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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday November 5, 2008 - 13 GreenTrans critical of five-year transit plan By David Lea OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Town Council approved Oakville's Five-Year Transit Services Plan, Monday night, despite criticism from a public transit advocate who said there was room for improvement. The plan will introduce seven new bus routes running along the town's main corridors beginning next September. The intent is to spare commuters not bound for Toronto, the mandatory stops at the GO stations that are currently unavoidable under the existing system. Under this plan, new routes will provide north-south service along Third Line, Dorval/Neyagawa, Bronte and Trafalgar, while east-west service will be provided along Dundas, Upper Middle, Speers/Cornwall and Lakeshore. Existing local routes will continue to exist, but will be revised to connect riders with corridor routes. Beginning in September, the plan will also see the town's evening, weekend and holiday Zone Bus service replaced with fixed route service, except for scheduled late-night GO station pick-ups. The creation of this grid system is expected to raise Oakville Transit's yearly $12.9 million budget by about $1 million a year. Not all of this sat well with Lisa Seiler, chair Oakville GreenTrans, a local non-profit organization that advocates environmentally, socially and economically sustainable transportation policies and programs. Seiler voiced a number of concerns about the way the plan is moving forward. "Bronte Village is not recognized as a transit node," she said. "It is an area of higher density in the town, so that's something that is not recognized in the planning. There are currently no core routes that go through Bronte." Seiler said there is also no improvement to daytime `off peak' service and noted some of the main routes for the plan will be running at 40-minute intervals. "That's worse than our existing service," she said. "That doesn't seem to make sense. I think some reworking to the plan needs to be done to get at least 30minute service. Certainly nothing worse than what we already have." Another problem Seiler had was with the implementation date of September 2009, which she said was too far away and should be moved forward to March 2009. She also noted the planned fare increase, which will raise a cash fare from $2.75 to $3 on Jan. 1, should be pushed back to correspond with her suggested March implementation date. "That would make a lot of sense to a lot of people," she said. "I don't think people are very happy with an increase six months after the last increase with nothing to show for it." In the end, council voted to approve the existing version of the Five Year Transit Services Plan, including its implementation date. "I'm disappointed there was no discussion," Seiler said. "Looks like, as long as it's approved in the budget, the new transit service plan will be implemented in September 2009, which is a long wait, but it will be good when it's implemented, we hope." After the meeting Ward 5 Councillor Marc Grant, who also sits on the Town's Transit Advisory Committee commented: "It comes down to the hiring of more bus drivers. We need the money to hire them and then they have to be trained. These factors just fall like dominoes and the date we're left with is September." planning a florida vacation MANY vacation homes to choose in all areas of Florida. Choose from Condos, Villas, Pool homes and from 3 to 8 Bedroom homes Book Now! rates as low as $ 85 /night Deal directly with the owners myholidayhomerental.com