Today, Simcoe County’s LINX bus service comes to Bradford West Gwillimbury.
The route features a stop in Bond Head and three stops in Bradford, all along County Road 88/Holland Street, connecting from Alliston to the Bradford GO train station. With hourly service starting in Bradford from 5:55 a.m. until around 6:20 p.m. in the evening, this bus should form the spine of our local transit network, particularly working to help bring commuters to the GO station.
This new bus service is good news. Hopefully, once we all go back to work, the service will help shift commuters out of their cars and onto the bus to get to the GO train, providing some relief for our overcrowded GO station parking lot.
When I worked in government, the former premier would often joke at transit announcements that it was always a bit like “If you give a moose a muffin”: as soon as everyone finished saying, “Hey, that’s good news”, the next question was “OK, but what comes next?”
The same is true for this bus announcement from the county. What comes next?
On the one hand, it’s great to see the county investing in Bradford West Gwillimbury. There has been something of a frosty relationship between our town and the county over the past few years; Mayor Rob Keffer hinted at this need for the county to give our town its fair share at the announcement last week when he said, “It will be a great presence of the county in our town.”
But the new system also raises some questions.
How will this new bus work with our existing Bradford bus service? The route could prove redundant with the “crosstown” bus route offered by the town. It seems at first blush as if there will always be a need for the Bradford bus service on this route given the way it is designed to help local seniors get about town, but this will need to be monitored to ensure both systems are optimized.
Further, there is of course the question of transit passes. When the county bus launches today, it will be free. I’ve actually been part of a group of public policy thinkers and other thought leaders who argue transit should be free at the point of access, since it’s the only public service we pay for twice, once on our taxes and once at the fare box; imagine if we had turnstiles at schools or hospitals or roads. Regardless, eventually there is the question of synchronizing transit passes, so one does not need three passes to use the GO, the LINX and the Bradford bus, if you so choose. Ideally, we should look at getting all local systems on the PRESTO card, so a Bradford transit user has one card to use most transit networks across the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area.
Finally, a dedicated route ferrying commuters from Alliston, Bond Head and Bradford to the GO train again raises the imperative to have the province invest in upgrading the station. I wrote in January about how our local MPP, Transport Minister Caroline Mulroney, could invest to spruce up and improve the GO station (read that column here.
Minister Mulroney has been doing an exemplary job, both as a local MPP and in her role in cabinet. I spoke to her briefly by phone last week, and was effusive in my praise for how she stood up for truckers getting access to ONroutes and rest stops at the beginning of the pandemic. But, our local GO train is an area that could use some serious TLC, and it is smack dab in the centre of her political remit.
This new bus service is a welcome piece of good news, with questions about how we form the future of local transit as our town continues to grow.
