Further on down the road
Accessible transit users seeking fixed-route service in Pictou County
For wheelchair users in Pictou County, there aren’t a lot of transportation options to choose from.
“I consider myself one of the lucky people in Pictou County because I live with my family and travel with them,” says Stacey Monroe, 28. “If I didn’t, then the limited access would keep me at home.”
Monroe, a Pictou resident, uses both manual and motorized wheelchairs. Vehicles which can accommodate motorized wheelchairs require very specific and expensive customizations.
“It was years ago that we had gotten a new van and we inquired about rigging it up for a motorized chair,” says Stacey’s father David. “It was thousands and thousands of dollars.”
When Stacey goes out with her friends to see a film or to meet at a restaurant, she travels with her manual chair which can fit more easily into their van, and she uses Pictou County’s CHAD Transit for getting back and forth from work in the morning.
“It’s offered me the opportunity to have a job and to get to and from that job,” said Monroe, who works at the Museum of Industry. “There’s just a sense of independence that it provides. That’s important.”
The Pictou municipalities, along with provincial programs, help to fund CHAD Transit’s fleet of six buses and one minivan. These accessible vehicles operate door-to-door and on demand and currently 15 of the non-profit’s clients are wheelchair users like Monroe.
“We’re super busy right now,” said Danny MacGillivray who is the executive director of CHAD Transit, “And it’s a growing demand as well because of the growing demographics of an ageing population.”
Back in November 2016, CHAD Transit tested out a fixed route which would have been a 90-minute loop, three times per day and would have included five towns in Pictou County. However, the pilot project stalled over a dispute with the municipality of Pictou county.
“We found out that we couldn’t go ahead with it because somebody said that if it goes around all the towns, then why couldn’t it go out to the county, too,” said Craig Aucoin, also from the town of Pictou and who, along with Monroe, sits on the CHAD board.
The plan, according to Aucoin, was for CHAD to expand the route into the county after the initial pilot project that served New Glasgow, Pictou, Trenton, Westville and Stellarton.
“If there was a fixed route in Pictou County, we think it would help alleviate some of the demand on CHAD,” said MacGillivray. “Our clients would use the fixed route instead, so we could focus on our higher needs clients.”