Moncton buses increasingly packed with riders as city's population surges
Peak hours now standing-room-only on many popular routes
Russell Jones sometimes struggles to find a seat on the bus during his commutes around Moncton.
"It can be a little complicated because more people are taking the bus these days," he said, while waiting at a downtown bus stop.
Packed bus rides are getting increasingly common as New Brunswick's largest city sees unprecedented population growth. At peak travel hours, buses with 38 seats are crammed with upwards of 75 passengers on their way to work or school.
Angela Allain, Codiac Transpo's director of public transit, said the service is seeing more passengers than ever before — and is on pace for a record-breaking year.
"We have some bus stops that have been in place for 20 years, and they were pretty quiet, and now we could have 15 to 16 people boarding at a bus stop that was never utilized before," she said. "The change that's happened is one or two apartment buildings have popped up on that corner."
The transit service recorded 1.28-million passenger boardings this year, Allain said, according to farebox data from the end of August. That's up 50 per cent compared to the same time in 2022.
Allain said she attributes that growth to Moncton's population boom, including an influx of newcomers to Canada and people leaving urban centres in other provinces. There's also increased enrollment at some of the city's universities and colleges.
"Many people moving here are moving from really large cities and they're very accustomed to using public transit. So it's a natural source of transportation for them to search out when they get here," she said in an interview at the bus garage.
At Codiac Transpo's operations centre, supervisors track the buses on the road in real time. They see on a map when transit routes fall behind or get ahead of schedule and how many people are on board.
"Back in the days when I was operating we didn't have the full buses like we do today," said Terry Louis, an operations supervisor and former driver.
"We had 70, almost 80, people on one bus," he said, looking at the morning routes.
Need for more buses
Codiac Transpo is increasing service frequency on more than a dozen routes, but many of those changes are routine with the start of the school year. Schedules are usually modified a few times each year.
The 37 buses on the road currently operate out of three main hubs: the Champlain Mall, the Avenir Centre and Plaza Boulevard. On the busiest routes — like the red line and green line — several buses are running at once.
But travelling from many neighbourhoods to the city's downtown often requires a connection.
At a stop in front of the Avenir Centre, Daniel LeBlanc was waiting for a bus ride to the mall. He said the one downside with the service is the time it takes riding multiple buses to get from one place to another. He said his trips can take close to two hours.
"So basically if you need to get anywhere in Riverview and you only have two buses, it takes forever to get anywhere," LeBlanc said.
"It's a lot harder because the buses are less frequent."
Jones, who was also riding the bus downtown, said the waits between routes have improved since service cutbacks during the pandemic.
"It seems to have gotten a little bit better, which is definitely a big improvement."
But adding more direct routes is not likely to happen in the short term.
Allain said having longer more direct routes would mean reduced frequency, based on the current number of buses and drivers available.
"We don't want passengers waiting 90 minutes for the next bus, so that's why the design is what it is today," she said.
"We could use at least five growth buses, plus we need replacement buses just to maintain the current service level."
Codiac Transpo is planning to seek funding for new buses as part of its operating budget for next year. But with supply-chain delays, Allain said it takes about a year after ordering a bus for it to arrive in Moncton.
"We also want to address the emissions that's coming out of our tailpipe, so we're looking at zero-emission buses, battery-electric, for example. So these will be big investments that Moncton's looking at for the future," she said.
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