By Doug Draper
Close to 30,000 Brock University and Niagara College students will now be able to use the transit passes they purchase through their tuition fees to hop a ride on Niagara Region’s inter-municipal buses.
A Niagara Region Transit bus making a stop in Welland. Photo by Doug Draper
A majority of Niagara, Ontario’s regional councillors voted this January 19 to accept what are called student “U-Passes” on Niagara Region Transit buses for a trial period starting now through to this April. The decision, following a heated council debate on the matter this past December, was applauded by Brock and Niagara College student representatives.
“We are really pleased about this,” said Brock Students’ Union president Daud Grewal. The Students’ Union vice-president Will Parent said the union received numerous calls from students expressing frustration that while the passes they pay about $140 a year for work for buses operated by the local municipalities that are sometimes already filled to capacity with riders, they don’t work for Niagara Region buses that pass them almost empty.
Brian Costantini, president of the Niagara College Student Administrative Council, said allowing the use of the passes on Niagara Region buses will also help students get to and from campus from municipalities further away like Fort Erie.
Up to now, the U-passes only work for buses operated by three local transit systems in St. Catharines, Welland and Niagara Falls. If students wanted to use one of the inter-municipal buses, launched by the Region last September in co-operation with the three local systems, they would have to pay the $5-per-trip fair. In fact, under a “Pilot Project Agreement” negotiated between the three and three local systems for the inter-municipal system, the Region’s buses cannot let students off on the campus properties. The closest drop off point to Brock for a Niagara Region Transit bus, for example, is the regional headquarters property in Thorold, leaving students to take a long walk across Merrittville Highway to their classes.
Regional councillors opposed to allowing use of the passes on Region Transit buses expressed concern about undermining the agreement with the local municipal systems for operating an inter-municipal transit service as a two-pilot project to see if is worth continuing and expanding. They also expressed concern about taking on the student riders without financial compensation.
Taking on students with U-passes “will result in more ridership but not add to the financial viability of the system,” said David Eke, a regional councillor and lord mayor for Niagara-on-the-Lake. “We should be compensated,” added Lincoln regional councillor Mark Bylsma. “I don’t think we should be running (the inter-municipal system) just for the sake of putting bodies on the buses.”
Paul Grenier, a Welland councillor who is taking the city’s mayor, Barry Sharpe’s seat on regional council while he recovers from an illness, said trying to help the students with transit is “noble” but “it is not consistent with the spirit of cooperation” between the region and three local transit systems.
Grenier charged that allowing U-passes on the Region buses when bus systems for the three local municipalities have agreements with Brock and Niagara College to provide transit services to the students “is getting off on the wrong foot a few months into the pilot (inter-municipal transit program. … It creates an irritant and that is not where we want to go.”
It also raises concerns with the three local municipalities over the amount of gas tax subsidies they receive from the province for their transit system. The amount of money they receive is based on ridership figures which they fear could go down if students, who make up a large portion of bus riders, can now use their passes on Niagara Region Transit buses.
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Niagara At Large 
I guess its a free ride !!!!!!
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At taxpayers expense !!!!!!!!!!
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As a student who pays taxes and was forced to pay for a U-pass that I can’t use because the route doesn’t come near my home (Niagara Falls) and place of work (St Catharines), I am thankful for this decision. My tax dollars also subsidize infrastructure for drivers compared to infrastructure for public transit at a ratio of 5:1, though I’d rather use transit because of its social and environmental benefits over driving a car. Students are taxpayers as well, Bill, if you didn’t know.
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The Regional Transit Pilot is a complete failure costing Niagarans almost $4 MILLION up front in buses and over $200,000 a month in operating expenses. And now the Einsteins on Council who forgot to fund this last term are giving up more revenue, offering free rides to one group. It’s time to shut this Red Ink Line down and think out a better way than the current overlapping service of empty buses leaving their carbon footprint and red ink behind wherever they supposedly travel “regionally” albeit restricted to our 3 largest cities. Or could it just be that the buses will stay empty all over Niagara because there are virtually no jobs for anyone to travel to?
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And Andrew, if we scrap regional transit, I would presume you are offering your services to those of us that need to get between cities at little or no cost, because after all, I am still paying taxes for YOUR roads, YOUR parking, YOUR traffic systems, etc.
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Jeffrey, your point is good. It is time to move toward a mixed-modal system of transportation, as opposed to a car-centered policy.
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Angela, The Region AND ALL the municipalities across Niagara need to have the discussion collaboratively how best to deliver transit for its citizens respecting we do not have a bottomless pit of tax money to tap notwithstanding the socialists on Council and elsewhere who act like we do. The current approach is a flop unless you think its ok that it’s costing Niagarans $100 per head to shuttle a handful of folks around in giant carbon-spewing vehicles? I have publicly stated that we need ONE true “regional” system which means dismantling the municipal systems and looking at a model which delivers the service most efficiently and effectively. Today, we are better off paying your cab fare. And the students should not be riding for free, they have the funds to pay…that’s a joke!
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Andy, I do agree with a ONE region approach to transit, because a lot of it now is poorly coordinated. You’re right there, as savings can be found within this type of coordination. As for taxes, we do not have a bottomless pit either to constantly build parking garages, widening highways, extending the QEW, etc. either. We need to move to a less car-dependent society -period. Having never smoked, I still suffer breathing problems as a result of exposure to pollution in this region (e.g.; we have been ranked as having the poorest air quality readings by the Pembina Institute).
I was advised to move away from my old place of residence (around the Fourth Avenue big box plaza) to where I am now, because of the amount of car traffic, emissions, etc. from single person vehicles passing by the hundreds within minutes … sending their toxins to the air I was breathing.
And yes, I know you will get a kick out of this one too. Whoever thought this was a great location for the new hospital is certainly not thinking straight, as people including those with breathing problems like my own, will have to go there in this very bad pollution based part of town, let alone the new entrance ramp and other items the region’s taxpayers have to cover just to put the hospital there as opposed to a location in a more sensible place where there would not be these expenditures, and exposure to the railroad tracks and so forth, but then again, I didn’t make this decision;-)
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I’m glad to see people realizing just how controversial this bus system is. I just wish someone could tell me where all this fighting between the Region and the municipalities is leading us to. I don’t think it was like this 20 years ago.
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The regional transit itself is not the controversy, but the fact we have to have different municipalities run separate bus services and so forth, and overlapping some services. Need regional coordination.
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I agree Angela, but I still would like a private operator to give us their cost without changing service levels. I suggest the savings could be enormous! We owe this to our taxpayers who are asked to subsidize the current monster upwards of $10,000 per day. With ridership levels running at 1.55 passengers per bus today, I am inclined to shut this down unless the Region takes drastic measure shortly?
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