Sean Marshall

Tag: Onex Bus

  • Another bus to London

    Another bus to London

    Intercity Bus minibus on York Street at Royal York Hotel, February 13, 2024

    In late 2023, yet another intercity bus operator started serving the busy Toronto-London corridor, operating between Toronto and London. With the rather unimaginative name of “Intercity Bus,” this new company operates up to four trips a day between Toronto and London. It has since added a route between London and Sarnia; it also plans to run the much-needed link between London and St. Thomas.

    There are now five bus companies on the Toronto-London route: Intercity Bus, Onex Bus, Trailways, and Megabus (in a partnership with local coach operator Badder Bus). Those five companies compete with VIA Rail, which operates up to six daily trips between the two cities, with up to 28 round trips daily between them.

    Onex Bus departing Downtown Toronto, photo kindly provided by Chris Whitfield

    VIA Rail remains the fastest and most comfortable option, with full-service staffed stations in Downtown London and Downtown Toronto, but its fares are typically the most expensive. The private coach companies offer cheaper fares, and several of them directly serve Western University and/or Fanshawe College. Megabus has partnered with Trailways; its booking website includes both the Toronto-London-Detroit Trailways trips and the Toronto-London trips operated by Badder Bus. Otherwise, one must go to the individual companies’ websites to figure out the complete schedule and where each service stops at.

    The schedule below, saved as a PDF, includes all regular weekday trips between Toronto and London along with intermediate stops.

    Complete schedule showing all regular weekday trips between Toronto and London

    In Toronto, Flixbus, Trailways and Megabus/Badder call at the Union Station Bus Terminal, where connections can be made to other Flixbus and Megabus services, along with GO Transit and VIA Rail in the adjacent railway hub. Onex and Intercity Bus make use of a curbside stop on York Street next to the Royal York Hotel, which is shared with the Toronto Island Airport shuttle. These three stops are all within a few minutes’ walk from each other. Some Flixbus runs to London begin and end in Scarborough, and many buses also make a stop at Pearson Airport.

    In London, every bus carrier makes a curbside stop at Western University, the terminus of all bus trips from Toronto except Trailways, which continues to Windsor and Detroit. All carriers except Badder/Megabus also serve Downtown London. However, each has a different stopping location, with Flixbus and Trailways opting for a curbside stop on York Street near CitiPlaza (London’s downtown mall), and Onex utilizing the driveway at the VIA Rail station.

    Curbside stops are convenient for bus operators, as they’re easy to pull up to and depart from, there’s no rent, staffing, or maintenance costs. With smartphones and online ticketing, there is no need for a ticket agent, and passengers can be notified by text and/or email of any delays or changes. But curbside stops have no shelter and no washrooms.

    Interestingly, Intercity Bus has taken over the old Greyhound terminal in Downtown London. At its peak, London’s terminal had dozens of daily departures to cities and towns all over Southwestern Ontario, serving multiple carriers at a time when intercity carriers acted more like a unified network.

    The old London Greyhound terminal

    The terminal offers seating, washrooms, and is staffed by an agent, a rarity in the post-Greyhound world. The washrooms are especially essential if — as on my recent trip — the bus does not have an on-board lavatory. These new smaller carriers save fuel and labour costs by operating smaller vehicles and matching capacity with demand. They often operate older coaches and minibuses.

    Inside the Intercity Bus terminal

    I recently took Intercity Bus from Toronto to London to try out Ontario’s newest carrier. Though the 12:10 departure from Toronto was on a minibus similar to those used by rural transit operators (there were only 10 passengers on that Tuesday afternoon run), the ride was comfortable enough, with cloth bucket seats. It was a fast trip: it skipped stops in Woodstock and Fanshawe College, and the driver made very good time on Highway 401, at times exceeding the posted speed limit by 25 or 30 kilometres per hour. Even with a stop for fuel (the driver asked if it was okay), we arrived 15 minutes early at the London terminal.

    At its peak in the 1980s, there were over two dozen daily departures from the London bus terminal. There were frequent Greyhound routes to Toronto via Kitchener and via Brantford and Hamilton as well as to Chatham, Windsor, and Detroit; there were also daily Greyhound routes to Niagara Falls via St. Thomas, Simcoe, and Welland and to Strathroy, Sarnia and into Michigan. Regional coach operators also ran from the Greyhound terminal to Stratford, Goderich, Rodney, Walkerton, Leamington, and Port Stanley. Today, there are just four — three to Toronto and one to Sarnia.

    Detail from 1990-1991 Ontario Intercity Transportation Guide, showing bus routes from London to points throughout Southwestern Ontario

    My hope for the next year is for more stability in the intercity bus industry, perhaps even mergers between some of the smaller players. Onex and Intercity Bus, which compete on the Toronto-London route and offer a similar service, could be beneficial, especially if it results in a network of routes radiating out of London, starting with Intercity Bus’s London-Sarnia service, its planned St. Thomas route, and Onex’s London-Stratford-Kitchener run.

    I updated my map of Ontario’s intercity transport services for March 2024, including the new Onex Bus and Intercity Bus routes in Southwestern Ontario. There are new services in East Zorra-Tavistock, connecting to Stratford and Woodstock, and in North Grenville. Unfortunately, Lindsay and Haliburton lost their TOK coach service, Prescott & Russell ended its on-demand service, and gaps remain in Bruce, Elgin, and Haldimand Counties.

    Updated Ontario Intercity Map

    If you like this post and you would like to help out with my online mapping and webhosting costs, consider buying me a coffee. Thank you!

  • The long way to London

    On Friday, May 13, I embarked on a day trip through Southwestern Ontario from Downtown Toronto. I wanted to ride more of Ontario’s new intercommunity transit services and try one of the new intercity bus operators that’s filling the vacuum left by Greyhound’s departure. I started my trip at Union Station, spent some time in Kitchener-Waterloo, then continued on to London, returning home that evening.

    Between Toronto and Kitchener, there are several options. VIA Rail is the fastest and most comfortable ride, but it now only operates one train a day between Toronto and Kitchener.

    GO Transit is the most frequent option, with several weekday trains between Toronto, Brampton, Guelph, and Kitchener, and connecting buses at Bramalea GO Station for Downtown Kitchener and Waterloo. The train and bus trip via Bramalea is just under 2 hours, costing $19.40. (Weekend GO service is much slower, requiring a change of bus at Square One, with a 2 hour, 33 minute ride.)

    The traveler might also choose one of the new private carriers. FlixBus has one daily departure at 7:45 AM from Downtown Toronto (on York Street, south of Union Station), with a second 2:15 PM trip departing Thursdays through Sundays. Though FlixBus is the cheapest option — only $14.24 with tax — it is slightly slower than GO Transit’s direct train or its Bramalea bus connection, as it deals with Downtown Toronto traffic and serves Guelph on its way to Kitchener. Onex Bus also stops at Kitchener on its Toronto-London route, but it stops at the Sportsworld Terminal near Highway 401, requiring a change to Grand River Transit’s buses.

    Because of the flexibility and convenience, I choose GO Transit, switching from train to bus at Bramalea. Because of continuing construction at Bramalea Station, I had trouble finding the bus stop for the Route 30 to Kitchener and University of Waterloo, but once work is complete on the bus loop, the transfer between modes will be quite easy.

    Route 30 is a fast bus route, stopping only at the Meadowvale Business Park in Mississauga, where connections can be made to several other GO Transit bus routes as well as Miway and Brampton Transit. In Kitchener-Waterloo, the GO bus stops at Downtown Kitchener, at Wilfrid Laurier University, and at a new terminal at University of Waterloo. This is in contrast to Route 25 between Square One and University of Waterloo, which exits the highway multiple times to make local stops, and is the only weekend GO service.

    The new bus terminal at University of Waterloo, serving local GRT routes, GO Transit, and the ION LRT.

    Between Kitchener and London, however, options are much more limited. Though the GO Transit Kitchener Line was recently extended to London, this is limited to one weekday train leaving London at 5:30 AM and returning to London at 8:37 PM. There is just one VIA train between the two cities as well. Onex Bus offers up to five trips daily between Sportsworld and Downtown London.

    The other option is PC Connect, a provincially-funded intercommunity service connecting Stratford and St. Marys with Kitchener-Waterloo and London, as well as towns within Perth County with each other. From Conestoga Mall in Waterloo, I took the 2:50 PC Connect trip to Stratford and St. Marys. At St. Marys, I changed to a connecting bus for Masonville Place Mall in London. Each ride cost $12 cash. Service was friendly and on-time.

    PC Connect Bus in St. Marys

    At London, PC Connect stops on Fanshawe Park Road, adjacent to Masonville Place Mall, but a ten-minute walk from the main LTC bus terminal where connections can be made to Western University and Downtown London. (Huron Shores Area Transit, with service to Exeter and Grand Bend, stops on the north side of Fanshawe Park Road).

    With VIA Rail’s service reduced between Windsor, London, and Toronto, the only trip back to Toronto after 5PM (on a Friday, a traditionally busy travel day) was an Onex Bus departure from the downtown VIA Rail station’s parking lot at 9:15 PM to Pearson Airport (the last trip of the evening continues to Bramalea City Centre, rather than Downtown Toronto). The VIA station at least is still open at that hour, with washrooms and an indoor waiting area.

    I expected a coach bus, but instead, the 13 people waiting were greeted with a 15-seater van. Though the seats were relatively comfortable given the size of the van, passengers had to sit in tight spaces and there was no on-board lavatory like those on Greyhound or Coach Canada coaches. The one-way fare was $38.

    The 15-seat van from London to Pearson Airport

    Though the van arrived late in London (helpfully, a text was sent out to passengers), the trip to Pearson was uneventful, though it arrived about 30 minutes later than scheduled. I still had an hour’s TTC ride home to look forward to, instead of a 20 minute walk from Union Station or the old Toronto Coach Terminal.

    As a private company operating in the newly deregulated intercity coach market, it made sense for OnexBus to utilize a smaller vehicle to minimize costs (the requirement for online advance booking makes this easier). But it was not up to the standards of legacy carriers such as Ontario Northland or Greyhound.

    As more Ontarians travel and as post-secondary institutions return to full on-site learning in September 2022, it will be interesting to see how intercity transit providers and customers adapt to the new normal. I certainly would look forward to taking the train again once VIA returns to its full schedule.