Candidates get a look at transit challenges

Students at Brock University and Niagara College want candidates running in the upcoming municipal election to “ride a mile” in their shoes. They invited them to take a ride on their buses to and from school Wednesday so they could get a firsthand look at some of their transit challenges and push for some changes.

This is a daily part of being a student — waiting for buses, and riding shoulder to shoulder with other commuters.

“Very, very crowded.”

“Late nights and weekends, you have to wait a full hour to get your next bus.”

“I am from Thorold so a lot of the time we don’t actually have enough buses to pick up students.”

Students got a chance to voice those frustrations to local councillors, school officials and candidates as part of a campaign called “ride with me”.

“Four different buses passed by — all of them full.”

Students organizing this campaign say it was important for them to get regional councillors on the bus talking with students who ride them every day and experiencing those issues first hand.

Thorold Mayor Ted Luciani: “Not being a regular user, today has been a big experience for me, listening to the trials and tribulations that they go through.”

Brock University President Jack Lightstone: “Stories about students sometimes needing an hour two hours to do a trip that in a car would take 10, being unable to come to campus in an efficient way on the weekend, bus services stopping at night when students are still trying to get back from classes.”

One of the main issues is that St. Catharines, Niagara Falls and Thorold have three different transit systems.

Ted Luciani: “I think it’s time that we look at having one system will make it better for the students, and also the seniors that use the buses a lot of times.”

And outside of those areas there aren’t a lot of options… so students are limited when it comes to getting to and from part time jobs

“When I started working at Ravine Vineyards in St. Davids, I was living in Niagara Falls and I took a cab to work every day.”

Students make up 40 percent of transit riders in Niagara.

The route we were on took us 45 minutes. By car, that would have only been about 5 minutes.

There’s a big push for that integrated system, similar to the HSR in Hamilton. And students say, with a municipal election less than three weeks away, now is the time to make that push.