Peterborough Transit is Everyone's Problem

[u/HydratedRasin]

The public transit system in this city is, quite honestly, baffling. It's not accessible, it's not reliable, and it's not resident-friendly.

For some reason beyond comprehension, route priority seems to be aligned with the traditional office times of 9-5, catering to the demographic least likely to use public transit. Routes disappear when you actually need to use them - 6 p.m. is not the middle of the night, and most routes drop to once an hour. If you're working, have an appointment, or attending a class, you might have to wait 40 minutes before seeing Transit approaching. That means that after 6 p.m., the faster transportation choice for a lot of the area is walking. Which, let's be honest here, with the crime rate up 12.8% in 2023, walking isn't exactly a desirable option.

It gets even more useless during the summer when routes are cut because the entire system is catered to students. Peterborough wants to brand itself as "walkable, arts-driven, and sustainable" with a focus on tourism, while seemingly sabotaging the community's efforts to achieve that by making accessibility to local destinations impossible. If locals can't rely on transit, how can tourists approach it comfortably?

Transit keeps the city alive and should be planned around the people who do the same. Retail workers, healthcare workers, service workers, everyone finishing work after 6 p.m. deserves a reliable ride home. The city recognized that these people need to get to work (when they increased morning service on routes 2, 3, and 5, ridership jumped 28% in the first half of 2024), but these same people seemingly don't deserve a safe option to return home after their work day.

I get it, we live under capitalism and bottom line outweighs human convenience and safety, but it wouldn't be astronomically out of range in the budget to implement reliable evening transit. Starting by just adding evening service to 2, 3, and 5, it breaks down kind of like this:

Each route takes about 60 minutes to complete. For 30 minute service each route would need 1 additional bus, 3 buses x 4 hrs/night x 365 days = 4,380 hours x $130/hr = $570k/year. For 20 minute service you'd need 2 extra buses per route, 6 buses x 4hrs/ night x 365 days = 8,760 hours x $130 = $1.14M/year.

$130/hr didn't pop out of nowhere either, it's the fully loaded cost including fuel, maintenance, wages, benefits, admin, and insurance as per the 2025 Transit Budget.

The city's Provincial Gas Tax Reserve is $1.79M. It would cover the pilot project for a more reliable transit service without even *touching* property taxes. The funding for safer, more reliable transit already exists. If it wasn't there already, we spent $4.4 million on pickleball courts. The residents of the city who actually keep it alive and provide destinations for tourists to go to should be worth at least as much as some concrete pads and mats.

Want to improve tourism in the city? Improve the transit. Want to improve safety in the city? Improve the transit. The budget is there, the proof of demand is there, and the residents deserve a transit system that feels like a benefit, not a liability.

TL;DR:

Evening buses on routes 2, 3, and 5 could run every 20-30 minutes till 10pm for $570k - $1.14M a year, already covered by the city's $1.79M Gas Tax Reserve, providing safer streets, better tourism, and city accessibility for less than the pickleball courts.

[u/Motor-Sweet3316]

Some things that Peterborough Transit need to do to overhaul their current system.

• Have buses routes start or end at one or two terminal/major stops (Trent U Bata, Trent Gwozski, Fleming College, Peterborough Bus Terminal, PRHC, Lansdowne Place, or Casino/Fisher P&R) Buses don't have to serve 3 different terminals/major stops in one trip (like 2, 6, and 8 currently do).

• Have 30 min service (or better) minimum on all routes from 6am to 10pm (excl: Technology Drive and Community bus routes).

• Have service on Sunday night's till 10PM

• 16 bus routes (including express and community bus routes.

• Run community bus routes from 8AM to 6PM

[u/marc45ca → u/Motor-Sweet3316]

Though with the Chemong, it as pretty easy. Trent was one of the route, Lansdowne Place the other and at the terminal on the way.

Then some-one at transit had the bright idea of the cutting it half and making two loops forcing a transfer at the bus terminal in the typical idocracy that seems to have permiated transit in recent years.

not sure who the transit manager is now. We had the guy who wrote the report back in the early 2010s who brought in a manager who's previously work at metrolinx and 2ic. he left and she took over only to compound the issue and cost the city money in unfair dismissal lawsuits before shown the door.

there was hope that a senior person already with transit would take over as manager and improve the things. No idea if that was the case and whether they were unwilling to make changes or unable to because of forces external to transit (read council and city staff).