Niagara transit system plowing ahead
Chairman, mayors touting model that would expand service across the region
The next stop on Niagara’s route to an inter-municipal transit system is regional headquarters.
The working group lead by the mayors and CAOs of St. Catharines, Niagara Falls and Welland will make their pitch for a consolidated system to regional council at a special meeting Thursday, March 23.
“We have reached a critical moment where regional council will make a decision on its role in transit,” St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik said. “What you have seen with the pilot project. We have to turn that into longterm sustainable opportunity transit for the region.
“The sticking point with anything like this is uncertainty. There is fear of the unknown. That drives a lot of folks away from big ideas like this.
“But I think we have done a good job of addressing those fears of the unknown and putting it in the context of what it will look like moving forward. That’s always the biggest hurdle with any community. People are faced with an unknown, so the knee-jerk reaction is to move away from it and not support it.”
The mayors — Sendzik, Jim Diodati of Niagara Falls and Frank Campion of Welland — have the support of their councils, which have all voted in favour of the idea in the past month.
The report will call for Niagara Region to become an official transit provider and join in as a partner.
“The ultimate goal, for me, is for anyone to get anywhere in Niagara and not have to own a car,” Regional Chairman Alan Caslin said.
“In other words, we not only have transportation in three municipalities that currently offer it, but we can extend those offers to the other communities that don’t have transportation.
“We can go all the way out to Wainfleet, West Lincoln and Fort Erie to Niagara-on-the-Lake. We will have a comprehensive and cohesive transportation system where one pass, and one fare, gets you where you need to go.”
In January, regional council extended its pilot project, Niagara Region Transit, until May.
This extension bought the working group time to forge a permanent solution.
“The pilot project represents Niagara putting a toe in the water,” Sendzik said, “but you can only leave your toe in for so long before you have to decide whether to dive in and swim.
“The pilot project has been around long enough that it is time for us to jump in and take the next step.”
The mayors have support from the broader community. Greater Niagara Chamber of Commerce is on board. Other groups, including, Brock University and Niagara College students, are behind the effort.
To push it through, Niagara’s politicians will need “a triple majority.”
If the regional council approves an inter-municipal transit system, all 12 municipalities in Niagara will then vote on the issue.
A majority of councils representing the majority of the population would also have to support the idea.
After that, the inter-municipal working group would give way to a transit steering committee to establish a new governance framework.
The committee would explore a number operating models and what they would cost taxpayers.
“The municipalities would be able to say, ‘We would like to like to connect to this transit commission,’ and then pay for a transit link to come out to West Lincoln, twice a day, for example,” Caslin said.
“By having one commission, it would allow the communities without transit to explore what it would to look like for them to get a transit link.”
The program will improve service and, more than likely, increase costs — though there is evidence, in studies cited by the provincial government, that shows a robust transit system has broad economic benefits.
For instance, having an efficient transportation network increases the labour pool, and that can be a factor in businesses considering Niagara as a possible location to establish themselves.
“Transit systems do not make money, so when we talk about expanding the transportation system, there has to be a reason to do so,” Caslin said.
“In saying that, what I mean is, that there are employers that have jobs they can’t fill because people in the outer reaches of our region have no transportation.
“The example I know so well is Vintage Hotels. My wife is in the HR department there, and they have trouble getting employees out there. There are 800 jobs in Niagara-on-the-Lake at Vintage Hotels.”