Niagara Region Delays Decision On Use Of Student Transit Passes On Its Buses

By Doug Draper

Should students from Brock University and Niagara College be allowed to use their transit passes to ride Niagara’s inter-municipal transit system?  Or should they pay the $5 fare on top of the $139 they  pay each year for a pass to ride local bus systems.

Almost empty Niagara Region Transit buses leave passengers off at Welland bus terminal this November. Photro by Doug Draper.

Following a vigorous debate on the question a December 8 regional council meeting, a majority of councillors voted to put a decision off until early in the New Year when they get some feedback from the three main local transit operators based in St. Catharines, Niagara Falls and Welland.

Students enrolled at Brock and Niagara College have begun pressing Niagara’s regional government  to honour  their transit passes – also known as ‘U passes’ paid for through their tuition fees – for the Niagara Region Transit system that began rolling between St. Catharines, Thorold, Niagara Falls, Welland and onward with feeder lines to and from Port Colborne and Fort Erie last September.

One of the problems, say students, is that the local transit buses running between campuses in St. Catharines, Welland, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Niagara Falls frequently become full to capacity. At that point, students who can’t get on them are left standing at the side watching one of region’s nearly empty buses drive by, which they can only use if they shell out five bucks per ride.

“It is frankly an embarrassment to have a full local bus, then a regional bus goes by (and) it is not taken advantage of because of the cost,” said Port Colborne Mayor Vance Badawey at the December 8 meeting. To make the Region’s inter-municipal transit system a success, added Badawey, who tabled a motion recommending that student passes be honoured on the regional buses, students should be included.

Debbie Zimmerman, a Grimsby regional councillor who heads up the Region’s transportation steering committee, called the spectre of near empty busses passing the students “ridiculous and Alan Caslin, a St. Catharines regional counciillor and a father of two Brock students, said the council shouldn’t be “playing petty politics on the backs of our students.”

However, others  on the regional council, include Brian McMullan, Barry Sharpe and Jim Diodati, the mayors of St. Catharines, Welland and Niagara Falls respectively, said accepting the U passes for the Region’s buses violates the spirit of an agreement the Region reached with the three city transit services for operating the inter-municipal transit system.  It could also result in some trouble with unions representing local transit employees, they said.

No decision to change the agreement the Region negotiated with local transit operators should be made without getting their input, said Sharpe, who added that students make up significant portion of the ridership for the local transit systems.

Student representatives at the two schools are hoping a decision could be reached to let them uses their passes for the Region transit buses for this January through April of this coming year.

Niagara Region Transit was launched more than three months ago as a pilot project only and while the regional government is playing a funding role, the inter-municipal service is actually being operated by the transit services in St. Catharines, Welland and Niagara Falls.

You can find out more about the service, including routes and scheduled, by visiting Niagara Region’s website at www.niagararegion.ca .

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