ManitobaFort Rouge-East Fort Garry Coun. Sherri Rollins says Winnipeg Transit needs to address what she and some community members call a lack of equity in its new bus network.Coun. Sherri Rollins says route changes, stop removals disproportionately hit disadvantaged areasCameron MacLean · CBC News · Posted: Sep 19, 2025 8:19 PM EDT | Last Updated: 11 minutes agoWinnipeg city Coun. Sherri Rollins says the new bus network has disproportionately reduced service in low-income areas. (Prabhjot Singh Lotey/CBC)A city councillor says Winnipeg Transit needs to address what she and some community members call a lack of equity in its new bus network.”There have been real cuts to service in the North End, the West End and the downtown. And this impacts people all across the city,” Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry Coun. Sherri Rollins said in an interview.Rollins issued a news release Friday that included criticisms of the new primary transit network from riders, labour leaders and community advocates. The new system has approximately 1,200 fewer stops, and disproportionately removed stops from low-income neighbourhoods, according to Rollins.”People really worried, including [the Amalgamated Transit Union], that the system wasn’t designed by people, for people,” said Rollins.Winnipeg Transit launched its major route overhaul in late June, replacing its “hub-and-spoke” model, where buses meandered through outlying neighbourhoods before heading downtown, with a new “spine-and-feeder” system, under which buses follow a more grid-like pattern. The goal of the overhaul was to simplify the service, making it more frequent and reliable.But since the changes, the city has had a wave of feedback from riders, most of which has been negative. That’s included complaints about longer trips, packed buses and schedules that don’t work for employees coming home in the evenings or night. Jewish Federation of Winnipeg president Jeff Lieberman described the experience of cleaning staff at the Asper Jewish Community Campus in Old Tuxedo.Previously, cleaners finishing their evening shift could catch a bus on Kenaston Boulevard at 11 p.m.But now, that route ends service before their shift finishes, forcing them to walk 20 minutes over the St. James bridge to catch the bus home at Polo Park, said Lieberman.”These are not high-paying jobs, and these people are risking … safety, but also their health, by having to face this, especially in the winter,” he said.”They haven’t had that discussion with me about looking for a job somewhere else, but I imagine that’s on their minds.”With fewer stops, riders have to walk longer to catch the bus, creating a disproportionate burden on people with mobility issues, said David Kron, executive director of the Cerebral Palsy Association of Manitoba.Many of the now eliminated stops had deliberately been placed close to places where people with disabilities live, he said.”I’m not saying that they should replace back every stop that they took out, but they really have to kind of go through with a bit of a comb and … [say], ‘OK, here’s a spot that it makes sense to have it,'” he said.Transit has said it is listening to feedback from riders and has already announced some tweaks, but more extensive revisions to the network have to wait until November.Chris Scott, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1505, which represents Winnipeg Transit workers, says the new network made some improvements, like schedules that are easier for bus operators to stick to. But he acknowledged that for many riders, it isn’t working.”They designed it great, but when they designed it, they forgot about the people,” he said.One immediate change that could be made would be to expand on-demand service to areas where regular routes end early.Mayor Scott Gillingham says Transit staff have heard the concerns and are already considering changes.”Let’s get Transit to do the analysis. They’re doing their work,” he said during a news conference Tuesday. “We are calling [on] them to make more and more changes.”Gillingham encouraged all Transit users to keep giving their feedback, good or bad.Winnipeg councillor throws new transit system under the busFort Rouge-East Fort Garry Coun. Sherri Rollins called on Winnipeg Transit to address what she and others say is a lack of equity in its new bus network.ABOUT THE AUTHORCameron MacLean is a journalist for CBC Manitoba living in Winnipeg, where he was born and raised. He has more than a decade of experience reporting in the city and across Manitoba, covering a wide range of topics, including courts, politics, housing, arts, health and breaking news. Email story tips to cameron.maclean@cbc.ca.
New Winnipeg bus network ‘forgot about the people,’ say councillor, advocates
