Growth and changing travel patterns, including more cross-regional trips, are behind a complete makeover of Oakville’s bus service planned for this year.
The town, which has traditionally planned its routes for GO commuters using the Bronte, Oakville and Clarkson stations, is moving from the existing radial route design to a grid-based system this fall.
While the existing system is great for GO commuters, it doesn’t work that well for getting across town, says transit director Barry Cole.
“Right now, a route will start at the Oakville GO station and go up Trafalgar Road, and then it will branch off into one of the residential or commercial areas and do a circuitous routing and end up back on Trafalgar Road and go back to the GO station — like the spokes to a wheel,” he said. “With the grid service what you’ll have is service operating east-west the full length of the town on Dundas, on Upper Middle, on the Speers-Cornwall combination and on Lakeshore, and those will also serve GO stations at both ends of the route — except the Dundas one that will go up to the South Common Mall (in Mississauga).”
