West Aurora Network Study (WANS)

This is not an official study, it is entirely independent.

The impending relocation of Dr. G.W. Williams Secondary School in Aurora presents an opportunity to rethink where the buses in Aurora run. Presently, transit service in western Aurora suffers from some issues. Route 32 - Aurora South is very indirect and appears designed to maximize benefit for students attending the local high schools at their existing locations. With G.W. Williams now further east, this design is no longer useful for most riders. When thinking of how to make transit better in Aurora, many fundamental questions come up: Where do people want to go? Should trips within Aurora be prioritized, or should we focus on connections with other lines taking residents far beyond Aurora? It was clear people were looking for connections and as such, they were emphasized.

Final Report - August 9, 2025

The final report for the project has been completed. The final proposed network is the same as the preliminary solution below and includes a separate off-peak network without routes 31, 32, and 98A, to be used until the off-peak GO Train service runs every half hour rather than once every hour.

July 25, 2025 update (Preliminary Preferred Design)

The preferred design is shown below. Route 31 was determined have a round-trip time of 27 minutes, too short for 1 bus. As a result, I have decided to combine it with route 97. Service to Stone Road will be done by a branch of route 98 as this uses resources most effectively and accounts for lower ridership from Stone Road. This decision would be revisited if Stone Road ridership is greater than expected.

YRT is conducting a survey until August 4th to inform their improvements to transit in Aurora. If you take transit in Aurora or would consider it, please fill it out. As part of an experiment in public consultation, I have posted a video about this project which you can see below.

July 5, 2025 update

Over the past few days, I have looked at each of the options and narrowed them down to a much shorter list of choices. The reasonings for the changes will be detailed in the final report, though if you are curious now or would like to know why your preferred choice was dropped, you can send a message to my Linkedin or send me an email (michael.hollander@mail.utoronto.ca).

Northwest Aurora, Wellington, and Bathurst Options

Two options for the Wellington and Bathurst arterial routes were carried forward. A continuous 88-33 route was rejected due to being too long, which may cause strain on drivers or the route's reliability, or require an inconvenient mid-route layover. Any particular layover spot would be difficult due to Viva blue, Aurora GO, and the Wellington corridor being ridership generators. This left a 33 going to Seneca King, and an 88 branch ending at Aurora GO, sharing 2 km of its route with route 33.

For the northwest, coverage was important. This necessitated a big loop for the 33 or the new northwest route, as shown on the map. Option 1 requires the 32 to run on Haida and MacDonald, while Option 2 requires the 33 to do this as part of its loop. It is routed this way to ensure convenience for Aurora High School students, a major source of ridership on the existing 32.

North-central Aurora Options

I quickly determined it was best to serve St. Maximillian Kolbe CHS directly at bell times, and likely Aurora GO at other times. This would replace the school special, which could run direct to Aurora HS for those students instead. Batson Drive's narrow lane is likely modifiable due to the very wide lane in the other direction, so buses can likely be routed there. However, this is not the case on Walton so I decided to eliminate those options. I also eliminated the option via Spruce and the Batson loop as it did not provide much of an advantage over other options. All routings go to Yonge and Edward due to the popularity of the commercial strip in that area.

Southwest Aurora Options

Option 1 was made due to the fact that a short 32 Henderson route could be serviced by one vehicle running every half hour and to give a good ending point for a local bus (96 or 98). Option 2 simplifies the existing route to provide easier access to Aurora GO.

East of the GO Tracks

The data I have collected in this area is currently limited. As a result, I have not narrowed my options in this area as of yet. However, I have determined that a route should serve the Stone Road neighbourhood via October Lane or Stone Road (probably the former, though this is not guaranteed) rather than Bayview Avenue during peak hours as the walking distance for most of the neighbourhood will be below the peak hour standard.

Prior updates

Where do Aurorans want to go?

As noted above, route 32 serving Aurora's southwest quadrant is circuitous despite demand showing this may not be the best design. As part of this study, I rode each trip of routes 32, 428, 429 (within Aurora), and 434 twice to determine where existing transit riders are going. This data was collected from April to June, 2025 (Mostly in April and early June).

Transit riders in west Aurora want to go to places along the area's arterial roads, Yonge and Wellington. The vast majority (95% CI: 95.5% to 98.9%) of riders went to and/or from destinations along those two streets or a destination they could only access by travelling along an arterial (this includes the Stone Road neighbourhood). Both Wellington and Yonge are popular. Among all riders of the noted routes, most (95% CI: 53% to 63%) got on or off at or within a block of Yonge. This can be attributed to Viva blue and the commercial areas around where route 32 crosses Yonge.

Among the passengers not simply making trips exclusively along Wellington, a majority (95% CI: 51% to 65%) still go to or from there. Wellington has commercial strips just like Yonge but it also has high schools (specifically Aurora HS and St. Maximillian Kolbe CHS), which make up over a third (95% CI: 32% to 44%) of trips starting or ending along Wellington. With that in mind and the complete lack of local trips within neighbourhoods, the network in Aurora must prioritize those going to those streets.

My analysis additionally showed that two thirds of riders (95% CI: 63% to 73%) were counted during the PM rush hour. Justin Fan told me this is normal for infrequent routes as people are less in a rush and thus are more willing to wait for a less frequent route.

Finally, my data found a third (95% CI: 28% to 38%) of riders boarded or exited along Henderson Drive away from Yonge or in the McClellan Way neighbourhood. Any new network should continue to provide these passengers with easy access to the destinations they go to most.

Getting more people to take transit

Parking at Aurora GO remains scarce. While ridership to Aurora GO is presently not strong, I note few good connections to GO Trains presently and the lack of parking (as well as the lack of space for more parking) means demand for alternative means of travel to Aurora GO is inevitable. The traffic along the section of Wellington between Yonge and the tracks is problematic, with my friend Lucas Gaspari having specific problems with the Yonge and Wellington intersection. Further bus ridership to the station and to Yonge can mitigate these traffic problems. As a result, the network I develop must focus both on bringing people to arterial streets and to Aurora GO.

Presently, there is a lack of transit service northwest of Wellington and Yonge. A school special from St. Maximillian Kolbe is scheduled for implementation in September 2026. Students from Aurora HS also live in this area as do potential GO and Viva riders. With this in mind, a new service in the area should be proposed.

While analyzing the ridership, I found a very significant difference between the portions of AM and PM rush hour trips I counted taken by high school students going to their high school. During the AM rush (which already has fewer riders overall), ridership to all high schools makes up less than a fifth (95% CI: 12% to 30%) of trips. By comparison, high schools make around two-fifths of afternoon trips (95% CI: 34% to 46%). Some of this may be due to the convenience of other routes, the difference is so high I consider it being the only reason to be improbable.

If I add the GW Williams and Cardinal Carter trips I filtered out of my data, the difference is still very significant with AM school ridership (95% CI: 26% to 41%) being much lower as a portion of total ridership at that time than PM school ridership (95% CI: 46% to 58%) despite PM ridership being much higher overall.

Infrastructure

Lucas Gaspari noted to me that the section of Wellington between Yonge and Aurora GO often has traffic problems due to having fewer lanes than the rest of Wellington, a lack of turn lanes at Yonge, and the rail crossing activating when a GO Train is simply stopping at Aurora GO from the south. fixing these traffic issues is not in the study's scope, but the poor traffic on Wellington would increase the desirability of avoiding that section as well as alternate transport for the people who currently drive on Wellington.

Improving the transit experience for those commuting to Aurora GO is in scope and infrastructure solutions may be just as valuable (if not better) than non-infrastructure solutions. For example, the current routes 32, 33, and 54 stop on the north side of Wellington going westbound with no pedestrian crossing at the station, forcing people to go uphill from Industrial Parkway or cross where no crosswalk exists. As I brought up in a recent Linkedin post, the crossing pictured is an example of a potential infrastructure solution which would allow buses to stay on Wellington (providing a more direct Viva blue transfer) while providing good access to Aurora GO to GO passengers.

Other considerations

After Lucas Gaspari noted narrow lanes on Seaton Drive as described in this post, I measured several local roads in Aurora to check if they had lane widths meeting YRT's 3.3-metre standard. The results are shown below, with red roads being below YRT's standard at present. This does not mean these roads can not be used by a YRT route (as discussed in the aforementioned post), but they should be avoided without a very good reason otherwise.

Yellow roads have no median dividing line and should be used with caution: They are generally local roads and a yellow line could be added if needed (potentially resulting in a below-standard lane width). I will not disqualify any options below standard as YRT is proposing to run a school special on Seaton Drive this September and the line can be moved on some roads (sometimes without removing street parking). However, I will apply a penalty to them when evaluating route alternatives.

Building a new network

This content has been moved to the All Options page.

Acknowledgements

I thank Lucas Gaspari and Justin Fan for their great feedback and insight.

Last updated: 08/10/2025