Transpo committee backs the continued use of paper notices

Moving to digital notices for bus route changes will leave people like him behind, Louis Maynard told city council’s transportation committee.

“I’m lost with this new technology,” the 85-year-old told city politicians on Monday as the committee discussed a Saskatoon Transit proposal to end physical notices at bus stops.

Another transit rider, Marjaleena Repo, told the committee the other day that her hands were too cold to use her smartphone to consult the transit app.

Repo said a proposal by Saskatoon Transit to eliminate posting paper notices in favour of a digital approach will hurt efforts to convince more people to use buses.

“Making life harder for them is hardly the way to go about it,” Repo said.

The committee backed a motion to keep physical notices by a 4-2 margin. Council will make a final decision Nov. 18.

A city report explained that posting paper notices costs about $100,000 a year because of the time it takes transit supervisors to post and then remove them.

Saskatoon Transit director Jim Mcdonald told the committee that 30 per cent of detours are shortterm closures for things like water-main breaks and his department is only made aware of them on the day of the detour.

Often, the detour can end the next day, requiring the posted notice to be removed, Mcdonald said. Saskatoon Transit is exploring ways to post notices with City of Saskatoon staff involved in road construction, the committee heard.

Mcdonald added that elimination of posted notices would not result in savings of $100,000 for transit.

Robert Clipperton appeared on behalf of Bus Riders of Saskatoon, a transit advocacy group, to argue against the all-digital move.

Clipperton said in the five years since the group was founded, more complaints have been received about inaccurate digital information about detours than about posted notices.

He wondered how it would be received if residents had to rely on smartphone alerts to inform them to move their vehicles or face a fine for street sweeping.

NO ACCESS TO DATA

“Saskatoon’s not ready to go paperless on this,” Clipperton said, adding that there are too many bus riders without data access even if they own smartphones.

Mayor Charlie Clark, who said he was not convinced posted notices could be eliminated entirely, added that his son takes the bus every day, but does not have consistent access to data.

The city report said a survey of 31 Canadian cities found only three have eliminated paper notices.

The committee also backed getting more information on communication options for detours.

“We need to try different things,” Dubois said.

Making life harder for them (riders) is hardly the way to go about it.

MARJALEENA REPO, on city using only digital bus route change notifications