By Doug Draper
Here’s a bit of encouraging news for people who want to believe there is a robust future for more public transit in the province of Ontario.
Waterloo Region's Rapid River Transit system and other transit services on both sides of our binational border are leaving Niagara, Ontario in the dust
The Ontario government recently announced a $300-million grant for a light rail system in one the province’s region, and that region just happens to be the Region of Waterloo.
And why? Well maybe because Waterloo, unlike Niagara, has already demonstrated the foresight the courage to move forward with a truly regional transit system, and has a fleet of buses serving one end of the region to the other and soaring numbers of residents leaving their cars at home and using public transit to prove it.
Unlike Niagara, Waterloo’s regional government, including its seven local municipalities (Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo, and four rural townships) took the bull by the horns a decade ago and agreed to turn over all responsibilities for operating transit services to the region. The result has been one transit agency, focused on providing the most accessible services possible to even the smallest communities in the region, and a ridership on regional buses that has increased by 80 per cent since the year 2000.
The result is a ‘Grand River Transit’ system that works closely with regional and local planners to steer new residential and business growth to existing urban areas rather than allow it to continue to spread further away from urban centres and out into the countryside. And last but not least, the result is a transit system that a province working to encourage more growth in existing urban centres and encourage more people to use transit is funding over and above the gas tax money transit agencies in Niagara and other regions across Ontario now typically receive.
The province’s transportation minister, Kathleen Wynne, told this columnist during a recent visit to Niagara is that what she is working to promote through her ministry is a “cultural shift” away from so much of the dependence we have had over the last half century on car use. “We have thought for generations that we have endless resources and endless space, but we can’t just keep building roads,” Wynne said. “That is old thinking. We know now that we don’t have (endless space) and that our footprint (with ever-more road and highway building) is having a negative impact on the environment.”
Indeed, the $300 million the province granted to the Waterloo region late this June for electric trains (a modern-day version of the trolley system some Niagara residents may remember until it was scrapped here in the 1960s) is a pretty tangible expression of Wynne’s call on municipalities to “plan intelligently” for the future. That grant, along with a comparable one the Waterloo region is confident it will soon receive from the federal government would build a light rail system, complimenting an already bustling bus service, will see the region building a transportation system that could be second to none in the province.
Niagara, on the other hand, could barely bring itself this June to pass a resolution for an “inter-municipal transit system” that will see the region doing not much over the next 12 to 16 months than purchase eight new buses at an estimated $3.7 million and turning them and $2.7 million annually in operating costs over to the three main local transit agencies in Welland, Niagara Falls and St. Catharines.
At the same time, we are told that this is a “pilot” stab at an inter-municipal system, implying that if it fails we scrap it and go back to a status quo of the bare-bone transit services we’ve had here for most of the past 40 or 50 years since the regional trolley system was liquidated.
Joe Cousins, Niagara region’s transportation director, said at a meeting of regional councillors last month that this proposed system, that would see these eight new buses moving between Welland, Niagara Falls and St. Catharines and offer a few daily trips between other municipalities like Port Colborne, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Fort Erie, is “far from perfect.” One might also wonder if it isn’t a recipe for failure, given how much little more it does to build on the pathetic lack of regional transit we have in this region.
What is wrong with Niagara, Ontario on the transit front?
Why can’t we do what we did with household waste management more than decade ago and build a system for collecting, recycling and disposing of waste that is one of the better ones in the province? Where is the bold leadership on transit?
There doesn’t appear to be much boldness on our present municipal councils when it comes to transit any this region may very well pay a price for that as Ontario’s backwater when it comes to progressive transportation systems in the 21st century.
(Click on Niagara At Large at http://www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on matters of interest and concern to our greater binational Niagara region.)
Niagara At Large 
Those interested in the role of cycling in progressive transit systems will be inspired by watching this short video.
http://www.streetfilms.org/cycling-copenhagen-through-north-american-eyes/
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There’s nothing wrong with Niagara transit that demand wouldn’t fix. Sufficient demand doesn’t exist.
If demand for inter-regional transit existed, some entrepreneurial spirit would get around to supplying it.
Besides, it’s less expensive to buy cars for poor people.
http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/15340/Why_Not_Just_Buy_Them_Cars.html
Niagara taxpayers already fork over 50 percent of their property taxes to the Region.
And that $300 mil the McWimpy gov’t “awarded” Waterloo came from the rest of us. Try as he might, Dolton doesn’t have a money printing press — thank goodness.
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The main problem is lack of vision by our Regional representatives ,Niagara Falls ran a viable transit system before amalgamation when they only had 30,000 population and served the people,Fort Erie has 30,000 people and very reluctant to make any move in that direction to serve the Town with a viable transportation system, basically it is lack of will and a vision for the future of our Region.
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Fort Erie has the highest unemployment rate in the region. One of the reasons is that the local transit system is woefully inadequate for anyone who works or tries to find employment and doesn’t have a car. I can attest to that from personal experience. It is impossible to get to most workplaces by transit. I had to resort to cabs, car pools and even begging to get to work until I was able to afford a car. Many others, I found, were in the same situation. I once challenged the staff at town hall to use the transit for one day to see what it is like, but no one took me up on it. In fact, if someone wants to speak on the transit issue at a council meeting, they would need to hire a taxi or get a ride as the transit does not even stop at town hall and it doesn’t run past 7:00 p.m. (That is a fairly new stop time. The last bus to Ridgeway-Crystal Beach used to leave Fort Erie at 4:30 p.m.) And to add insult to injury, the local head of the EDTC was not aware until recently that the transit does not run on Sundays and holidays. The people making the decisions about our transit system have no idea what a challenge it is to get around in places like Fort Erie. It is next to impossible to get to another town from Fort Erie as well. I suggest it be mandatory that regional and municipal elected officials ride the transit at least once a year.
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OK, how DOES Grand River Transit provide
“the most accessible services possible to even the smallest communities in the[ir] region” of 2 big cities [Kitchener-Waterloo are glued to each other] and 4 rural townships?
Niagara has 3 big cites about 10 miles apart (include Downtown Thorold with St.Kitts), that have transit systems that are inter-linked and are fairly well served.
Then there are 6 smallish towns that are ~20 miles away from the big cities and often spread out within themselves, with modest degrees of service, sometimes with help from big-city transit (Welland serves Port [& Fonthill?]).
And how about the whole whack of township areas (many Within the cities and towns) that no one is committed to serve? Why should they pay Transit Tax?
I still think a Call-in Transit system that would send out Taxi-Minibusses when/where needed to pick up & drop off should be explored. Or some other Outside-the-Box thinking.
Minister Wynne is correct: we need to change from the car-based system that grew like Topsy and is destroying our environment, but how to do it in Niagara?
BTW, to pay for it, we should raise the tax on fuel to provide us with Apparently-Free transit, just as we tax property to give us Apparently-Free sidewalks.
It would be win-win: fewer people would drive cars, but Everyone could easily jump on busses & subways ‘for Free’, just as we all walk on sidewalks ‘for Free’.
PS. Can anyone tell me how to calculate such a new tax? The TTC currently costs ~$1B/yr to operate. How many cents per litre would Metro Toronto drivers pay to raise $1B ?
(Simple math before the obvious complexities of fewer drivers needing more busses, please.)
Where in Hades does one find how much fuel is burnt every year in Toronto & Ontario?
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There is another reason why the province won’t put more money into urban tranist here. That is because of Regional politicians’ attitudes towards urban sprawl, which is especially strong from councils in West Lincoln and Niagara Falls. This is why the province appealed a recent amendment to the Niagara Regional Official Plan because of its lack of confromity to the new Places to Grow guidelines.
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I think anybody who thinks there is no “demand” for transit in Niagara has their head in the sand; before playing ostrich, these people should tell me how the people in Niagara are any different than the people in Waterloo, Durham, York, Hamilton and other places that have regional transit services? Are we in Niagara born with our umbilical cords attached to a vehicle? Our needs are NO different … almost a third of persons over 16 years of age do not drive for various reasons and it is not just poverty.
And David, if you think it is cheaper to buy all the “poor” people cars, maybe you can include a full-time chauffeur with mine because I am not able to drive due to a disability. If I was able to drive, I would actually have a good job and probably be a part of the so-called Sunshine Club … instead I am self-employed because I choose not to be on Ontario Works, which would be my only other option because very few employers that pay much hire non-drivers in this region. And comparative to my peers, I still make less than half, thanks to not being able to drive and access the entire Niagara market that others take for granted.
Maybe David some day you will find yourself told by your doctor that they are submitting a letter to the Ministry advising them it is unsafe for you to drive and then you can say goodbye to your job, financial independence and access to the community … It can happen just like that. In fact, there are many, many people in Niagara that have been placed in this position, either temporarily or permanently and others have never been able to drive due to the nature of their disability. Almost all of them that I met are under 65 years of age — average age is about 40 years old.
I want you to tell all of these people that I know who are in this position, as well as students, older people, low income workers, those that don’t drive by choice, those who have lost their licenses for other reasons (e.g. unpaid fines, Family Responsibility Office, etc.) that there is no need for public transit. One way to get some of this information is to sit in a provincial offences court for even one morning and you will find over thirty or more people who will now be suspended and unable to drive for a variety of reasons.
Then come back to talk to me about demand.
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There is a strong association between long term unemployment and poverty and the lack of a decent public transit service in the respect region that is being measured. Sharon, we challenged our city council in St. Catharines to leave their cars at home and use only public transit for a week, and not a single one took up the challenge … and then Andrew Gill, one of our councillors who by the way is now running federally for the Liberals, told us that it is not “feasible for (his) lifestyle”. I wonder whose “lifestyle” Mr. Gill thinks the local transit service as it is currently set up is for?
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Angela, what’s Your solution to provide
“the most accessible services possible to even the smallest communities in the region”?
What’s being proposed will never help carless people move across Niagara. It’s a big-city design.
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