Study finds half of riders in Saskatoon unaware of coming Bus Rapid Transit
Surprise lack of knowledge found in early results of study
Public transit has generated a lot of debate in Saskatoon city council's chambers and received a fair amount of media attention.
So it may come as a surprise that one of the early findings in a long term study of the city's planned Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system found a lack of awareness that change is on the way.
"Over half of the current transit users didn't know that the bus rapid transit system was going to be implemented," said Daniel Fuller with the Interventions, Research and Action in Cities Team (INTERACT), a group of scientists, urban planners and citizens conducting the study.
INTERACT is gathering data from people using online surveys, a mobile smartphone app and wearable devices.
Preliminary results
Fuller said they haven't taken a deep dive into the data yet, but preliminary results suggested there may be a need to further educate bus riders about the changes set to come with BRT.
On the flip side, he said there is some good news.
"Transit users are actually very happy with the service in general. It looks like most of the users thought the service was safe, thought it was clean, and thought it was reliable."
Fuller explained when the study first launched about a year ago that INTERACT is trying to answer a vital question about Saskatoon's bus rapid transit system:
"What might be the potential health outcomes?" Fuller said.
"Just walking to the stop and back five days a week, if you're just taking the bus to go to work will get you to your physical activity goals."
A friendlier city?
The five-year study will also explore whether a BRT system can make Saskatoon a friendlier city and improve people's overall sense of well-being.
"We are sort of open to interpreting the data so we don't have a very clear hypothesis on whether these types of bus rapid transit systems can increase social participation or well-being, there's not very much literature out there to give us one direction or the other," Fuller said.
Of course, one thing the study still requires is an active BRT in Saskatoon. Last April, council approved the final routing for BRT, with construction for the supporting infrastructure to begin in 2022 and the buses to be active as early as 2025.
Fuller said the study is currently funded until 2022, but that there are plans to extend it if more funding can be obtained.
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with files from Saskatoon Morning