It’s the end of the line for the controversial Belleville Transit Route 9 bus service.
Route 9 is a relatively new route serving the built up area just north of Highway 401
in Thurlow Ward and has been running as a pilot project to see if the demand for public transit buses
was there.
The latest statistics show that ridership on the route is very low and on Monday, city council unanimously voted in favour of Thurlow councillor Paul Carr’s motion to discontinue the service as of April 21, the last day of Loyalist College’s winter semester.
Councillor Kathryn Brown, also representing Thurlow, says most people in Thurlow did not support an increase in taxes to pay for Route 9.
“I would rather us discontinue spending the money and not increase property taxes and let us get through the new master plan to find out if there’s a better way.”
Councillor Carr and even some urban Belleville councillors said that they had heard many complaints from residents about seeing empty buses running the roads in Thurlow.
The route had been paid for by provincial gas tax but that funding ends March 31.
Meanwhile Carr also asked for a staff report on the costs of expanding specialized mobility bus service to the entire city for upcoming budget talks.
Councillor Garnet Thompson says Belleville Transit’s mobility service is having trouble meeting passenger demand as it is now.
“If we’re going to do Belleville and Thurlow we need to get up to five or six buses (mobility) so that means three new buses and three new drivers.”
It’s expected Belleville Transit will soon have a consultant’s Transit Master Plan in hand to consider other changes to transit service as the city continues to grow.
