Transit Talk In Woodstock

Thursday, 25 July 2019 at 07:07

Public Transit Meeting held in Woodstock

The City of Woodstock held a few informal meetings this past week to get the community's thoughts on the future of the transit system, with possible changes to come early next year.

WOODSTOCK - Residents were invited to four informal public meetings over the past couple days, hosted by the City of Woodstock.

Staff is looking at ways to expand the transit routes, and they came up with seven options.

City Engineer Harold de Haan says they saw a great turnout.

"Yesterday (Tuesday) we got a lot of comments, and they varied from person to person. We had a number of people talk about service on Parkinson Road, we had a number of people that did not want service in certain areas. Now, that being said the city's mandate, like I said, is to service the whole city and that's why we're trying to design routes so that everybody's within five minutes of a bus route."

The meetings were held to receive feedback from the public on the future of the city's transit routes.

He says the routes will make travelling throughout the city more accessible for residents.

"Well, certainly, expanding the routes to provide service to the whole city we're going to be opening residential areas to transit that right now don't have it. So all of sudden these people are now going to be able to use their buses. We're going to be running buses to employment lands, factories that right now don't have it so some people that may have to take a taxi are now going to be hopefully taking the bus, which I think will improve ridership. And we're also hoping that it'll improve the system's reliability."

He adds as the city grows, they're going to have to look at routes again in a few years.

The current transit system sees six routes that take 30 minutes. Among the options presented included keeping six routes, which takes 30 minutes, and seven routes which also takes 30 minutes.

De Haan says feedback forms are available online for those who were unable to attend the meetings. He says they will be on the city's website by the end of the week.

He says once a decision is made, they'll finalize a report to present to council. He added that changes to transit should be expected early in the new year.