Rhino's Ramblings - Transit Takes A Hit

By Robert Thomas Opinion/Commentary

“Robert I need to talk to you”, “Robert what do you think about what they are doing with the buses?” and “I don’t think it is right” are the three major things I heard it seemed all day Thursday and Friday after Council decided to cut the regular transit service on Saturdays and increase fares for both paratransit and regular transit services.

It had more than a few people upset about the further deterioration of a service they see highly important for those with limited mobility, older and not as economically advantaged as the people who own cars. To put it to you quite frankly many are seeing it as a slap in the face of the poor.

For those of you who have not heard the news Council received a report from Administration which gave them choices on what to do with Transit - choices which included leaving everything as it is, making cuts and finally getting rid of Transit all together.

The examination of Transit came in the face of reduced ridership and an ever increasing taxpayer subsidy to the system. In 2020 that subsidy was $1.3 million and with no service change would have led to a $1.4 million subsidy in 2021 according to Administration’s report to Council. A veritable bottomless cavern that is set to consume an ever increasing mountain of cash.

I can remember the bus as a child when Moose Jaw was in its heyday of the 1970’s. It seemed like everyone rode it. The buses to me seemed to be full. They stopped on almost every corner and they actually ran into the evenings.

But then things changed as the economic realities of the Grant Devine years caught up with the provincial government and the inevitable cuts of the Romanow era took away most of the subsidy that went to transit.

I can remember the changes working at the paper so long ago and then Mayor Don Mitchell had to preside over top of the inevitable cuts the City had to make in response to the now mostly non-existent provincial government subsidy.

The buses went from extended hours to just two evenings a week - Tuesdays for the movie theatre and Thursday for night shopping - just at the juncture where it seemed everybody had a car.

I remember at the time thinking back about how when I was a child many of the families I knew in Moose Jaw did not have two cars. Having two cars was a luxury for the rich and having cars for every member of the family with a driver’s license was a sign that the family was super rich it seemed to me as a child.

Cutting the bus service in the era of Mayor Mitchell came just where the age of the automobile I remember as a child was dead and for a good decade most families were families with multiple vehicles. The reductions in bus service back then was really only felt by those who relied upon the bus - seniors, poor and people with special needs.

The resulting cuts to transit services in turn made the buses not so reliable for a lot of people who were forced or decided to find themselves alternative means of getting around Moose Jaw. It is a situation developing as we have today - the bus needs more ridership to reduce the subsidy but the service reductions have made the bus less reliable and so ridership drops.

There are those who tell me that the City has not been overly creative when it comes to transit which is in itself not true. Perhaps the City has just not been as creative as they should be in the right areas.

In the past the City has tried to reschedule the bus - by providing no service during hours where there was little ridership only to discover the service did not work for a major part of its ridership - seniors - so they reverted back to what they previously had.

There was even a time where Transit had a deal with the school divisions to deliver kids to school for those who can remember back a bit.

Then they had a new manager who was suppose to work out the kinks in the system to make it more efficient but in the end his own disgusting personal dalliances or kinks led to his early retirement and the system basically left on its own without a much needed required re-think. In many ways Transit was left in free fall.

Oh sure there was some thought given to a potential route between Moose Jaw and Regina after a request by SaskPolytechnic to set up a route after losing first the Saskatchewan Transportation Corporation (STC) bus and then a private contractor as the route was non-viable but other than that a major re-thinking of the buses did not occur.

Over the past little while I have been doing a little bit of research into public transit systems and if you think any of them are money makers you would be mistaken. Transit in the larger centres might seem like sure winners on the profit side of the ledger but in reality they are not.

But that is not really what public transit is all about - especially in the larger centres. Transit is really there for a lot of reasons but a major one is buses help to ease congestion in the business and core areas of larger cities. Parking is at a premium and less cars heading Downtown means less congestion.

It is sort of the same thing the City here tried to rectify by reducing the single ride fare. Cutting the fare in half was done in hopes it would attract more people to ride the bus Downtown - whether for work or business - while at the same time having less of a need for parking and cars Downtown. It was a good idea but it also was an idea more attuned towards a larger urban centre.

It sadly just did not fly in Moose Jaw.

This past week there has been an announcement the carbon tax is about to head into the stratosphere as the federal government is taking an even more strident charge to reduce the effects of greenhouse gases like CO2. At the same time such moves make automobile ownership more expensive which many on the green side of the equation are pushing for to reduce emissions and at the same time make public transit more desirable.

This is just my thought but it all depends how deep this vein runs in the federal government which may have an influence beyond transit. I could see some in the federal government tying infrastructure monies to viable transit services.

Now I will be honest I was a semi-regular rider on the transit system here during a lot of this time. I was a rider for the simple reason I was at the time medically restricted from driving due to a heart condition. So yes I did use the bus on more than a few occasions and I really in many ways relied upon it.

Now these are my thoughts on the entire transit system and they are not scientific by any means but what I found to be the worst change was moving the bus from the 30 minute to the 40 minute cycle. I found myself unable to remember just when did the bus show up and more often than not missed it.

It was the same thing Downtown and I only say this constructively but there is no public schedule available at the depot. So if you are Downtown on the 40 minute cycle I often found myself lost as to when the buses were in fact running. I often thought how great it would be to have a schedule posted at the Moose Jaw Cultural Centre.

During the pandemic - when the buses were free - ridership was down, but it was also down at a time when there was suppose to be two meter spacing between riders and many of the businesses were closed or if they were open they had major restrictions to access them. It was a time when more than a couple financial institutions restricted access to only what was necessary.

Public transit during the pandemic have been viewed as a major death trap and of course that drove ridership down.

Now with that said as I ran in to people over the past couple of days there seems to be a lot of support for keeping the Transit service a six day service. This is not from people who ride the bus but to me see the bus as a major and necessary service to give much needed mobility to those who for whatever reason do not have access to another type of transportation.

But with that said Transit is as it stands is a very expensive service and it needs a major overhaul - perhaps smaller or micro buses as many tell me to save fuel would be in order, or even go electric to get rid of diesel fumes and cut fuel costs - I just do not know.

My own personal thoughts are something had to give here financially but that is just MY opinion for others it is not their opinion.

What I do know is that for more than a few people - many who do not take the bus - the changes to Transit are none too desirable.

The preceding was an opinion and as such it is just one viewpoint - your viewpoint may be the same but even if it isn’t we live in a democracy where people have the right to their own views. We encourage our readers not to just take our word for things but read multiple sources and become better informed and involved in your community. Have a different viewpoint? Feel free to submit it to: moosejawnews@gmail.com