The transit saga continues.
Many of you were following the recent transit saga, where Mayor Don McIsaac unsuccessfully proposed service cuts during off-peak hours with lower ridership, in order to save city funds. Since then, the City’s transit advisory committee was directed to put together a report with the aim of increasing ridership and improving service for transit users. The committee came up with six recommendations for council to consider:
?Implementing a free, unlimited use teen pass for residents ages 13-19, to increase ridership and facilitate travel to after-school programming, as a one-year pilot project to gather data;
?Reducing senior fares to a flat rate of $2, representing a 30 per cent reduction in fares, or twice the discount council approved during 2023 budget deliberations;
?Introducing free promotional transit days, such as Earth Day, as well as a ‘Transit Talk Day’ where councillors would ride buses to hear from residents, to increase ridership and introduce new users to the system;
?Forming a working group to examine potential for on-demand transit service, with aim of implementing recommendations after the city’s contract with TOK Transit expires in 2027;
?Modifying the system’s Laclie route to eliminate service on Maple Drive and redirect it to Sundial Drive, with the aim of servicing more people as it is a higher density area;
?Implementing on-demand booking for OWLS (Orillia Wheelchair Limousine Service), to improve efficiency and user experience, as well as provide insight for broader on demand service in the future
On Monday May 1st, Orillia City Council supported, in principle, the Transit Advisory Committee’s recommendations!
With exception to two amendments, those being a request for a draft Terms of Reference for the working group and an analysis of the financial implications of the recommendations, Council was quite supportive of the ideas as a way of increasing ridership in the City.
Green Orillia strongly supports these recommendations, which we believe are rooted in sustainability, accessibility, efficiency, and equity. This is a MAJOR win for Orillia and a great starting point for building a better transit system. To think that we went from almost having transit service cut just a few months ago to these progressive and robust changes is truly astounding. Way to go and many thanks to the committee and everyone who was involved in the public participation process!
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What do you think of these new changes?