Our transit woes just an election away
Make transit an issue and vote for visionary supporters
I picked up an HSR bus pass for February. According to my math it was the best deal for my money, and it was a lot of money, too. At $101.20, it took care of a healthy chunk of my disposable income this month and, being retired, I don’t have much. But now I don’t have to worry about bus money, tickets or transfers, or topping up my Presto card if I had one.
For those of you who drive, a bus pass is like a gas card with an unlimited ceiling. However, to further the analogy, the HSR is like an unreliable beater; the tank may be full of gas, but the starter’s gone and the transmission is about to blow, but it’ll get you there if you take enough time.
A media release issued by the City of Hamilton in late January touted the $219 million in capital investments and improvements to transit service and morale at the HSR. Yet despite the enhancements to staffing, buses and service hours, it has clearly not been enough to improve the quality of service necessary to attract new riders, or to even keep current riders. With six steady years of decline in ridership, a decline not seen in other jurisdictions, we have to wonder what’s up with Hamilton that its citizens are fleeing from its transit system in droves.
I was one of those riders. Fed up with waiting for packed buses and trips that would last hours, I took a break from the HSR. I was able to manage it for close to a month, but it wasn’t easy and involved more work, and money, on my part than I cared to commit. I eventually caved, but it wasn’t a good feeling. I’m trapped using a system that serves only part of this great big city, a second-class citizen without a car. Like the little matchstick girl, I stand in the cold at the corner of Dundurn and King, breathing in car exhaust and peering through the window at a world warm and wonderful and accessible only to people with cars.
There is no doubt that the city invests money in transit, it’s in the budget. But those investments do little to improve a system that is struggling to stay competitive in a negative transit environment that has witnessed council support wither away for years. And the gall of some councillors — I’m looking at you, Terry Whitehead and Chad Collins — speaking through a hole in their heads about “transit activists” when neither of them has the sand to use the system themselves. In fact, only a handful of councillors have copped to taking the bus. If it doesn’t work for them, how is it expected to work for the rest of us?
Where is the dismissal of “car activists” who demand fast and easy access through our neighbourhoods and communities? How is it that transit advocates are “activists” while car drivers are … just people? Aren’t transit users people, too? Maybe not. Maybe that’s how councillors justify their transit pushback. Tran- sit users aren’t like them. And they’re not. They’re typically lower income, the marginalized, the vulnerable. Not like a city councillor at all.
The steep increase in DARTS doorto-door transit service raised some interesting comments in council suggesting that people are abusing the system by calling DARTS when they could be taking the bus. Perhaps if the councillors took the bus, they’d see for themselves that far too many people in wheelchairs are left behind on some routes as one crammed bus after another passes them by. Who can blame them if they seek out a better way? Not me.
I do, however, congratulate council on the decision to keep paper tickets an option despite the possible cost over the long term. I’m sure a way will be found to pass the costs along to the riders with another quick-fix fee increase. What we need is a longterm solution to our transit woes that begins with tackling the area-rating issue and solid funding through the city budget, not user fees.
This year is an election year. We have an opportunity to make change in the system if we elect officials who are committed to doing the heavy lifting needed to bridge the amalgamation gaps and bring us together as a community, not simply an assortment of parts.
Aren’t we all tired of looking through the window at what we could be?