Taking Transit in Niagara Region
Happy Sunday!
As many of you know, I take transit extensively in the Greater Golden Horseshoe - in Waterloo Region, in Guelph, in Peterborough, and more. However, there is one region that I seldom travel despite being more 'core' to the GGH, and that's Niagara Region.
In the past couple of months, I have made a few trips out to Niagara Region and have been able to use Niagara Transit. What I have found is a system that is somewhat difficult to use, and has a lot of room for improvement in the near-term.
In this blog post, I will speak a bit to some of my concerns with Niagara Transit, and how the system can improve. For full transparency, I have take Niagara Transit in St Catharines, Welland, Thorold, and Port Colborne. I cannot speak to the other municipalities, but I have found that opinion on the service is consistent region wide.
Background
'Niagara Transit' is a relatively new concept - it was only introduced in 2023. Prior to this date, transit was relatively disconnected in Niagara.
The region had three 'major' systems, in St Catharines (which also served Thorold), in Welland, and in Niagara Falls. There were minor systems in Fort Erie, Port Colborne, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Lincoln, and Pelham. In addition, there were intermunicipal routes from Welland to Port Colborne, and from Niagara Falls to Fort Erie. The individual systems were disconnected - you could use GO bus route 12 to connect from Lincoln, to St Catharines, and to Niagara Falls, but this was an expensive and inconvenient option. Welland, notably, was completely detached from the rest of the region.
In 2011, Niagara Region Transit was introduced. This system created intermunicipal links from St Catharines to Niagara Falls (routes 50/55), Niagara Falls to Welland (routes 60/65), and from Welland to St Catharines (routes 70/75). These routes served major terminals and destinations, allowing for passengers to transfer between local systems. There was a fare upcharge to use these intermunicipal routes - a local day pass, for example, was $8, but a regional one was $16.
By 2016, a second St Catharines-to-Niagara Falls route was introduced, being the 40/45, which took a more northerly route than the 50/55. Additionally, the Fort Erie link (route 22) and the Port Colborne link (route 25) were brought into NRT operation.
A (poor-quality) map of Niagara Transit's regional routes.
In 2023, all the transit systems were amalgamated into Niagara Region Transit, later renamed to Niagara Transit. The regional routes and the large systems were unchanged, but the smaller systems were converted to On-Demand (which was available anywhere fixed service didn't operate). In 2025, the fares were consolidated so that there is a flat fare for any trip, whether it includes a regional trip or not. This reduced the cost of some trips by nearly 50%.
Problem #1: Planning a Trip
The first problem with Niagara Transit is that they don't have a map! Yes, there is a regional map above. Yes, you can find old (somewhat outdated) St Catharines Transit maps online. Yes, there are individual route maps. However, there is not one resource to visualize the system. You become reliant on Google's poor trip planner, and I find it hard to plan a trip myself.
One other challenge is the bizarre numbering system. First, all regional routes are two-digit numbers. While the 22 and 25 make sense, the 50/55, for example, uses one number to travel in one direction, and the other on the return trip. This isn't the worst numbering I've seen, and it isn't unique here (as Kingston also uses it), but there is a lack of consistency with regional routes.
Next, three-digit series are assigned to municipalities. For example, all routes in Welland are in the 500-series. Niagara Falls has the 100- and 200-series, and St Catharines is the 300- and 400-series. The 300-series is used during the daytime on weekdays, and the 400-series on weekends and weekday evenings. This is done to distinguish routings that change on weekends. However, the vast majority of routes are the exact same - the 316 and 416, for example, have no difference whatsoever. Many of the changes are very minor! Some people's trip to work is the exact same as their trip home, but with totally different route numbers. I also add that some 400-series routes only operate on weekday evenings, but not on weekends... okay! Even worse, the 337 runs on weekday daytimes and Sundays, and the 437 on weekend evenings and Saturdays. The 322 runs weekdays and Saturdays during the daytime, and not at all on weekday evenings or Sundays. No consistency!
My issue here is two-fold - one, is saving one or two buses on weekends worth it, or is a consistent, predictable network all days of the week a better choice? Second, if a varying route is required, why not just add a letter to denote a variant. For example, the 412 is mostly the same as the 312, but also runs a portion of the weekday 305 route. The signage could be:
- 305 Haig to Lake/Linwell (weekdays)
- 312A Vine to Lakeshore (weekdays)
- 312B Vine to Lakeshore via Haig (weekends)
Lastly, despite the systems being fully amalgamated for two years, they have not replaced signage. On some stop poles, there are old Welland Transit signs and old regional transit signs, instead of one sign with all routes. In other places, signage shows numbers from prior to the implementation of the city-specific series. Niagara College Welland still has signs from pre-2018!
Problem #2: Low Frequencies and Limited Running Times
There really aren't frequent routes in Niagara Region. The 316 from Downtown St Catharines to Brock has 15-minute service on weekdays, and some of the Brock-area routes are decently frequent at times, but that's it. Everything else is every 30 minutes or every 60 minutes. While transfers are timed at hubs, the buses often miss them because of limited running times. For example, the 310/410 is schedule 11 minutes from Pen Centre to Downtown St Catharines Terminal. The drive time for this stretch is... 12 minutes. How can the bus doing it faster while stopping? The result are buses always late, missing connections, and half-hour waits for customers that a schedule says should be a two-minute wait.
Another issue is frequencies do not blend. If you are travelling from a point on Glenridge Avenue north of Glen Morris to Downtown St Catharines, on a weekend, you can take either the 410 or the 416. Each operates every thirty minutes... but they are scheduled to run at the same time. So instead of a bus every 15 minutes, you get two buses every thirty. This, on such a busy corridor, makes a lot of the service redundant for many.
Problem #3: Short Trips and Many Transfers
Compounding the missed connections above are that so many routes are so short, they require a lot of transfers. Getting across town often isn't as simple as a single vehicle, which is a bit weird in St Catharines, a city that frankly isn't crazy large. One way they have mitigated this in some cases is by interlining routes, where one route becomes another at the end of the line. For example, the 305, 310, and 320 are interlined, allowing a single vehicle trip from Fairview Mall to Thorold Towpath Terminal. This is great, if it was written literally anywhere. You just have to know. (This complaint could also fit as part of problem #1).
In my mind, why maintain short routes when you could just have them have a single number, making it very easy to understand the full extend that the vehicle is travelling. I think that combining routes should be a goal here - St Catharines doesn't need 29 weekday routes, but maybe around a dozen, longer, and more useful routes.
This trip above is three routes, but one bus. Just give it a single number!
Problem #4: Routes doing too many things
This is really a problem for the regional routes. On the 70/75 route, the route deviates significantly between Brock University and Niagara College Welland to serve a new subdivision at Kottmeier and Vaughn. Is the role of the regional routes to serve these far-off subdivisions or provide intermunicipal links? I think that the regional routes need to be reclassified into two roles:
- Hub-to-hub-to-hub routes
- Local, intermunicipal services
I would put the 22, 40/45, 50/55, 60/65, and 70/75 into the first, and streamline the routings to reflect this. The 25 alone belongs in the second group.
Problem #5 Clear Gaps
There are so many obvious service gaps in Niagara Region. Firstly, the regional routes do not operate on Sundays. This makes accessing employment a six day-a-week affair. This would be an easy win to allow for all trips to happen on all days of the week.
The second gap related to the amalgamation. When the smaller systems became On-Demand, which is a poor replacement in this case as it is similar to DRT's, it made some formerly easier trips difficult to complete. Adding onto the already existing gaps, you find a network that serves a small portion of trips people demand. Some clear gaps include:
- Winona Crossing (Hamilton) to St Catherines via Grimsby and Beamsville
- Port Colborne to Fort Erie
- St Catharines to Niagara-on-the-Lake
- Welland to Pelham
Additionally, noting the 22 Niagara Falls to Fort Erie link: it terminates at Fort Erie's municipal office, with no local service in town. This is a problem as Fort Erie has three distinct population centers, Crystal Beach, Crescent Park, and Old Fort Erie. Only Crescent Park is walkable to the municipal office, making the route useless for many trips. I think that a Port Colborne to Fort Erie service that operates through all three population centers would be highly successful.
My idea for a Port Colborne-Fort Erie route that actually serves Fort Erie.
Lastly, in Niagara Falls, is the WEGO system. This bus network serves the tourist destinations in Niagara Falls, offering 24- and 48-hour fares. However, local transfers are not permitted on this route, so the Green Line WEGO route is not usable by locals accessing work, creating an unnecessary gap in service.
What can be done to fix this?
I know that my blog posts can often be doom and gloom, but not in this case. Niagara Regional Council recently passed the '10-Year Investment and Growth Strategy', which aims to expand transit service significantly through a multi-phase plan.
I like this chart for clearly classifying types of service. This is important in a poly-centric region with many rural areas.
Pretty much all of above problems are resolved - frequent routes will be created, regional gaps will be filled, regional routes will be made more linear with less deviation, routings will be more consistent between weekdays and weekends, and short routes will be combined.
The plan significantly improves the regional route network.
So you may wonder, "Patrick, if Niagara Transit has a plan to fix all your problems with their network, why write this post?" I'm not ungrateful, but I would say, "why is the region passing a master plan two years after the network was amalgamated?" What was the urgency to amalgamate service, only to intend for it to stagnant for two or more years before improving it? Functionally, the amalgamated Niagara Transit is no different that the independent systems, so I think that a vision should have been developed when it all became Niagara Transit. Now, the functional change is years behind where it should be.
Anyways, the Niagara Region website about the plan is fun to play around in. Check it out here!
Conclusion
My experience on Niagara Transit has been quite eye-opening because it does not take much reading-between-the-lines to see where the network falls short. While I am glad to see the master plan will resolve many of my issues, I also think that it is coming too late because it made transit stagnant in a period of significant growth for the entire region.
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