Winnipeg Transit Riders Organizing

Take our survey!

Let us know if you have concerns with the new transit system by clicking on this link or scanning the QR code below to fill out our survey.

If you want to get involved as part of the organizing team, contact – wtrainfo@gmail.com

Upcoming Trainings

Training Dates

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All trainings are on the dates marked in red. Links to the trainings are below. If “To Be Added” is shown, the link has not been generated yet.

NOTE: for meetings before July 4, we used a recurring link in Zoom. We have decided to switch away from this feature. Please use the links below.

      What is Winnipeg Transit Riders Organizing?

      Developing a Transit Riders Organization for Winnipeg

      We are a grassroots organization looking to provide a better experience for transit riders across the city, working in concert with riders and city officials to help provide the best experience possible. We aim to use a distributive organizing structure, meaning we will train advocates across many transit routes, who will form a grassroots network by speaking to average riders. This will allow us to approach city officials with concerns from all manner of transit riders.

      The TLUC is focused on Winnipeg being the sustainable and healthy city it is mandated by the City Charter to be. For many decades Winnipeg has been moving in the opposite direction. Winnipeg must change its approach to  land use and transportation, one of the biggest changes is to shift the mode of transportation from car reliance to transit (as well as to more active transportation and car pooling). However, it is impossible to provide a functional transit system in a city designed for car reliance, with low density suburbs, not even linked by what we need; safe, affordable transit that arrives frequently and on time. 

      To see why the city must change, take a look at the screenshot below. This screenshot was taken from the website https://urbangeodesign.com/valuearea/ . Each vertical bar represents the assessment value per square meter of a given property. Higher bars represent higher assessment values. It quickly becomes clear that many areas are not paying enough in property taxes to make up for the cost of roads, sewage, electrical, garbage collection, and other services the city provides. This is not to say that it is wrong for anyone to live in an area like this. However, it is necessary for the city to encourage the building of more areas with high pillars, which are usually also the areas that are best served by functional transit.

      This is why TLUC is organizing transit users and transit supporters as a constituency for this new direction for urban development in Winnipeg. We need urban development with infill housing that is mixed income and mixed use to replace more low density suburbs, and investment in transit infrastructure and operations instead of new highways or wider roads. 

      The transit organizing will result in a new transit rider organization like they have in Toronto and Vancouver which have been successful in representing the interests of transit riders and a healthy city. We are using a distributive organizing approach, to engage and train-up transit riders to be advocates on their transit route, and form a grassroots network of people prepared to speak to other riders about the changes the city needs to make. This constituency of transit riders and supporters will have the impact on the Mayor and council as well as city administration to invest in smart urban planning and a functional transit system.

      Become a Transit Route Leader

      If you want to make a difference in the Winnipeg Transit experience, become a Transit Route Leader by clicking on this link to a survey and sign up for one of our training sessions. 

      Here is what you would do:

      • Learn more about Winnipeg urban planning and development, learn more about transit funding and services.
      • Commit to sharing information about transit and urban development with other transit users.
      • Receive regular information and “handbills” to share with other transit users on your bus, at your bus stop, at your school or workplace, with your friends and family. This will eventually include letters, petitions, and other action. 
      • Be part of a network of other grassroots transit users in your neighbourhood and contribute to actions to advocate for better transit and urban planning and development. 
      • Celebrate and share our actions on social media with your networks. 
      • Eventually you can be part of a new Transit Rider Organization for Winnipeg 

      What you need to participate:

      • A passion and some commitment to taking action for a better transit system, you can still complain all you want to, but action speaks way louder.
      • A regular bus route you take at least a few times a week.
      • A cell phone that makes it easy to share QR codes from our website.

      FAQs

      I prefer to drive. Why should I support the government spending money on busses that I won’t use?

      • As shown in the screenshot below, buses can transport far more people on a street or road than individual cars can. If you’re in a vehicle, this means fewer traffic jams, and where there are traffic jams, you’ll have to wait less.

      Why is my bus so late all the time?

      • This usually happens because the bus gets stuck in traffic. Traffic is unpredictable and hard for Transit to plan around. This can be mitigated by dedicated bus lanes and Rapid Transit corridors, which are currently planned by the City of Winnipeg but have not received the funding that roads have received. . Also Winnipeg does not have enough buses for all the routes, there has been no net increase in the number of buses even though Winnipeg has grown considerably in size. This means every time a new bus is added to the fleet an old bus is removed, so there are not more buses servicing new neighbourhoods and new bus routes.

      This new system sucks. Why can’t we bring back the old system?

      • Please see our section below for why we should stick with the new system.
      • The new system was badly rolled out and is underfunded. Bus drivers tell us it should have been rolled out in stages, and with more attention to preparing riders and training bus drivers. But the old system was underfunded as well and it was also not functional for many people. There have been cuts to some routes, bus stops and even destinations. The idea of the new system was to make the main lines run more often. This does mean more transfers from feeder routes which has resulted in longer wait times and missed connections, all due to under supply of buses and funding.

      Why should we stay with the new system?

      Easier modification

      • The new system has been greatly simplified, making it easier for Winnipeg Transit to modify routes as needed. Since the new system was deployed, there have already been several modifications made to various routes (examples include more buses on the F8 route, or schedule changes to the D13 and D16 routes).
      • The new system is a better design and if funded properly with the buses needed it would accommodate more people, offer faster service than the old system.

      Bringing back the old system simply shifts the problems back

      • While the new system is not perfect, the old system also had quite a few problems. If, hypothetically, the city went back to the old routes, then the people who had problems before, and now have a good route, will simply be in the same bad position they were in before. The new system was designed to benefit as many people as possible, so we will be making the overall transit experience worse. Not only that, but it would cost several million dollars to do so.

      Getting past the growing pains

      • With a systemic change of such a large size, it is inevitable that there will be hiccups and growing pains as the system adapts. However, with Transit already making changes, the system can only get better from here. It will take some time, but the new system will eventually become much better than the old one.

      Learn more

      Click any of the titles below to open some documents that will help you learn more!

      Share your thoughts

      Why is Winnipeg Transit so dysfunctional?

      Why is functional Transit also a land use issue?

      5 Tips and Tricks for riding Winnipeg Transit