By Pepper Parr
November 20th, 2019
BURLINGTON, ON
Someone on city council made the point: We are a transit friendly council.
How friendly – well they are putting a tonne of your money into new buses and they are boasting about the significant increases in transit use.
The numbers are early: Presto, the people who operate the card system that is replacing tickets, are a little on the slow side on getting data out.
The increase in transit usage was reported to have risen by 10% on a month to month basis for July of 2018 and July of 2019.
The free transit use during the off peak hours for July through to September was reported to have improved by 40%.
Mayor Meed Ward called those number “astounding” and added that “we don’t need a plan to know that we need more buses.”
The Mayor has said that she wants transit to be free for everyone – every day.
She has also said that she thinks transit should be a Regional matter. She will have to wait until she is Premier of the province before we see anything like that.
This council has got a head lock on the idea of making the transit fleet completely electric. Director of Transit loves that idea theoretically but cautioned council that converting from diesel to electric is not a simple matter – electric buses are complex and a lot has to be learned by the people who are going to drive the electric buses and those who are going to maintain them.
Sue Connors, Director of Transit, does not appear to be very happy.
Council was discussing transit because a report that had been discussed at a Planning and Development Standing Committee meeting was unhappy with some of the numbers that were contained in a report – unhappy is an understatement.
They decided that rather than make any decisions they would refer the matter to the council meeting – which took place Monday evening.
Councillor Paul Sharman
But – there was nothing to discuss – whatever the concern was over the report, which could be fairly described as faulty, no one was going to talk about it Monday evening. Councillor Sharman read a statement into the record – we have asked for a copy of that statement, He added that with the changes in the grid structure and the new buses that have been added to the fleet it would be a little premature to put much stock in numbers that had been generated by the consultant. So hold off for a year.
Fine – but then – why was there a report from the consultant? And when is the public going to see the revised numbers ?
This council is sometimes a little fast and loose with numbers that they deem to be positive.
Related news story:
Councillor Sharman said the numbers were all wrong. He was right
