COVID-19 is putting a damper on Grey County’s plans to bring residents effective, reliable public transportation.
“In April, I had planned to present three options for service and financial impact. That report did not move forward,” said Stephanie Stewart, manager of community transportation for Grey County at a recently held committee of the whole meeting. “No large investments have been made as the transit vehicles have not been purchased.”
Last year, the county had been actively pursuing the Grey Transit Route after receiving a $1.9 million grant through the Province of Ontario’s Community Transportation Program.
After receiving the funds, the county conducted a survey, determined the most in-demand routes and acquired a single-source to provide transit operators, which was when the project hit a speed bump - COVID-19.
“We need to decide now if this is the right time to move forward with this service. At this time, what we know is affordable, convenient, reliable transit was a significant need prior to the pandemic happening. We don’t know now if, and how, that has changed,” Stewart said.
The Grey Transit Route proposed three different operation lines - Highway 26 from Owen Sound to the Town of The Blue Mountains; Highway 10 from Owen Sound to Orangeville; and Highway 6 from Owen Sound to Wiarton.
“With what we know right now, we are looking at about a million dollars a year to operate a [public transit] system,” said Kim Wingrove, CAO of Grey County. “As you move through the different levels of service, the cost doesn’t change significantly. There is kind of a base-cost to showing up.”
County staff outlined three different levels of service - full, basic, grant-funded - which provide a variety of operating timetables and come at varied costs.
“One of the main purposes of this was to connect the job market and affordable housing. With these businesses in the flux that they are right now, we wouldn’t have that ridership,” said deputy mayor of the municipality of Grey Highlands, Aakash Desai. “I would hate to have our system fail due to this pandemic and us not getting accurate results on the pilot project. With the pandemic still going on, we will notice a decrease in ridership and consumer confidence will take a while to return.”
Stewart says COVID-19 has created a number of obstacles for all public transportation systems, as, due to social distancing rules, the buses cannot hold as many riders, ridership is reduced with residents staying home and increased sanitation is required.
Ian Boddy, mayor of Owen Sound says buses in his municipality have continued to run throughout COVID-19.
“We are limited to six people at one time. We waived fees for a little while, but they are just going back in now,” Boddy said. “We have had usage. There are a lot of people within Owen Sound that rely on this to get groceries, get to doctor, ect. It has been working. But, we did have to fix the buses with plexiglass to protect the drivers.”
Wingrove says the grant provided by the provincial government also comes with a number of stipulations, including that the service needs to be in operation by August of this year.
“The lead time when ordering the buses before COVID-19 was two months. Even if we were to order them today we would be running up hard against that August requirement,” said Wingrove. “We did have a conversation with Uber, so there are other potential transportation solutions we may investigate here as well.”
Mayor of the township of Chatsworth, Scott Mackey also pointed out that Bruce County recently launched a public transportation taskforce and has indicated a desire to work on a more regional project with Grey County.
“We share a common border. And, for lots of our residents there is no real boundary between Grey and Bruce,” said Mackey. “I think there is merit in maybe speaking with Bruce county and becoming involved with that task force and we look at a regional approach to transportation.”
For the time being, county council has put the project on hold. County staff will be seeking an extension on the August deadline from the province and an update will be provided to council at the end of the month.
