Review will provide business case for better, stronger system: Transit boss
Transit Windsor expects a yearlong review will result in big improvements to its route system so it can move people faster to their destinations.
“I’m hoping there will be major, major changes in how we provide transit in this community, I really see this as our building blocks for our future,” Transit Windsor’s executive director Pat Delmore said. Part of the “More Than Transit” review is an online survey at MoreThanTransit.ca seeking the opinions of transit riders and non-riders. It runs to Dec. 31, so the input can be used as experts look at how to “better connect people to school, work, services and more, and how transit can support the healthy growth and development of our neighbourhoods,” a City of Windsor news release read.
Mayor Drew Dilkens said in the release that the city is changing and so is the way people move around the city. “We need to better understand how our transit system can more effectively serve our community going forward.” These reviews typically happen every five to 10 years. The last one for Transit Windsor was in 2007, “so we’re due,” Delmore said. But what really excites Delmore is that it’s happening amid a time of unprecedented investment in public transit by senior levels of government. Earlier this year, for example, government funds helped buy 24 new buses for the system and 108 new solar-powered bus shelters. And the $3.8 million Transit Windsor receives from the provincial gas tax is expected to double in the coming years. “This service review is really going to be the business case to build a better and stronger transit service,” Delmore said. “I’m so excited about this, I really am.”
The $350,000 review is already underway with consultants digging into data detailing ridership, revenue, operations figures and other information that can be compared to transit services in other cities. What they’ve found so far is per capita spending on transit is much less here than average, he said. When you look at the 236,000 hours of service provided annually in Windsor compared to total population, the ratio is just over one. In other places, the ratio is 1.5 to 2.0, Delmore said. Fares pay only for about half the cost of providing public transit. The rest comes from taxpayers. The experts have also purchased cellphone data that can help them understand the travel patterns throughout the city, by transit users and non-users, and map out where people are going and when.
“This isn’t just about a bus on a road, this is about building our community and getting people to all the things they do in their life,” Delmore said. “We’re really excited about this survey and getting as much feedback as we can from the community.”
Public meetings will be held starting in the spring, with the expectation the review will be finished by late summer or early fall.