Comment 123688

By Haveacow (registered) | Posted September 10, 2018 at 09:19:43

There's no doubt that more equalized funding for transit city wide would benefit Hamilton. Even phased in over 4 years, the increased funding for transit is going to have significant challenges to actually improve service by the HSR.

When the Region of Ottawa- Carleton was created in 1970 out of the old, old city of Ottawa and the mostly rural communities of the old Carleton County. Similar to Hamilton today, the city of Ottawa had very reasonable transit service but the new suburbs of Nepean, Glouceste, Kanata (created from parts of Goulburn and South March Townships), Vanier ( recently renamed from Eastview to Vanier by it's majority franco-Ontarian residents) and Rockcliffe as well as the 6 rural municipalities, all of which had very little or no transit service at all

In those early days the newly created O.C. Transpo (1972) took over some very small rural and suburban bus operators most of whom were actually private operators. The small size and the the extreme age of the newly acquired fleet of buses made most of these units nearly useless to O.C. Transpo. It took 4-6 years just to grow the fleet and it's support services. One new bus garage built around 1972 on the same property beside the existing 1959 garage and a new one in Nepean built in 1977. It also was at that time that, talk for a rapid transit system was beginning. The early design work for what eventually would be the Transitway Network began in the 1974-1978 period. This work was only tolerated by the public because there was visible improvement to the suburban bus network. Keep in mind that, this was in an environment were most of the residents in these newly served areas were actually very positive about having transit. They didn't like their taxes going up but the majority realized that they were getting something for those taxes. I don't honestly get the impression that a lot of the under serviced Hamiltonians are ready and waiting for improved transit service however, I don't live there so, I freely admit that I could be wrong on that point.

Comment edited by Haveacow on 2018-09-10 09:39:36

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