durhamregion.com | This Week | Thursday, December 22, 2022 | | 14 Post-secondary students in Oshawa say new service cuts at Durham Region Transit (DRT) will make getting to and from school more difficult. Students at Durham post-secondary institutions, including Ontario Tech University, Durham College and Trent University's Durham campus, pay a mandatory fee for a Durham Region Transit U-Pass as part of their tuition, but some say the service they're receiving in exchange doesn't match the fee, which is set to rise to $300 per year per student. "Transit reductions that were put in place for COVID-19 have for the most part remained in place despite a near 100 per cent return to campus," said Joshua Sankarlal, president of the Ontario Tech Student Union. "At the same time we're seeing this price increase, we're also hearing about cuts to our routes." Sankarlal said an earlier change to DRT Route 915, which was popular with students and travelled from Ajax straight to Ontario Tech's north Oshawa campus, caused concern for many students when the route no longer ended at the campus, but instead students had to transfer at Simcoe and Harmony to Route 901. The new changes, included in the General Manager's Report presented to the Durham Region Transit Executive Committee on Dec. 7, included a reduction in frequency on Route 901, which will further delay many students. The changes, which go into effect on Jan. 2, include decreasing Route 901 buses to between 15 and 30 minute cycles instead of every 10, and a decrease on Route 915 from every 15 minutes currently to every 20 or 30 minutes depending on the time of day. "These are fairly critical routes for Ontario Tech students," Sankarlal said. "We're sympathetic to the fact that Durham Region Transit has to serve all Durham residents and not just students, but we're also the only group that is required to pay mandatory fees, and the level of service being provided isn't remotely close to students' expectations." Sankarlal presented his concerns to the Transit Executive Committee on Dec. 7, noting that post-secondary students' mandatory fees make up 23 per cent of transit's ridership revenue and post-secondary students account for 25 per cent of ridership overall. "We're seeing high reliance on this service, yet low reliability," said Sankarlal. Officials noted that most scheduling changes, including frequency reductions, were a response to several factors currently impacting DRT, including staffing issues and resource allocation as well as local traffic conditions. "In the absence of dedicated transit lanes, Durham Region Transit buses are at the mercy of road construction, collisions, lane restrictions and a multitude of other factors that contribute to reducing the reliability of transit," said Bill Holmes, general manager, DRT, noting that in many cases, the organization has been forced to allocate more resources to popular routes just to maintain the posted frequency. "It means transit costs are increasing for the same level of service." Christopher Norris, deputy general manager of operations, DRT, broke down the upcoming changes and noted that the organization hoped they would be "temporary" pending the hiring of more staff and resources. "We have the same amount of resources out on the road, but it takes longer to travel from point A to point B, so we can't run them as frequently as we used to," he explained. "We expect this to be temporary as we increase resource availability on operators and would then be able to reinstate this." Staff will be bringing back an information report on Sankarlal's concerns to the committee's January meeting. "Josh has raised a number of concerns, so I suggest we take that back and provide a response that's fulsome," said Holmes. "We will come back with an information report in January to address the issues Josh has brought up." ONTARIO TECH CALLS FOR TRANSIT IMPROVEMENTS Joshua Sankarial says changes to Durham Region Transit routes will impact students. Jason Liebregts/Metroland MOYA DILLON mdillon@durhamregion.com NEWS NEW CUTS PROMPT STUDENTS TO CALL FOR TRANSIT IMPROVEMENT The Durham District School Board continues to bring systems back online following a Nov. 25 cyber incident. David Wright, associate director, corporate services at the Durham District School Board (DDSB), said staff have been working diligently since the incident was first detected on Nov. 25. "We've already taken steps to improve our security, network security and strengthen network access," he said in a recent update to the board of trustees. "Our team has done an amazing job of getting us back up and running in a short period of time. It's been a monumental effort." He said staff moved quickly to stop and control the issue when an unusually high amount of activity on the network was detected in the early morning hours of Nov. 25. The incident knocked out phone and email capabilities across the board and prevented many students from using their board-issued Chromebooks, and cancelled virtual classes for DDSB@Home students for three days. Crucial systems such as Safe Arrival, which automatically notifies parents if their child is marked absent, were also down. "Work is currently underway to investigate what happened, the extent of the impact, how we can prevent similar situations from occurring again and if any privacy concerns need to be addressed," Wright continued. "This work is extremely complex and will take a significant amount of time to complete." Wright did not comment on the nature of the incident or whether it was a targeted breach, but the board has previously confirmed that the Durham Regional Police Service was notified and is looking into the matter. RECOVERY CONTINUES FOLLOWING DDSB CYBER INCIDENT MOYA DILLON mdillon@durhamregion.com