After extensive debate and deliberation on the future of the city’s transit system in recent months, city council has endorsed a slate of changes geared towards increasing ridership and improving the system for transit users.
The transit advisory committee (TAC) brought six recommendations for city politicians to consider at Monday’s council meeting. The recommendations, each of which were endorsed, are as follows:
- Implementing a free, unlimited use teen pass for residents ages 13-19, to increase ridership and facilitate travel to after-school programming, as a one-year pilot project to gather data;
- Reducing senior fares to a flat rate of $2, representing a 30 per cent reduction in fares, or twice the discount council approved during 2023 budget deliberations;
- Introducing free promotional transit days, such as Earth Day, as well as a ‘Transit Talk Day’ where councillors would ride buses to hear from residents, to increase ridership and introduce new users to the system;
- Forming a working group to examine potential for on-demand transit service, with aim of implementing recommendations after the city’s contract with TOK Transit expires in 2027;
- Modifying the system’s Laclie route to eliminate service on Maple Drive and redirect it to Sundial Drive, with the aim of servicing more people as it is a higher density area;
- Implementing on-demand booking for OWLS (Orillia Wheelchair Limousine Service), to improve efficiency and user experience, as well as provide insight for broader on-demand service in the future
“These six recommendations we're starting with today are a good place to start out for our system, (and) they will help make the service more efficient,” said TAC chair, Brandon Amyot, at Monday’s meeting. “That efficiency will come as a result of serving more people with the same resources our current system already has. Essentially, we'll be getting more bang for our buck.”
Amyot said the recommendations will allow the city to increase its ridership, and subsequently its annual revenue through programs such as the provincial gas tax rebate.
“TAC also wants to build ridership and create lifelong riders, ensuring we get increased revenues through things like the gas tax, as well as other occasional grants, and build a more sustainable and accessible city that gets residents and visitors around,” Amyot said.
Final approval of the TAC recommendations is subject to a staff report at a later date, after city council requested additional information about the financial impact of the proposed changes and a terms of reference for the proposed on-demand transit working group at Monday’s meeting.
City staff will work with the transit advisory committee, which holds its next meeting in June, on council’s request. There is currently no timeline for when the report will come back to council.
City councillors were generally supportive of implementing the changes.
Coun. David Campbell said that, during budget deliberations, council had considered making cuts to the transit system to save city funds, but what the committee came back with was offering “free rides for some folks and (reducing) some other things.”
“When you look at the bottom line and what that means in terms of ridership, and as Brandon mentioned, the return that we get through gas tax, etcetera, and that increase in ridership, I think all of the recommendations make sense,” he said.
“I do have to agree with Coun. Campbell’s statements,” added Coun. Jeff Czetwerzuk. “I was on the TAC as well, and we came up with some very positive changes, and a quote that's been going around lately is for every dollar you spend on transit, you get more back in the economy. I think that's really true.”
That said, some members of council had questions about how certain changes, such as the free pass for teens, or free promotional days, would be financially absorbed by the system.
“Who's paying for this? There's no such thing as free in this business,” said Coun. Tim Lauer. “If you have a day, like Earth Day, and you offer free transit – you still gotta run the buses, and you still gotta run the drivers. Who pays for that?”
Amyot and Jeff Hunter, the city’s manager of construction and transit, responded that the city pays $87 per hour to run buses in the city, and proposed ways the costs could be offset.
“What we're essentially proposing is that staff be instructed to create a sort of promotional days package that would allow, say, with Tim Hortons, when they sponsor New Year's for free so that residents don't have to pay to get on, what we're essentially proposing is you expand that into an actual promotional program, so that you're bringing in revenue through sponsorships,” Amyot said.
Amyot also suggested free teen passes will encourage lifelong ridership, citing the City of Kingston, where the passes resulted in a dramatic spike in teen ridership.
“That's a long-term effect, but in the interim, somewhere along the line, you’ve got … fares that aren't there, and somebody's got to pick up that tab,” Lauer said. “Is that … paid by Tok (the city’s transit provider) or us? Where's that coming from?”
Hunter responded the city pays a flat rate, whether the buses are full or empty.
“It’s $87 and change per hour, whether the bus is empty or whether the bus is full … so it's a reduction of revenue for those teens, that are now going for free, that were previously paid. That's correct,” responded Hunter. “The intent was you increase those teens, as we all acknowledge the long-term benefit.
“The other benefit is your ridership numbers will increase, so with increased ridership numbers we do receive significant revenues through the gas tax, which is an annual contribution in the $600,000 range," said Hunter.
Following council’s decision, TAC member Jodie Wilson said she was “pleased” council endorsed the changes.
“This was really close to my heart … I ride the bus every day. I listened to the concerns and the feedback from the community,” she told OrilliaMatters. “I really think the public is very pleased, just based on the comments I've seen and through the media, so that was my goal in getting to where we are at this point in time.
“I'm really pleased that we're moving in this direction," said Wilson.
Although he initially proposed cuts to transit service in off-peak hours with low ridership during budget deliberations, Mayor Don McIsaac said he was generally happy with the recommendations brought forward.
“I think there's some good ideas, so they've obviously done a lot of research on it,” the mayor told OrilliaMatters following the meeting. “They've got discounts for seniors, for students; they're looking at economic development; they're looking at the right things.”
He said the key thing, moving forward, is increasing ridership.
“Anything that increases ridership is of value – we need to get to pre-pandemic levels, and we talked about that,” he said. “The key thing is the data – when you look at the data and see what ridership is … if these ideas don't increase ridership, then we need to revisit what we're doing.”
McIsaac said his only concern was ensuring the proposed on-demand transit working group has a clearly defined objective, and added he would like to see city staff weigh in on the financial implications of the recommendations.
“We want to see what the financial impact is, and we want to have staff weigh in, in terms of their ideas about it,” he said. “Working groups are great ideas, but if you don't have a definition for the working group in terms of what they're supposed to do, then there's no end in sight; there's no parameters, and I think we need those in place.”
He also hopes to see on-demand transit implemented well before the suggested date of 2027.
“I think that's a bit rich. We can do better than that,” he said. “I mean, that's four or five years away, so I think we need to get smarter.”
