Winnipeggers call for more reliable bus service as gas prices continue to surge

With gas prices hovering above $2/litre, some Winnipeggers looking for cheaper ways to get around say the city's bus system needs to be more efficient before they'll get on board.

As fuel costs surged in recent weeks, so did transit use, but ridership is still about a third below pre-pandemic levels. Many point to infrequent service and inconvenient routing as possible reasons for the slow rebound.

Christian Okwudiwa, 28, moved to Winnipeg from Nigeria nine years ago, and has been taking the bus ever since.

"It saves a bit of money, and it's also saving the environment," he said.

Okwudiwa walks to a bus stop a few blocks from his home in Winnipeg South, and listens to music as he waits … and waits. 

"The buses are not usually on time," Okwudiwa said. "Because of that, they get delayed and sometimes you miss the transfer."

That leaves Okwudiwa scrambling to find another route in the busiest parts of the city core, usually around Winnipeg Square or Portage Place.

"Either I have to wait for another 15 or 20 minutes, or I have to take a walk," Okwudiwa said with a big laugh.

Like spokes on a wheel, most Winnipeg Transit routes travel to and from downtown. So when young people move to Winnipeg's south end to be near the University of Manitoba, for example, they often find the campus hard to reach by bus.

"I'd have to budget about an hour and 45 minutes, both ways" said recent grad Kwene Appah, "where if I drove my car it would take me 12 minutes." 

Appah, 25, eventually gave up on riding the bus and started driving to campus from Bridgwater, shelling out more than $600 a year to park.

"It's just not more efficient to take transit than to pay MPI annually and pay gas," said Appah, "even with gas at the price it is now." 

Appah would rather use public transit for both budgetary and environmental reasons, even if that means moving away from her home province. 

"If a car is too expensive to keep — which, with the way gas is going, it might be — do I want to live in a city where I can't rely on the transit system?"