Earth Rise: The Transit Solution

Mike Mousley’s office décor can best be described as organized chaos with accents, here and there, of mancave clutter. But it suits him just fine, and everything important appears to be right his fingertips.

Mike has been the manager of the Stratford Transit System (STS) for the last ten years and, for him, it’s not just a job, it’s a cause. He is an environmentalist and knows that public transit is key to addressing the critical issue of environmental degradation.

He is “always out there pushing the message,” especially to young people who are the future of, well, everything. He is constantly looking for ways to raise the profile of the transit system and to increase its ridership. As evidenced by a substantial bulletin board full of news stories and press releases, he has certainly made maximum use of every opportunity.

Digital technology has played a big role in Mike’s quest to improve the STS. All buses are now equipped with GPS’. Screens have been installed in every bus to provide passengers with visual information regarding stops, changes to routes, etc., and a supplementary voice system also calls out the stops. Most recently he has overseen the creation of a transit app which provides route information, bus arrival times, and also allows passengers to pay their fares electronically.

Mike has a long-term vision for the STS, as well. He would like to see the City of Stratford set up with a full fleet of all-electric, zero-emissions buses. Because of the enormity of the costs and the logistics of this goal, there is an almost two-decades long timeline, which means that he will likely not see it to its conclusion. But, for Mike, that’s no reason to wait around doing nothing.

He recently purchased two hybrid buses for slightly over $2 million dollars, with the federal government funding approximately 74 per cent of the cost and the city the remainder. Drivers and mechanics are currently being trained in their operation and maintenance, and the buses should be on our streets by mid-March. Kudos, Mike!

But recent studies indicate that there are three fundamental components to a successful transit system: affordability, convenience/reliability, and social acceptance ie. a transit-culture as opposed to a car-culture. Let’s take a quick look at how the STS rates in these areas.

Bus fares in Stratford are actually quite reasonable when compared to cities of similar size, being lower than in Timmins, for example, but higher than in Cornwall. Of course, free transit, which Mike has looked into (and hopefully will continue to monitor), would not be unwelcome, but neither would it, in itself, guarantee a significant increase in ridership. For a full breakdown of STS fares please visit Stratford.ca/transit.

At the same time, Mike is considering lowering fares for off-peak hours in order to ease congestion during busier times and, hopefully, he will also consider extending the transfer lay-over time, thus allowing passengers greater flexibility, while encouraging and rewarding more transit use.

As for the convenience level of any transit system, it tends to be in the eye of the beholder. For someone accustomed to hopping into their vehicle and driving directly to their destination, a public transit system will never feel convenient. It is, by design, not a taxi service but a means of transporting the greatest number of people to their destinations in the least amount of time, resulting in the fewest possible carbon emissions. It is important, therefore, that public transit be seen in that critical ‘personal cost/benefit to the environment’ ratio.

Having said that though, there is a sizable elephant in the room. As part of his job, Mike rides the buses in order to monitor routing, stop locations, etc., but he doesn’t use the transit system on a regular basis. And, without a daily, ground-zero perspective, it is difficult to make decisions that will appeal to and work for transit riders in real life and real time.

While Mike admits that the convenience factor in terms of the circuitous nature of the routes, is a work in progress, the reliability component is another matter. The days of waiting at a stop with reasonable confidence that the bus will arrive at its appointed time, are long-gone. Mike’s thinking is that the transit app will inform us of the bus’s arrival time which is true, but only theoretically, as the app doesn’t always work as it should.

In any case, we dedicated transit riders can’t, nor should we have to change the times of our medical appointment, or shift start, or childcare pick-up, etc. in order to accommodate those chronically unpredictable bus times. No, Mike, leaving an hour early or scrambling to book a taxi or uber instead is not an option – life is stressful enough. And what do we do, where do we go to wait for those late buses when it’s 9 p.m. and everything around us is closed, or when we’re out in the middle of nowhere in January?

The problem of unreliability appears to be this: the bus schedule is set for a thirty minute turn-around time, with buses leaving the terminal on the hour and half-hour, but the bus routes are designed for twenty-seven minutes of travel time in, mind you, ideal conditions. This leaves only three minutes to accommodate entirely predictable and foreseeable circumstances such as heavy traffic, inclement weather, road construction, slow/elderly/disabled passengers, and the de-boarding and boarding of buses at the terminal. Of course, unforeseeable complications, such as accidents, will happen from time to time and will, occasionally and understandably, cause unavoidable delays.

One solution, though admittedly costly (both financially and environmentally), would be to keep one of the buses that is being replaced by the new hybrid, and rework/shorten all the current bus routes. Another, less costly solution, would be to tighten up the existing routes. The run-time of the Queensland route, as an example, could easily be tweaked and reduced by two to three minutes without losing any of the current stops. And, I’m sure that with the input of bus drivers, all seven routes could be reduced ever so slightly

While it doesn’t seem like a significant difference, a route that is twenty-four minutes in length would be far more robust in accommodating a typical, as opposed to ideal, day on Stratford’s streets, and buses would be much more likely to arrive at and leave the terminal on schedule, instead of becoming steadily later with each run. A transit system that can be relied on will attract more users on a more consistent basis. While no transit system can ever be 100 per cent reliable, 90 per cent would be welcomed with thanks.

Social acceptance of public transit is yet another thorny issue. Mike, as a non-user of the STS, is not an anomaly. Though I may (hopefully) be mistaken, none of the environmentalists I know use the system on a regular basis, if at all. There is definitely an image/branding problem, which Mike will be looking into, but I sense that there may also be other factors at play, which I will be looking into in the next installment.

Be the change you wish to see.