Changes to bus services in the works

By Andrew Mendler

Photo by Andrew Mendler. Loyalist students hope on the number 7 bus after a day at school. Belleville plans to discuss busing in their upcoming transportation master plan.

Loyalist students are full of ideas when it comes to the City of Belleville’s new master transportation plan.

The city is currently working on redeveloping and improving their transportation plan in effect since 1990.

The plan will include several public open houses so city officials can try to incorporate public opinion throughout the construction process.

“The service on Sunday is absolutely horrible,” said student Calvin Kerr. “They need to expand service so the people who work up in the industrial park actually have a way to get to and from work on the weekends. Right now they don’t and it’s incredibly inconvenient.”

Many students who live on the Loyalist campus rely on city transit to get around, especially on weekends.

An international student from India said that she relies on city transit because she doesn’t own a car or bike. She would like to see better service on weekends so it is easier for people to travel around in a timely fashion.

The current bus schedule on weekends runs every hour opposed to the weekday service, which runs on a half-hour schedule.

“I would like to see half-hour schedules on the weekends and maybe later as well, it shuts down around five or six and really doesn’t do much for me,” said Jeremy Davis.

The time changes to the weekend transit service are forcing people to find alternate means of transportation to get home, which to some, defeats the purpose of taking public transit.

“Weekend service they stop up in the industrial park at 6p.m., which does nothing for people who do shift work, said Kerr.”

The new plan hopes to reflect changes in population and employment trends as well as address other forms of transportation such as walking, cycling and transit.

Loyalist College itself has changed dramatically over the years, expanding its campus and seeing enrollment numbers rise. Many students felt that the city’s new plan needs to consider the number of students who live on the college’s campus and make appropriate changes.

“It takes to long to get anywhere,” said Kevin Kobata. “I think there should be more buses that go to the mall from the residences, where all of the kids live.”

As of right now students have to take the Number Seven bus down to the terminal and then transfer to the Number Four to get to the mall.

Several students were confused as to why every bus had to go back to the downtown terminal on a regular basis.

“If you have to go somewhere around the school you have to go all the way to the terminal and then back all the way up,” said Nathan Richardson.

“It just kind of defeats the purpose of riding the bus. Especially for the people who live around the school, on campus or just off campus, it’s a big deal for them.”

The idea of a “rover” bus was suggested by several students who didn’t want to be faced with the inconvenience of transferring at the bus terminal.

“Maybe not have every single route go back to the terminal, maybe have a route that goes around the outside of Belleville or something different,” said Nathan Vader.

Although most of the students all seemed to have issues with the frequency and times the buses run, there were several students who express an interest in changing the bus routes.

“I don’t like the fact that most of the bus routes hit the same road twice, they shouldn’t do that because it doesn’t go around the city enough,” said Ryan Hilts.

Another difference students pointed out was that all Belleville buses only go one way and many would like to see that changed.

“From the town that I was originally from we had buses that would go both ways so it would be nice to see that here,” said Anna Olan. “(Right now) you have to wait for a half hour and then go all the way around to your actual stop.”

City officials say that they are about a third of the way to completing the plan. Project managers and engineers are currently in the process of conducting traffic searches, gathering data and creating a board of stakeholder advisory committee members to assess and overlook the plans creation.

The projected timeline hopes to have them presenting some basic ideas to city council and holding several public open houses sometime this winter. The entire plan isn’t expected to be in place until summer of 2012.