Bruce County is considering how to best become transit-ready.
During Thursday’s council meeting, they received a report from David Forsey, who represents the consultation firm Arcadis.
Forsey says that through their community study, they received feedback to give them direction on how best to serve the county.
“We heard that residents felt the most travel needs included travel to and from larger centres including those beyond the county. We heard about the social isolation that is being experienced amongst seniors and how transportation can help alleviate it,” he told council. “And also the importance of providing access to Toronto’s Pearson Airport.”
He says that the study ultimately found that there were no dominant travel patterns throughout Bruce County and that the people most in need of public transit are spread throughout the community, meaning that there is a challenge in connecting people to jobs and services.
The County says that it will be advocating to other levels of government to establish funding programs to help both Bruce County and its lower-tier municipalities deliver medium to long-term transit solutions.
Forsey says that despite the upfront cost, there are short-term solutions in the interim.
“Public transportation is a very expensive service to deliver, and any deployment at the scale of the network identified in the county’s master transportation plan would be very costly. However, there are lower-cost interim solutions that can be deployed.”
The foundational study looked at seven areas of transit need and demand:
1. Connecting smaller communities to jobs and services
2. Connecting seasonal, service, and occasional workers to jobs
3. Intercommunity connections
4. Transportation within larger urban communities
5. Tourism-oriented transportation
6. Enhanced coordination of specialized transit
7. Improved communication, collaboration, and coordination of transportation solutions
You can find more information at brucecounty.on.ca/TransitStudy
