Printed Mar 09, 2022 • Final up to date Mar 09, 2022 • 4 minute learn
A Gray Transit Route bus pulls into the Owen Sound transit terminal on Friday, July 9, 2021. PHOTO BY ROB GOWAN THE SUN TIMES
Article content material
Bruce and Gray counties are hoping for extra provincial assist creating the general public transportation system within the area.
This commercial has not loaded but, however your article continues under.
Article content material
Article content material
Article content material
The counties are requesting a delegation with Ontario’s Minister of Infrastructure Kinga Surma once they head to the Ontario Good Roads Convention in Toronto from April 10 to 13, the place they plan to ask for the extension of the Group Transportation Program with hopes of additionally creating a Provincial Rural Transit program.
“We need funding for some form of public transportation in Bruce County,” Warden Janice Jackson stated on Tuesday. “The easiest would likely be to extend current services into or throughout Bruce County.”
Presently Bruce County doesn’t have an all-encompassing public transportation system. The Gray Transit Route, which has been funded as much as 2025 via Group Transportation Program funding, does present some service to Bruce County communities, together with Wiarton, Sauble Seaside and Walkerton. thanks partly to funding from Bruce County municipalities. However Jackson stated extra is required to deal with the shortfalls in transit domestically.
This commercial has not loaded but, however your article continues under.
Article content material
“The lack of public transit is a definite challenge whether it’s getting our workforce to the office or jobsite or student transportation to the campus,” she stated. “Exacerbating the issue is the outrageous cost of gas at the pumps.”
South Bruce Peninsula final 12 months contributed funding to increase the GTR path to Sauble Seaside and Jackson, mayor of South Bruce Peninsula, stated her city plans to develop that service this 12 months. She has additionally lately had talks with Saugeen Mobility and Regional Transit (SMART), which might additionally prefer to develop its service, however would require funding from the county to take action. SMART supplies transportation for mentally and bodily challenged residents of 9 member municipalities in Gray and Bruce.
This commercial has not loaded but, however your article continues under.
Article content material
March 3, Bruce County’s govt committee authorised the submission of the Good Roads convention delegation request after receiving a report from Director of Transportation and Environmental Providers Amanda Froese. Gray County council authorised an analogous delegation request submission at its final assembly.
In her report, Froese stated the counties will request that Surma’s ministry examine and report again on the potential to increase the grant program with the aim of creating the Provincial Rural Transit program. By working in collaboration with rural municipalities, that program would capitalize on economies of scale, provincial contracts for gasoline and automobile purchases, the report said.
Froese’s report additionally stated that by coordinating with Gray County, “service could be offered to residents from the top of the peninsula to the southern limits of both counties and include Saugeen Ojibway Nation.”
This commercial has not loaded but, however your article continues under.
Article content material
It stated the service might additionally provide connection via Huron and Wellington counties to the Toronto airport, London hospitals and different companies wanted by space residents, “if it was planned and facilitated on a Provincial or large Regional scale.”
The federal government will probably be requested to make inter-community transit in rural communities a precedence within the subsequent time period to help in addressing housing, labour scarcity and environmental initiatives, the report states.
The GTR inter-community transit service has been working since September 2020 with funding Gray County and Southgate acquired via the province’s Group Transportation Program. Final 12 months, it was introduced that extra funding was being made accessible from the province to increase the service for at the very least two extra years, to March 2025. Guelph Owen Sound Transportation (GOST), which supplies service alongside Freeway 6 between Owen Sound and Guelph, additionally acquired extra funding to increase that service to 2025.
This commercial has not loaded but, however your article continues under.
Article content material
The service contains routes working from Owen Sound to Orangeville, Owen Sound to The Blue Mountains and Owen Sound to Wiarton.
Gray County has additionally chipped in funding to develop the frequency of the service, in addition to including a route from Flesherton to Walkerton, whereas South Bruce Peninsula contributed funding to incorporate Sauble Seaside in the summertime.
In its Grasp Transportation Plan, finalized final 12 months, Bruce County requires enhancing the GTR partnership, figuring out different attainable route extensions to service Kincardine, Port Elgin, Lion’s Head, Tobermory and different communities and locations in between.
The plan additionally requires modifications to SMART and Movin’GB with potential coordination with Gray County for a two-county service, encouraging on-demand companies via up to date laws and exploring partnerships with Bruce Energy for scheduled transit companies.
Commercial 7
This commercial has not loaded but, however your article continues under.
Article content material
Gray County Warden Selwyn Hicks stated Tuesday that Gray County can be in favour of seeing additional funding and provincial involvement in public transit, an space council has highlighted as a precedence together with housing and psychological well being.
“We are constantly looking at how we can make improvements,” Hicks stated. “A number of employers have talked to us about the routes and about drop-off places and about timing of the buses. It is constantly being tweaked.”
Hicks stated there may be additionally speak amongst neighbouring counties, via the Western Ontario Wardens Caucus, about bettering transit all throughout the higher area and the province. He stated the delegation request for Good Roads additionally contains Huron County.
“We know we are all facing the same challenge of how can we make these routes interconnected,” stated Hicks. “It is about making those connections so somebody could potentially get to a neighbouring county or get down to Toronto or London if need be.”
Article content material
Share this text in your social community
