Conestoga students pack onto transit amid surging enrolment
One in four passengers on regional transit is a student from the college
Conestoga College students are packing onto Grand River Transit after the school recruited tens of thousands of students from around the world.
New data shows transit ridership by Conestoga students has more than doubled since 2019. Over the same period, ridership by university students declined by almost 20 per cent.
The college surge is the top reason the transit system recorded its highest ridership last September. Today, one in four passengers on regional transit is a Conestoga student.
“Sometimes it is very busy so I can’t get a seat, so it is quite difficult for me,” said Conestoga student Krupanshi Patel, who came from India to study at the college.
Sometimes a bus leaves her waiting at the curb because it is too full to take on another passenger.
“Many times we missed the bus. The bus is full and we don’t get any seat. And we came late in the class,” said Conestoga student Nidhi Raja, also from India.
Tuesday morning at the college’s Doon campus, a steady stream of packed buses disgorged and collected passengers.
“It’s more affordable than a car,” said Jennifer Bauman, who rides the bus daily to get to her job at the college. “I don’t like that it’s late sometimes, and it’s crowded. It’s a sardine can with students, like absolutely packed.”
India has supplied thousands of new transit passengers after the federal government approved more than 30,000 international students for Conestoga in 2023.
That’s more than double the number of foreign students recruited last year by any other Canadian school. Together, the University of
Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University received approvals for 2,100 international students in 2023.
It’s unclear today what will happen to college ridership by September.
In January, the government announced it is slashing visas for foreign students after complaints that communities are not providing enough housing or services. The impact on Conestoga College is not clear yet.
The government wants to “make sure we can manage the number of international students coming to Canada in a sustainable manner, while deterring any bad actors who pose a threat to the system,” a spokesperson for the immigration department said.
Four years of data provided by Grand River Transit shows the profile of riders has not changed much since transit expanded in 2019 with the launch of the $1-billion Ion rail transit system.
Fare data shows that last September and October, post-secondary students accounted for just over 40 per cent of all passengers. High school passengers are not tracked but including them increases the share of passengers who are students. This lines up with high levels of student ridership before 2019.
What’s different is college ridership has surged, while university ridership has dipped.
College students boarded transit almost 1.7 million times over September and October. This is up from almost 800,000 boardings by college students in the same months in 2019.
Together, students at the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University boarded transit one million times over September and October. This is down from 1.2 million university boardings in the same months in 2019.
Regional government is taking steps to improve transit service for Conestoga students.
Grand River Transit is moving forward with delayed plans for an improved transit hub at the Doon campus. Negotiations are underway to extend a universal transit pass to all Conestoga students, matching discount passes provided to university students through their student fees.
Conestoga students currently buy semester passes to ride transit at a discount.