Numbers tell the story of 2023 in Waterloo Region
We can accomplish a lot in a year, and 2023 has been busy for the Region of Waterloo. Our work touches the lives of this community’s 650,000 residents in many ways: from water to roads to paramedics to libraries to waste collection to public health to community services.
Below is a snapshot of just a few of the ways the Region of Waterloo served this community in 2023. With the 2024 Plan and Budget approved on December 13, we’ll continue to provide the essential services residents rely on, and invest in what our rapidly-growing community needs.
2023 by the numbers:
- 2,350 new affordable homes currently occupied or in development since our Building Better Futures project launched in 2021
- 250 billion cups of clean water provided to residents by the Region’s wells and water treatment facilities in 2023
- 15,283 drinking water samples taken and analyzed by Regional staff in 2023 to ensure our water is clean and safe
- 169,000,000 litres of wastewater treated each day, equivalent to 45 Olympic swimming pools
- 68,300 calls responded to by Region of Waterloo Paramedic Services in 2023, as of December 15
- 40 grants to local grassroots organizations in 2023 through the Region’s Upstream Fund to improve the safety and wellbeing of communities who have faced systemic barriers and discrimination
- 672 kilometres of public transit routes operated in 2023 by Grand River Transit. If you laid all our bus and ION routes in a straight line, they would stretch to Chicago!
- 1,000,000 kilometres travelled by ION trains in 2023
- 150,000 passengers who boarded a bus or ION train on GRT’s busiest single day ever, which happened in early September
- 12+ million stops to collect residents’ garbage, recycling, organics and yard waste in 2023
- 4,000 homes powered by renewable energy generated from gas collected and re-used at the Region of Waterloo landfill on Erb Street West
- 315,000 phone calls, email or webchats answered by our Service First Contact Centre, helping people find information they need about Region of Waterloo services and programs (you can call 519-575-4400 24/7)
- 417,889 total passengers passed through Waterloo Region International Airport in 2023, as of December 1
- 135,022 aircraft left or arrived from Waterloo Region International Airport in 2023, as of December 1
- 280,000 books, DVDs, games, mobile hot spots, museum passes and much more checked out from Region of Waterloo libraries in 2023
- 17,672 total visitors to our different Region of Waterloo museums