Rural and Inter-Town Public Transit is a Necessity, Actually

A few weeks ago, I went to Uxbridge. I made my way there by catching GO Transit's 70D bus from Mount Joy Station. This 33-kilometre route is a midday train-meet service to Stouffville, Goodwood, and Uxbridge. I assumed most of the ridership was to Stouffville, with a few stragglers like me going the whole way to Uxbridge. While this was mostly true, there were a few passengers that took me by surprise.

One passenger asked me for assistance, as she was destined for Ballantrae, a relatively rural community. Since the bus turned off Highway 48, she had to Uber the rest of the way.

In Stouffville, we picked up a man from a plaza. He travelled quite a bit, and then went up to speak to the driver. The driver let him alight on Highway 47 at Concession Road 2, just before Goodwood. I thought this was peculiar: there's no scheduled stop here, and, as you can see below, not very much in the vicinity.

We pressed on, and passed Goodwood. At Concession Road 4, we pulled to the side of the highway to pick up a woman who took the bus the whole way into Uxbridge. Again, there is no scheduled stop here, and the area around was similar to Concession Road 2, but the driver had no issue picking her up.

I found these trips interesting. I guess in my head, I knew rural transit demand was there, but tended to be inter-town, from one hub to another. This was the first I had seen transit demand to and from places that are definitively rural, and at incredibly low population density. Ballantrae is a place most people rarely think about, but is a destination in its own right. It kind of got me thinking a few questions: do other GO bus routes (like the 81) operate like this? How do we properly plan for rural transit? What does the demand look like? In this piece, I will provide some of my thoughts about rural transit in southern Ontario.

Concern: Flag Stops

A flag stop is a situation where a bus runs on a fixed route, like Highway 47. A passenger who wishes to get off has to ask the driver to be let off, whereas someone getting on flags down the vehicle, as long as it is safe to stop. This is seemingly how the 70D operates, despite nothing on GO Transit's website suggesting this. I have an issue with this, both practically and mentally.

First, practical concerns. What is the harm in a scheduled stop? If the GO bus isn't stopping unless it is requested or someone is waiting, is it such an issue to have the bus call out "Highway 47 @ Concession Road 2"? I don't think so at all. By putting a pole up at an intersection, there's eventual opportunity for the stop to be upgraded with a concrete pad during road reconstruction. Additionally, there's the concern that different drivers have different opinions of what is 'safe'. While one driver may be fine with pulling onto the shoulder to let someone on, others may not be. When the onus is on the driver's personal comfortability, there is a gigantic chance that a person waiting for the bus may be stranded because they, say, waiting nearside instead of farside. 

Secondly is the theoretical concern. Without an established place to wait, in the minds of some, the service does not exist for them. Maybe they fear being left behind, maybe they are concerned about waiting at an unpaved shoulder on an 80km/h road. Maybe the person just moved to the area, and they have no idea they can just flag the bus. These are huge, valid, concerns for encouraging transit uptake. 

As such, I think actually adding stops on fixed routes will further establish routes are rural service, instead of town-to-town links.

Concern or Benefit?: Lack of Coordination

Sean Marshall has worked for a few years now updating a map of the inter-town transit services in Ontario. As you can see, the vast majority of population centers have some service, at least one day a week, to some other town. While the quality of service provided sharply varies, a base network is there. What is important to note is that there is a lack of coordination between the agencies that operate services. I argue that this is both a concern, but also a benefit. The key to a resilient regional and rural transit system is a balance in terms of coordination.

The largest concern is that of fares. Since each service is operated by a different agency, passengers may have to pay a number of fares. This gets difficult: passengers have to carry a bunch of coins, or use a bunch of cards on a regular trip. As such, coordinating fares is important to allowing people to make longer trips. Some agencies have done this, which is good progress, but until it occurs on either a province-wide, or a region-by-region scale (with blurred boundaries), it makes transit difficult. Additionally, Sean Marshall's map is the only map showing all services. Planning a trip may require many website open, many maps assessed, and many schedules read. The trip I speak of next paragraph, in fact, doesn't even appear as an option on Google despite it being the fastest option.

However, there is some good in less coordination, especially bureaucratically. This might seem crazy, right? Well, hear me out. Currently, schedule coordination is on a local level, where towns work together to coordinate transfers. This hyper-local arrangement allows for relatively long trips to be done with minimal wait times. Here's an example trip, a Monday trip from Meaford to Allandale Waterfront GO Station, in Barrie.

1. From Downtown Meaford, take the Grey Transit Route (GTR) 4 towards Blue Mountain Terminal (6:30am to 7:12am).
2. From Blue Mountain Terminal, take Collingwood Transit's Blue Mountain Link towards Collingwood Downtown Terminal (7:20am to 7:55am).
3. From Collingwood Downtown Terminal, take Simcoe County Linx route 4 towards Wasaga Beach 45th Street (8:00am to 8:25am).
4. From Wasaga Beach 45th Street, take Simcoe County Linx route 2 towards Allandale Waterfront GO (8:30am to 9:25am).

This trip takes four buses, with three agencies, covering more than 100 kilometers. However, the three-hour trip only has 18 minutes of waiting between vehicles. So sure, it's slower than driving, but there's never a point of waiting around for a bus for a few hours. The hyper-local scheduling between Grey County, Collingwood, and Simcoe County allows for a variety of trips to occur. 

This is an example of good coordination, as it is locally-responsive. The reason I say coordination is not great bureaucratically is that it has to remove local nuance for provincial goals. If an overarching agency overtook all the intercity routes in southern Ontario, some of the ability to schedule flexibly is lost. Trips may become uncoordinated, or a coordinated transfer between two routes is lost in favour of a different transfer. When everything is local, three municipalities could work together to create the best possible schedule for transfers.

I wanted to add one comment about GO Transit. While the GO Bus does a good job of connecting people across the GTHA, there are many areas missed and many trips that are difficult to do. This is a consequence of GO still being more downtown-centric than polynucleated. GO specifically needs to do more work to make trips within the region easy.

Next Steps

Sean Marshall's constant updating of the aforementioned map proves to me that there are constantly new services being added. In September, we get another: Commuter Connect will link Oshawa GO to Northumberland County. I think this shows we are moving in the right direction. There is recognition that one, cities are closely linked, and two, rural areas have demand for service to population centers and other key destinations. 

That said, at some point we need to sit down and work towards refining the system. Coordinated fares, one location for schedules and maps across agencies, more frequent service. Without this, Ontario remains disconnected.