Rural areas need transit options, too
The government wants us all to get out of our cars. But that’s easier said than done if you live in the country or in a small town.
It’s a shame that as the Ontario government pours money into mass transit for cities, the options for people living in villages or small towns in rural areas remain compromised.
It’s a vicious cycle. If the transit options are few, people hold onto their private vehicles longer than they should, or move to a city. Then there are even fewer people from rural communities available to take a bus.
“Rural service in Ontario is challenging,” says Greyhound’s regional vice-president for eastern Canada, David Butler.
Greyhound used to operate a route between London and Kitchener with a stop in Stratford. They had to drop it because it wasn’t profitable.
The licence for the route was then given to a smaller company which also “didn’t make a go of it,” Butler said.
It’s the same story with the Owen Sound to London route. “No one’s operating that route now. No one’s been able to make a break-even proposition,” he said.
Butler told me this while putting into context the news that Greyhound is cutting the number of bus trips between Kitchener and Guelph by 15 per cent.
Under the new schedule, the 7:15 a.m. bus to Kitchener is being eliminated. The earliest bus out of Guelph is now the 8:15 a.m., and it won’t arrive in Kitchener until after 9 a.m. Meanwhile, the 6:30 p.m. bus back to Guelph is being axed.
That has some regular commuters concerned for their jobs. But it’s part of a larger trend, too.
Whether you talk to the commuters or to the company, there are very few people on that 50seat bus on those trips. (The company says there are six people on average riding the 7:15 a.m. bus from Guelph; the commuters say it’s 10 to 12.)
Why not operate a smaller vehicle for those low-volume trips?
“That’s just not our business model,” Butler said. Legally it’s possible. But it means maintaining an additional fleet of different vehicles that would require more training to operate and maintain.
I asked Butler about the expectation that companies like Greyhound, who hold licences for well-travelled routes like Kitchener to Toronto, should use the profits from those routes to subsidize less popular routes.
He said that as publicly subsidized bus and train routes have expanded, private companies like Greyhound, which are not subsidized, struggle to compete for customers. That’s true even on popular routes like Barrie to Toronto, or London to Toronto to Ottawa. Given the vast distances in this province, is it time to consider direct subsidies to companies like Greyhound for unprofitable routes?
Creative solutions have been offered locally. That includes Route 77 in Wilmot Township, a bus that travels between New Hamburg and Ira Needles Boulevard in Kitchener, with stops in Baden and Petersburg. A fastgrowing number of township residents use it to shop or go to the doctor.
Other communities have come up with other plans. Huron County and the city of London operate a ridesharing website so drivers and passengers can carpool together. In Muskoka, school buses are used as a community bus service in the middle of the day when they aren’t needed by schoolchildren.
Freedom of movement can transform your quality of life. People who live in the country deserve it every bit as much as city residents.