By increasing the amount of service and updating its scheduling and routes, the city of Kingston was able to induce demand for buses.
Unlike other cities around North America, Kingston, Ontario is gaining bus ridership. In 2013, the city added express service to Queen’s University, St. Lawrence College, and Kingston General Hospital. "The new service was supposed to be direct and frequent enough to compete with cars in terms of travel time. Kingston Transit now offers several express routes, all of which provide service every 15 minutes or less during rush hour," David Rockne Corrigan writes for TVO.
New routes and new service has translated in to a jump in the number of trips from 3.2 million in 2013 up to 6.4 million in 2017. Updates to the service have meant some trade-offs. The service no longer serves as much of the city, but observers argue the trade-offs are worth it, because the infrequent service was too patchy to be useful for the number of riders they now serve. Now by offering more service in some of its most popular routes they're better able to compete with car travel.
Other Canadian cities, like Guelph and Halifax, have looked to officials from Kingston to try to learn from the city's success.
FULL STORY: Why Canadian cities are asking Kingston for public-transit advice
Bus Transit Still Faces Social Stigma
Improving headways and making service more reliable can help reduce the negative public image faced by urban bus transit.
Popular L.A. Bus Line to Replace Schedule With ‘Headway-Based Operations’
Los Angeles’ 16 bus, which cuts across the city on Third Street through some of the city’s densest neighborhoods, will experiment with a new approach to service design.
Birmingham Gets New Buses as Part of Plan to Improve Transit
Birmingham, Alabama is buying 15 new buses to run on a planned bus rapid transit route.
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
San Francisco's School District Spent $105M To Build Affordable Housing for Teachers — And That's Just the Beginning
SFUSD joins a growing list of school districts using their land holdings to address housing affordability challenges faced by their own employees.
The Tiny, Adorable $7,000 Car Turning Japan Onto EVs
The single seat Mibot charges from a regular plug as quickly as an iPad, and is about half the price of an average EV.
Seattle's Plan for Adopting Driverless Cars
Equity, safety, accessibility and affordability are front of mind as the city prepares for robotaxis and other autonomous vehicles.
As Trump Phases Out FEMA, Is It Time to Flee the Floodplains?
With less federal funding available for disaster relief efforts, the need to relocate at-risk communities is more urgent than ever.
With Protected Lanes, 460% More People Commute by Bike
For those needing more ammo, more data proving what we already knew is here.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Smith Gee Studio
City of Charlotte
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University
US High Speed Rail Association
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
Municipality of Princeton (NJ)