Winnipeg Transit

Winnipeg Transit is the public transit agency, and the bus-service provider, of the City of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Established years ago, it is owned by the city government and currently employs nearly 1,600 people—including approximately 1,100 bus drivers.

Operating 640 low-floor easy-access buses to more than 5,000 bus stops within the city limits, Winnipeg Transit carries almost 170,000 passengers on an average weekday. Moreover, according to the 2016 Census, public transit was the main mode of commuting for 13.6% of the Winnipeg census metropolitan area.

History (1882–1971)

1882–99: Winnipeg Street Railway Company

The first attempt to provide public transportation in Winnipeg would, evidently, be premature. On 19 July 1877, a horse-drawn omnibus operated between the Old Customs Building at Main Street & McDermot and Point Douglas. This was only a singly-day attempt and turned out to be a failure.

Nonetheless, four years later, Toronto businessman Albert William Austin recognized the need for public transit in the rapidly-growing city of Winnipeg, and incorporated the Winnipeg Street Railway Company. Soon after, upon prodding the begrudged City Council, Austin was able to establish the Winnipeg Street Railway (WSR) on 27 May 1882, under an agreement that required one mile of track to be laid within 6 months.

Surely enough, Austin met the deadline: the first horsecar made a trial run on 20 October 1882, and regular public service began the next day with four cars. The first route ran along Main Street, from the City Hall to Fort Garry (Broadway and Main St). The next year, the service was extended to run a track along Portage Avenue, and the first car ran along the new tracks to Kennedy Street on 11 November.

Located on Assiniboine Avenue between Main Street and Fort Street, the Company's stable had shelter for the horses, though the cars had to stay out on the rails. Fares were CA$0.10 cash per ride—or 15 tickets for $1.00. (In the winter, fares dropped to $0.05 cash.)

The WSR experimented with electric cars in 1891. On January 28 that year, at 7:30 in the evening near Osborne and Jubilee, the city's first electric car was tested. (That first electric car would be the first Edison car to be manufactured and operated in all of Canada.) The summer of 1882, the Company began running in regular service.

On 1 February 1892, Austin's competitors, William Mackenzie and James Ross of Montreal, received the exclusive right to operate electric street car service in Winnipeg, via city by-law 543. That year, on July 26, Mackenzie and Ross ran the City's first electric street car on Main Street, thereby establishing the Winnipeg Electric Street Railway Company (WESR). Passengers on that first trip included Mayor Hugh John Macdonald and the City Council, among others.

The width of Winnipeg's main streets allowed both companies to operate simultaneously.

Hurting WSR even more was a disastrous fire in 1893, in which the Company lost 68 horses. In court, Austin tried to fight for exclusive rights for street railways, going all the way to the Privy Council in London. In 1894, after losing his case, he sold almost all of the company's assets to the WESR for $175,000, and the two companies agreed to amalgamate on April 28.

Horsecar operations ended the next day, except for the Kennedy Street line, which City Council required to operate for another 6 weeks. Austin additionally kept the Elm Park horsecar line to operate as a private venture; his company had opened the Park in the 1890s to drum up business on the line during off-peak times. With the ending of a price war between the two companies, fares doubled, from 50 up to 25 tickets for $1.00, or $0.05 cash.

The WESR continued to expand its lines, its inventory of rolling stock, and its car barns. It bought the Manitoba Electric & Gas Light Company for $400,000 in 1898, and changed line voltage from 250 to the standard 550 volts the following year.

1904–24: Winnipeg Electric Railway

The Winnipeg General Power Company was incorporated by officers of the Winnipeg Electric Street Railway Company (WESR) in 1902. The two companies amalgamated in 1904, adopting a new name for the combined organization: Winnipeg Electric Railway Company (WER), and now controlled all street railway, electric power, and gas utilities in the City.

Incorporated on 1 March 1902, the Suburban Rapid Transit Company operated west of Winnipeg along Portage Avenue, inaugurating a line as far as Charleswood in 1903, and extending to 'Lot 112 St. Charles' in October 1904. Initially leasing cars and buying power from the WESR, the Company was bought up by the amalgamated WER in 1905, which finished expansion of its line to the village of Headingley by the end of the year.

The Winnipeg, Selkirk & Lake Winnipeg Railway, an interurban electric transit company incorporated in 1900, operated cars from the WESR's Main Street terminal to the Town of Selkirk, with a later spur line from West St Paul to Stonewall. In 1906, its stock was bought by the WESR, although it continued to operate as an independent company (to be spun off much later as Beaver Bus Lines).

Also in 1906, a hydroelectric plant was completed in Pinawa, Manitoba, and streetcars started operating on Sundays, following a June 28 plebiscite with 2,891 ''for'' and 1,647 ''against'' the 'Sunday streetcar' bylaw.

The Company did well during the economic boom of the early 1900s, and built a new headquarters in the eleven-storey Electric Railway Chambers building at Notre Dame Avenue and Albert Street in 1911–1913. The Company occupied the basement and the first two floors and leased out the remaining space to other tenants.

In 1914, the Public Utilities Commission ordered the WER to start collecting fares on a pay-as-you-enter (PAYE) system, which required some rebuilding of cars. PAYE was implemented beginning on 27 May 1914. From 1914 to 1915, the WER would start to experience competition from '' jitneys'', privately owned taxi cabs. The financial pressures of this competition, tensions with the Public Utilities Commission about route planning, complaints regarding the poor state of rolling stock all led to a crisis in 1918. Negotiations with the city led to a repealing of the jitney bylaw, some route changes, a program of rebuilding old trolley cars, and the first appearance of motor buses in Winnipeg.

On 1 May 1918, Winnipeg saw its first gasoline-powered bus in operation.

The Company was also affected by the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. On June 21, or " Bloody Saturday," strikers set on-fire Streetcar 596, which was run by non-union WER staff members.

A terrible explosion and fire at the Main Street car barn on April 7, 1920, after which some replacement rolling stock was bought from the Twin City Rapid Transit Company of Minneapolis (most of the WER's stock had been built by the company in Winnipeg, or by the Ottawa Car Company).

The Winnipeg Electric Railway Co. took out a full-page ad in September 1920, titled "That The Public May Know The Facts", to state the Company's side of being forced by the Public Utilities Commission and the City of Winnipeg to remove their tracks in the north city-limits area.

In 1921 it also bought some Birney Safety Cars from Preston Car & Coach, which would start service in 1923 after delays caused by controversy over the safety of the one-man cars. Increasing competition with the automobile and the post-war economic slump led to the company rebuilding the rest of its own fleet as one-man cars.

1924–53: Winnipeg Electric Company

On March 13, 1924, the Manitoba Legislature passed a Bill changing the company's name to the Winnipeg Electric Company (WECo). The Company was allowed to increase its number of Board members from 9 to 12.

On 21 November 1938, WECo started the first modern trolleybus service in Western Canada, on Winnipeg's Sargent Avenue, using 6 vehicles on a route. Between 1939 and 1945, as many male streetcar operators had volunteered to fight in the Second World War, female operators took over. At the peak, there were 53 women employed as drivers and maintenance workers for public transit. The trolleybus fleet and system were expanded during and after World War II, reaching a peak of 162 vehicles and 70 route miles (110 kilometres) from 1956–1959.

In January 1940, William Carter was named the new President of WECo.

During the summer of 1948, a Public Utility Board inquiry took place questioning the depreciation costs claimed by WECo. and its predecessors on streetcar equipment. This led to a difference of $495,000, part of which WECo. overclaimed $363,504, overestimated $30,000 for snow removal costs, and didn't include a $99,000 "saving" on conversion to trolleybuses.

The River Avenue bus route was extended and its name changed to Crescent in October 1949 after a six-month battle over the routing.

1953–60: Greater Winnipeg Transit Commission

A referendum was conducted on 25 March 1953, where only the electorate in the city proper were eligible to vote. It turned out that the privately-owned Winnipeg Electric Company (WECo) did not want to operate the transit system any longer. An editorial in the ''Winnipeg Tribune'' said:

In the Referendum on Wednesday, Winnipeg electors stated emphatically that they want the mass transit facilities of the metropolitan area owned and operated by the people of Greater Winnipeg.

As result, within a month of the referendum, the multi-municipality Greater Winnipeg Transit Commission (GWTC) was created through legislation passed by the Manitoba Legislature—the ''Greater Winnipeg Transit Commission Act'', which was proclaimed into law, effective 1 May 1953. As result, on May 29, the Manitoba Government took over operation of the Winnipeg Electric Company, thereby beginning the service of publicly-owned transit in Winnipeg. The purchase of WECo assets were officially completed on November 11 later that year. A 5% gross-revenue tax was replaced by a seat-mile tax in the amount of "one thirtieth cent per mile" (1/30¢ per mile (1/30¢ per 1.6 kilometre)).

Just as in other jurisdictions, there was proof that the oil industry conspired to get rid of the electric streetcars because it prevented more people from purchasing automobiles. Traffic engineers wanted access to the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) subway (at Higgins and Main) to allow for regular vehicular traffic as, up until September 19, two lanes were exclusively used for streetcar traffic. Soon enough, streetcars in Winnipeg saw their last day of operation on 18 September 1955. These last Street Cars were paraded on Main Street with the lead car painted with a crying face and the phrase "We've had it!" above the windows.

After dismantling the streetcar network, the GWTC created a mascot, Transit Tom, who made his advertisement debut in 1955, with the slogan “Take A Bus!”.

Limited stop bus service was introduced on the Portage route starting 4 November 1957. A five-cent premium fare was charged to passengers. By May 1960, GWTC had tweaked the Portage Express and added the Ness Express routes. Mylar signs using white text on a red background indicated to passengers the bus was Express rather than a local bus.

1961–69: Metro Winnipeg Transit

On 1 January 1961, the Greater Winnipeg Transit Commission was reorganized as the Transit Department of the newly-established Metropolitan Corporation of Greater Winnipeg—dubbed Metro Winnipeg Transit (or Metro Transit)—and was managed by D. I. MacDonald. On the eve of this takeover, the GWTC suggested consideration of a rapid transit subway for Winnipeg, but agreed it would be premature to plan for immediate construction.

In 1962, as part of the new Metro administration, a metropolitan development plan began after taking several years to complete. The transportation component, referred to as the Winnipeg Area Transportation Study, whose recommendations were published in January 1969, called for five freeways, a suburban beltway, and a underground subway. A report on transit was released in October that year, recommending to scrap the idea of a "downtown bus terminal" for Winnipeg Transit. It also recommended a price reduction of 50 cents for monthly passes.

On 1 January 1963, Metro Transit offered to purchase a fleet of 11 diesel buses for C$200,000 from White Ribbon Bus Lines, which served the City of Transcona. Also in early 1963, Metro Winnipeg Transit began to get rid of the Zone Fare system in some areas. Councillor Bernie Wolfe led a campaign against Zone Fares, saying that this extra fare encouraged carpooling in the Fort Garry area. Abolishing the Zone Fare would result in a loss of $130,000 annual revenue to the Transit Department.

Metro Winnipeg Transit phased out the trolleybus fleet throughout the 1960s. At one point, Winnipeg City Councils were taken down, after which diesel buses ran those lines. In April 1969, bus fares were raised from 15 cents to 25 cents. Also that year, the main transit garage was moved from Assiniboine Avenue to a new location on south Osborne Street.

Recent history (1970–present)

1970–73

The last trolleybus in Winnipeg ran on 30 October 1970; the vehicle used is preserved.

As early as 1971, Dial-A-Bus was studied as a way to transport passengers from very low-density suburban neighbourhoods.

In August 1970, several River Heights residents opposed a jointly-managed Unibus shuttle service for students of the University of Manitoba