Loyalist College Journalism forum looks at regional transit for Quinte
BELLEVILLE – A conversation about what it would take for a regional transit system to be created in the Quinte area got a solid start Tuesday night when Loyalist College’s Journalism-Communications program hosted a public forum on the topic.
Politicians, public servants connected to public transit and residents of the area, as well as Loyalist students, were all in attendance.
Shelly Ackers, executive director of Quinte Access Transportation, which serves Quinte West and Brighton, talked about a pilot project that will bring public transit into the northern areas of the municipality: Batawa, Frankford, Wooler and Stockdale.
It will be a four-year project that will begin by taking transit vehicles that already operate in Quinte West and Brighton, mainly providing transportation for people with mobility issues, and “open up that ridership so anyone can access those vehicles,” Ackers said.
The next step will be setting up hubs in the northern areas so that people there can get on the bus and go into Trenton, she said.
And they hope to be able to provide transit to more people who need to get from Trenton to Belleville, Ackers said.
Quinte West received funding of $303,000 from the Ontario’s Community Transportation Grant Program over the next four years for the project, Ackers said.
Belleville Coun. Bill Sandison, chair of Belleville’s transit advisory committee, talked about the possibility of extending city transit service to more rural Thurlow ward, which he represents on council.
Coun. Paul Carr, a member of the transit advisory committee who also represents Thurlow ward, has been putting together a survey for residents in the northern parts of the city to find out how much a transit system would be used and what they would like it to look like, Sandison said.
The survey is to be released within the next few weeks, he said.
Douglas Taylor, a resident of Belleville and active transit rider, talked about problems he’s experienced the Belleville Transit’s No. 11 on-demand bus route, which allows people to request that a bus stop anywhere in the city. Sometimes the bus doesn’t come at all, he said, or it takes a roundabout route to pick up passengers, leaving him with a long ride.
“I like the idea” of a regional transit system,” Taylor said afterward in an interview with QNet News. “There’s so many places I’d like to go but there isn’t any way to get there.”
In response to concern about the No. 11 bus route – which were raised by another resident as well as Taylor – Paul Buck, manager of Belleville Transit, said there have been problems because it has been so popular since it was launched in January. Belleville Transit is working increase capacity on the route, he said.
At the end of the forum, everybody had something to take away from it.
“I think it was good for me personally to hear the perspective of students as well as some of the users of the system,” Sandison said. “I think overall everybody would have walked away with a shared knowledge and a current understanding of the services that are provided by both Quinte Access and Belleville, as well as sort of our vision for regional transit.
“I think it was also sprinkled with some realism – which is that we need to come up with a way to fund it.”
Taylor called the forum “a good start to get the conversation going. Hopefully they can keep at it.”
Ackers told QNet News: “I think everybody here all agreed that regional transit is something that we need to look at … We need the ridership. We need people on the buses. We have to make sure we get those plans in place.”
There needs to be a conversation with students and people who work in the Quinte area about what they need from transit operators so that they can put the buses out there and get people where they need to go, she said.
“Then it’s up to us to make sure that we can keep it going – because you want to make sure that it’ll be sustainable down the road.”
– Evan McClelland of QNet News contributed to this report
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