This won’t come as a shock: heavy downtown traffic is one reason why our buses fall behind schedule, especially downtown.

That’s been our biggest challenge with Route 301. When downtown traffic gets slow, we all feel it. Longer gaps between buses mean more people get on the late bus than expected, and the bus falls further behind. Eventually, it may be running only a minute or two ahead of the bus immediately behind it (which is often less full as a result).

To help solve this issue and help improve the reliability and frequency of Route 301, we’ve come up with a solution.

Here’s how it works. Starting June 29, we’re shortening the route downtown. Instead of traveling to 11 Street S.W., Route 301 will now turn onto 7 Street S.W., to serve a new stop on 7 Avenue before turning back east and eventually north. That new stop is less than 50 metres from 7 Street and 8 Street Stations.

To make this work, we will have to remove some current Route 301 stops, but we’re not reducing service on Route 301, nor are we cutting any buses. The route will continue to arrive every 4-5 minutes during rush hour, and every 15-20 minutes during the rest of the day and on weekends. Here is a map of the new routing.

One of the best things about this change is that it allows riders coming from the north to transfer directly to either the Blue Line or Red Line faster than ever. Also, the stop is adjacent to a plaza/open space and will allow riders to wait for the bus with some extra elbow room!

This change solves several problems that have negative impacts to our service, especially: access to the CTrain, schedule reliability, and bus bunching. This improvement will also make your experience more enjoyable as it is less likely that you will get on a bus that is overcrowded.

We hope you will notice an improvement come June 29 and looking forward to hearing your feedback!