\n
Other Ontario municipalities have other variations of microtransit. Belleville, for example, still uses buses but allows users to book on-demand trips in the evenings.<\/p>\n
As for the Ministry of Transportation, it hasn’t clarified whether a private partnership with a company like Uber is part of its vision for microtransit.<\/p>\n
“Microtransit refers to small scale, flexible transportation services,” said a Ministry of Transportation spokesperson.<\/p>\n
“[It] may offer a more sustainable way to provide transit service to unserved and underserved areas.”<\/p>\n
Opening the door to congestion?<\/h2>\n NDP transit critic Jessica Bell takes issue first and foremost with any conditions being attached to the province’s funding of the TTC during the pandemic.<\/p>\n
“Premier Ford should not be tying any strings attached to this funding,” she said.<\/p>\n
She also says asking municipalities to “replace public bus service with privatized car service” opens the door to congestion, increased cost for municipalities, and fare hikes.<\/p>\n
Jafri also worries that any switch to a microtransit model could involve the introduction of fare-by-distance.<\/p>\n
“Paying more to ride further distances will hurt people who live in Scarborough, where it takes a long time to get downtown,” he said, adding that it’s racialized and low-income people who would suffer the most in that kind of system.<\/p>\n
TTC already looking at microtransit<\/h2>\n The TTC has already begun looking at\u00a0the idea of microtransit,\u00a0committing to study the idea of a fleet of small on-demand vehicles back in 2016\u00a0when it was pitched by Coun. Denzil Minnan-Wong.<\/p>\n
It has also been studying the Innisfil system, but couldn’t say when its report will go to the board.<\/p>\n
A consideration of microtransit\u00a0is just one of the requirements\u00a0for the city to be eligible for that second cash infusion, along with participating in discussions with the province around fare integration and optimizing transit through “new possible governance structures.”<\/p>\n
That rankles Bell as well, telling CBC Toronto that it makes “zero sense” for the TTC to cede any control to Metrolinx or\u00a0the Ontario government.<\/p>\n
“Governance is not the TTC’s problem,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nNDP transit critic Jessica Bell says transit agencies could be ‘bullied into saying yes’ to the government’s conditions because they need the money. (CBC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nAs for Mayor John Tory, he did not comment specifically on microtransit in a statement sent to CBC Toronto but expressed confidence that the second wave of funding was coming.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
“The $400 million first payment is one of two committed payments,” wrote spokesperson Don Peat.<\/p>\n
“We look forward to continuing to work with [the provincial and federal governments] on a variety of other matters which help us make transit a more viable option for many.”<\/p>\n
CBC<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
According to the TTC, the 132 Milner bus route \u2014 which runs parallel to Highway 401 in Scarborough \u2014 served about 3,600 customers per weekday before the pandemic.\u00a0 That’s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":65636,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3538],"tags":[15934,17790,4441],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Province-tells-Toronto-to-consider-replacing-low-performing-bus-routes-with-microtransit-Milenio-Stadium-GTA.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65635"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mileniostadium.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}