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The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday A pril 30, 2003 - A5 Zone Express draws interest from Sunday bus riders By Kim Arnott SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER O akville's new Sunday bus Nick Perry · Sp ecial to the O akville Beaver service is proving to be a hit, Oakv ille M ayo r Ann M ulvalc cuts the official ribbon fo r the new " Zone Express" Sunday bus service especially with residents in the w ith the help o f the O akville Transit mascot, the O akville Town C rie r and her fellow town councillors. Bronte and Glen Abbey-River zones o f the town. Oaks areas. For purposes o f the Sunday Vlore than 600 people have so service, the town is divided into far ried out the new "Zone four zones. Express' buses - as O a kville Trafalgar Road and the QEW Transit is caling it's new service serve as the dividing lines, with - and Director Eric Pi Ion says the the O akville GO response has been Station serving as a excellent. central meeting "M ost o f the On the first Sunday, point between comments w e' ve 188 riders used the zones. received have been service, while the To use the quite positive." said second Sunday Express Zone serv Pilon. ice, riders call 905attracted 240 riders The service, 849-ZO N E (9663) which uses shuttle and last Sunday 214 at least one hour bus-sized vehicles passengers used the One o f the shuttle buses used by the " Zone Express" Sunday bus before they wish to to ferry people to service. service. be picked up. Pick th eir destinations, has run on three Sundays in A p ril. On the first week. 188 riders used the service, while the second week attracted 240 riders and last weekend attracted 214 passengers. Pilon said he expects demand to continue to grow as Oakville Transit begins actively marketing the service this week through a series o f bus and newspaper ads. and flyers handed to weekday rid ers. He added that demand for the Sunday service has been particu larly strong in the midday hours in the northwest and southwest ups are arranged for the closest bus stop to the caller's location. Using the pre-scheduled requests for pick-ups and dropoffs, Oakville Transit dispatchers design unique route fo r each hour, for each o f the shuttles run ning in the town. Users travelling w ithin their zone are taken to the closest bus stop to their destination, while the bus picks up and drops o ff other passengers. A maximum ride time is expected to be 30 minutes. Riders who wish to travel to other zones are taken to the GO Station to transfer to shuttles serving other parts o f the town. Zone Express buses make sched uled stops at the GO Station 20 minutes past every hour. Advance reservations are not required when departing from the GO Station. Pilon said the only glitch the service has encountered in its first weeks in operation has been unreasonably long wait times for some customers calling in to the dispatch centre. Some callers were w aiting three or four minutes to book their rides, but Pilon said Oakville Transit has made some telephone changes to address the wait times and expects all calls to be dealt with more promptly by next Sunday. Along w ith the four Oakville zones, the Sunday buses also travel to Lakeside Plaza in Burlington, and to the A M C the atres in the Winston Park area, where users can transfer to Mississauga Transit. The Sunday service operates between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. (with reservations taken from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.). The regular weekday bus fare o f $2 is charged. T oron to SA R S scare has rip p le effect on local econom y (Continued from page A1) " Everyone loses out in this case, without visitors to the city, restaurants, taxis and retailers suffer." At the Hilton Garden Inn, Matt Costanza reported some cancellations relating to SARS over the past couple o f weeks. But he's also had business travelers move their reserva tions at Toronto hotels over to his when they realized Oakville is outside the city. `The net effect on us has been slight." said Costanza. Fortunately for Costanza and others, the World Health Organization (W H O ) is scheduled to lift its travel advisory against Toronto, today. The compounding impact o f the war in Iraq and SARS has shut down a major part o f the cruise business operated by Bob Kerby o f Bob's Cruises. His volume is down 40 per cent. He agrees the w orld's view o f the Toronto area is "seriously lacking reliable information." Kerby said a Toronto man he booked on cruise depart ing from Los Angeles was denied entry on a Royal Caribbean ship because o f the perception that if he was from Toronto, he must have SARS. " It's ridiculous," he added. On the upside, Trish McTavish. vice-president o f McTavish Travel said a lot o f leisure travelers are begin ning to make inquiries. While many o f her cus tomers are a little slower to make decisions on whether to go, McTavish said that her business hasn't seen too much o f a drop because her clients are booking destina tions out o f the country. WHY BUY NEW? WHEN NEARLY NEW WILL DO! Optim um USED VEHICLES Experience the Value & Security of Optimum's 150+ Point Inspection . 0 -» O ver 5 0 Vehicles to Choose From * 4 ,4 0 5 S ta r tin g fr o m Feature Vehicles a * *12,995 Dk. Blue, 4 Dr., 65,000 kms. A/C, Auto, V6, Pwr. Drs. *9,995 Silver, 4 Dr., A/C, Auto, Pwr. Drs., Keyless Entry, 68,000 kms. u t/C A & 0 0 C& Briar Wood C H E V R O L E T O lD S M O B IL E L IM IT E D itt 321 Lakeshore Rd. West 9 0 5 -2 7 8 -3 3 6 5 ~ T- Wm O P T I M U M ·O P T I M U M · 9 q w w w b rtn rw o o d c h e v .g m c a n a d a .c o m s m a ll: b ria rw o o d ch o v@ g m ca n a d a .co m · OPTIMUM · OPTIM UM · OPTIMUM · · Health officials see light at end of SARS tunnel World Health Organization lifts Toronto travel advisory (Continued from page A1) health department had been monitor ing. A female Burlington resident - a Mount Sinai nurse - remains in a Toronto hospital as a probable case o f SARS. An alert was issued after it was dis covered she rode a GO train earlier this month w hile showing some SARS symptoms. She rode the GO train from Toronto to the Burlington Appleby GO station on A p ril 14 and from Burlington to Toronto the next day while experienc ing a fever, but before developing SARS. Public health officials at that point issued a pubfje request for the six people, who sat closest to the nurse to isolate themselves «und contact their local public health department. There have been no probable cases reported among passengers who rode So far, SARS has been implicated in the deaths of 21 people, all of them from the Toronto area. on the same train as the nurse. Dr. Nosal said late yesterday. Based on the 10-day incubation period, symptoms for those passengers would have sur faced by last Friday. So far. SARS has been implicated in the deaths o f 21 people, all o f them from the Toronto area. But Ontario's top public health officials are feeling hopeful that the SARS outbreak is on the slide as the number o f cases con tinue to drop daily. Two fu ll incubation periods, or 20 days, have passed since the last reported case o f community spread o f SARS. By late Monday. Ontario had 39 probable active SARS cases: 37 are in hospital, five in critical or deteriorating condition and 498 people in quaran tine, most o f whom w ill be out shortly. Even the W orld Health Organization (W H O ) - w hich had slapped a travel advisory on people travelling to Toronto - believes that in Canada transmissions have stopped completely. The organization is expected to lift its travel advisory against Toronto, today. Halton Healthcare Services, which includes Oakville-Trafaglar Memorial and M ilto n D istrict hospitals, w ith approval from the M inistry o f Health, have already relaxed some o f their strin gent protocols, including allow ing some visitors at certain times o f the day. Members o f the public are encour aged to call the Halton Healthcare hot line at (905) 815-5123 or log on to its Web site at www.haltonhealthcare.com for additional information. 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