided by the busPLUS system, large vans which take regular fares on scheduled routes to new neighbourhoods and more remote facilities; if ridership is sufficiently high, these services can later be replaced with regular buses, as happened with the 71 Melran route in Cambridge. GRT also operates Mobility''PLUS'', which provides specialized transit for disabled patrons using minibuses equipped with wheelchair lifts. The GRT fleet consists entirely of motor-buses. Kitchener Transit operated trolleybuses earlier in its history, but they were withdrawn from service during the 1970s, well before the systems were merged. GRT has continued operating 23 compressed natural gas-driven buses inherited from Kitchener Transit but has not expanded this fleet; these buses are to be retired before the end of 2009. Until the 1950s, the area was served by electric passenger and freight trains run by the Grand River Railway, which even earlier in the 20th century had run streetcars on city streets before the separated railway lines were built. Effective September 1, 2007, all undergraduate students at the University of Waterloo purchase a non-refundable 4-month U-Pass in their tuition for less than a quarter of the equivalent adult monthly pass. On February 14, 2008, the members of Canadian Auto Workers 4304, which represents GRT employees, planned to go on strike. However a tentative agreement was reached before the deadline of 12:01 am and the strike was averted. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Grand River Transit」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|