Only 53% of Winnipeggers Have Convenient Access to Public Transit, new study

WINNIPEG, February 8, 2018—Just over half of Winnipeggers (53 per cent) have convenient access to public transit.

Moreover, 32.76 per cent of our city’s residents have inconvenient access to transit, with 22.36 per cent potentially having to wait 15–30 minutes for a bus, while 10.4 per cent possibly have to wait for longer than 30 minutes.

This is all according to a new report, Measuring Winnipeggers’ Convenient Access to Public Transit, from the International Institute for International Development (IISD). It is the first time that a comprehensive review of Winnipeggers’ convenient access to public transit has ever been published.

“Traditionally, access to public transit has meant looking only at spatial measures—for example, how far away a bus stop is from your house or place of work,” said Kyle Wiebe, project officer, IISD.

“This new study gives a much more comprehensive picture, as it also includes a temporal measure. It refers to how long you may need to wait at a bus stop before a bus arrives, how many buses come each hour and how long your trip on the bus will be.”

The report also breaks down the convenient access to public transit by neighbourhood. It found that the majority of people who have convenient access to public transit live downtown, in Point Douglas, River Heights, or along the Southwest Transitway Rapid Transit Corridor.

Of the 14.3 per cent of Winnipeggers who have no convenient access to transit, most live primarily on the periphery of the city.

“To inform constructive conversation about public transit in this city, we need to know how convenient public transit is for Winnipeggers,” said Wiebe. “Only then can we begin to improve our city’s transit system so that it offers citizens convenient alternatives to driving their own vehicles.”

IISD has also launched a complementary interactive map that allows users to locate their block within the city and learn how convenient their access to public transit is.

This report is part of a larger body of research that IISD is conducting, contained in its SDG Indicators Portal that measures progress on the Sustainable Development Goals for 13 cities across the country, including Winnipeg.