Political optics won’t fix Winnipeg’s broken transit system

Every week, Winnipeggers share their frustration with our city’s transit system. The stories are detailed, emotional, and sadly familiar. One longtime rider, George Watson, recently reached out to tell me about his ordeal with the D13 route. He described it bluntly: “It’s complete hell in both directions.” He’s not wrong. His daily experience, waiting in the cold, missing transfers, and arriving hours late, isn’t a one-off complaint. It’s a symptom of a system run by guesswork instead of leadership.

George explained how the D13 route no longer connects properly with the 78 Waterford Green bus, forcing riders to wait for impossible transfers. “You can phone Telebus every five minutes,” he said, “and it’ll just keep moving the time down. So when you finally get to the stop, the other bus you’re supposed to transfer to just left five minutes ago.” He kept track of the calls and times and found that the D13 “keeps getting pushed back” until the connection is gone. The result? “I waited 40 minutes for the D13, then another 30 minutes at the transfer point. That’s 70 minutes of waiting just to make one trip.”

He summed it up clearly: “It took me two hours door to door. In winter, that’s impossible. You’re already frozen from the ten-minute walk to the stop, and then you have to wait another forty minutes. You’d never survive that at forty below.”

These aren’t small inconveniences. These are people missing shifts, losing wages, and standing outside in unsafe conditions because our city can’t coordinate basic bus service.

This is what happens when decisions are made reactively, based on who complains the loudest, instead of from a long-term plan rooted in data and public need. It’s how we ended up revamping routes that once worked, removing essential connections, and calling it modernization. Now, residents are paying the price.

The city’s latest news release admits as much: “Since we revamped our bus system, we’ve heard a lot of feedback about the need for more evening service in some areas.” That’s bureaucratic language for “we didn’t think this through.” Now, with public anger growing, council is rushing to announce an extension of evening On-Request service. It’s before City Council for consideration, and if approved, the changes would take effect December 14.

The plan proposes extending On-Request hours until 2 a.m. on weekdays and Saturdays, and until 12:45 a.m. on Sundays and holidays. It also expands Zone 103 to include Garden City Shopping Centre. Those changes will help some riders, but they don’t fix the real issue: the inconsistency and unpredictability that have defined Winnipeg Transit since this overhaul began.

City Hall wants credit for moving quickly. But let’s be honest, this is about politics, not progress. The Mayor and council are pushing this through to avoid an election-year disaster. Imagine if they had waited until next year, when voters would have weeks to judge them while standing at a dark bus stop, late for work again. The timing isn’t coincidence, it’s damage control.

Meanwhile, people are being forced to make expensive choices. With unreliable service, many are taking taxis or rideshares to get to and from work, especially at night. That’s money out of their pockets at a time when life in Winnipeg is more expensive than ever. Property taxes are up. Water rates are up. There’s a new waste collection fee. All of it gets passed on to renters and seniors who can barely keep up. And now, on top of it, the city’s poor planning means those same people are paying private companies for transportation that should already exist.

I’ve heard from seniors who now have to walk long distances to reach a bus stop for medical appointments. Others are afraid to go out after dark because they can’t count on a bus home. For people without vehicles, this isn’t an inconvenience, it’s a barrier to participation in city life. It limits employment opportunities, access to healthcare, and even social connection. And for the working class, it’s another reminder that City Hall doesn’t understand or listen to them until an election looms.

The city says more changes are coming in April with a “full plan to extend evening service on select fixed routes.” But why did we need to overhaul a system before we had a tested plan ready? Why were industrial routes cut without ensuring that the people who rely on them could still get to work? These are management failures, and they happened on the watch of Mayor Scott Gillingham and Councillor Janice Lukes, chair of public works. Accountability starts there.

It’s also hard to take council’s talk about “tight budgets” seriously when you look at how they spend. Just this week, they proudly announced $100,000 in upgrades at Old Market Square, including replacing the grassy area in front of the Cube stage with artificial turf. The project added 315 square metres of turf and improved drainage. I’m sure festival organizers appreciate it, but residents waiting an hour for a bus in the rain might question the priorities. It’s the perfect example of a city that finds money for optics but not for essentials. Public transit is not a luxury; it’s a service people rely on every day to get to work, school, and appointments. Artificial turf is not.

It’s time for our leaders to treat transit not as a checkbox for political optics but as a public service essential to Winnipeg’s economic and social health. If a city can’t reliably get people to work, it can’t claim to be moving forward.

There are solutions. First, the city must restore key industrial and airport routes that were eliminated in the redesign. These are economic lifelines, not luxuries. Second, Winnipeg Transit should be required to publish real-time reliability metrics that show how often buses arrive within five minutes of schedule, by route and time of day. If they can’t meet their own standards, the public deserves to know. Third, City Hall must create an independent transit advisory board made up of riders, not politicians, who can provide unfiltered feedback before major service changes are made.

People are tired of excuses. They’re tired of hearing about what might happen “next spring” or “after the next phase.” They want a transit system that works now, one they can rely on to get them where they need to go without losing time, money, or patience. Leadership means planning ahead, standing behind your decisions, and putting residents before politics. It’s time our leaders started doing that.