http://www.burlingtongazette.ca/transit-gets-discussed-at-community-meeting-hlusko-and-brown-didnt-like-what-they-heard
Transit gets discussed at community meeting: Hlusko and Brown didn't like what they heard
By StaffOctober 23, 2014
BURLINGTON, ON.
Burlington Transit held a community meeting on proposed changes to Route 6 at Tansley Woods Community Centre Tuesday evening. It was not a smash hit.
Two seasoned observers, one, the best mind on transit matters the city has and Jennifer Hlusko, a current school board trustee running for the ward six council seat who always has a command of the numbers on anything she talks about, comment on the event.
Hlusko had this to say:
 |
| Jennifer Hlusko |
In addition to the Consultant, I counted 8 City staff members, 23 residents, 3 Ward 6 Councillor candidates and 1 Ward 6 trustee candidate. Significantly, in the room was Mike Spicer, Director of Burlington Transit. John Duncan, Burlington Transit, was quick to tell me staff weren’t being paid overtime. That wasn’t my objection (although I expect they’ll be given lieu time).
My objection was that the City once again hired a Consultant to handle a file that staff should handle. There was nothing that Mr. Fletcher provided last night that staff couldn’t have handled themselves. Halton District School Board staff frequently lead very contentious public meetings dealing with boundary reviews and school closures.
Mr. Fletcher presented the 3 options (that were already available online), took questions from the audience then invited them to review the charts up close. Neither he nor staff would provide ridership data. To me, that is the crux of the matter. Mr. Fletcher did take the opportunity to diss the school board for downloading the problem of transporting Notre Dame Catholic SS students onto the City of Burlington. How many students ride the bus? If the route is changed to Option #1, has the administration at Notre Dame been asked how that would likely impact ridership? Does the City project that changing to Option #1 will increase ridership by providing direct access to the Supercentre mall, MMRobinson HS, the No Frills plaza, etc.? Can these projections be shared with the public?
Mr. Fletcher said that City Staff will prepare a report that will go to Council in December. If I am elected to be the Ward 6 Councillor, rest assured that I will advocate for data based decisions. Furthermore, that data is shared with the public. I will highlight for the public every time the City considers hiring a Consultant and how much it will cost taxpayers.
I invite residents to attend the repeat performance on Thu Oct 23rd at Tansley Woods. While the notice states the meeting start time is 6pm, the presentation does not begin until 6:30pm.
Here are the three options. Please note they did not include an option along Upland Drive that meets the criteria of providing transit to the Burlington Supercentre mall, but would consider it if the public requested it. Then when an audience member asked if they would consider Deer Run, Mr. Fletcher said, “We are not looking for streets to put a bus on or to take a bus off. We are trying to provide a service to meet GO times.”
The Hlusko comments were published by Hlusko on “blog” she writes almost daily
 |
| Doug Brown & Susan Lewis |
Residents do not have the right to remove service from transit users. Not wanting a bus or bus stop near your home is not a reasonable request. It is strange that Council has been so receptive to moving bus stops and bus routes away from complaining homeowners, while showing no interest in the hundreds of complaints from bus users who have lost service during the arbitrary changes resulting from the “Interim Plan” of September 2012, and the wholesale route and schedule changes of November 3, 2013. Does Council have a bias against transit using citizens?
Transit routes should be determined by user needs and through a long-term, comprehensive transit plan. The November 03, 2013 changes did not meet these criteria.
Any changes made to Route 6 should be based on user needs and views – not on unreasonable requests from non-users to remove service.
Further transit changes should be based on a long-term well researched transit plan. Since the 2010-11 Transit Master Plan was aborted by the City in January 2011, there has been no long-term transit plan. The current Transportation Master Plan would have been a good opportunity to develop a long-term integrated transportation plan that would have included a balanced strategy for moving people via car, transit, cycling, or on foot. This opportunity is being missed.
In an interview the day after the meeting Doug Brown said: “To put it mildly, not a good public meeting.
The meeting had a number of non-transit using residents of lower Headon Forest and Pine Meadow. There were some transit users there, even though the Tansley Woods meeting site has hourly bus service – not great accessibility if you can’t drive there.
The meeting began with a talk by a paid facilitator who spent 25 minutes describing the three options that Burlington Transit has developed for the north end of Route 6.
I was the first person to speak from the audience, but was stopped half a minute into my statement by the facilitator and Mike Spicer on the grounds that only comments on the posted three options were allowed. Before being cut-off, I was interrupted several times by some rude residents with comments such as “have you heard the buses.”
I did at least get my first point out that no resident had the right to prevent transit from using their street, and that streets were public right of ways.
Empty buses was the theme of most of the non-transit using residents. Four transit users did speak, but it was very apparent that the NIMBY-minded residents had created a very anti-transit mood. The first transit user to speak felt compelled to apologize for his comments since they contradicted the presented empty bus claims.
Nonetheless, there were several good observations from the few transit users there. One lady recommended going back to the old #6 route which serviced Burlington Mall as well as the Fortinos plaza.
Anyway, back to my comments which I was prevented from delivering. My first point was that residents did not have the right to remove bus stops or buses from their streets. The second issue is that Transit routes should be determined by user needs and through a long-term, comprehensive transit plan. Good transit planning cannot be achieved by the ad hoc and time constrained options presented at the meeting.
My third point was that any changes made to Route 6 should be based on user needs and views – not on unreasonable requests from non-users to remove service. This is a key issue as staff and council seem to pay much more attention to non-transit users views than the needs of transit users.
And my fourth point was that further transit changes should be based on a long-term well researched transit plan. I noted that the City’s 2014 Capital Budget document shows no funding allocation for a transit plan until 2018 meaning that for the next 4 years, any transit measures will be ad hoc and not based on a sound long-term plan.
The three options presented by the City were far too limited as they ignored the central issue of lack of funding and poor service levels (one- hour headways on the north east routes). Staff has apparently ruled out any alternative that would cost more money – which rules out many potential options for better service.
A final comment – I have been attending many public meetings over a very long time. Last night was the first time I was stopped from speaking.
October 22nd, 2014 | Category: Education, Government All, Headlines, News, Opinion & Commentary
October 23, 2014 at 11:50 am · Reply
“The meeting began with a talk by a paid facilitator** who spent 25 minutes describing the three options that Burlington Transit has developed for the north end of Route 6.”
**Smacks of an attempt to CONTROL THE AGENDA, OCCURRING ELSEWHERE TOO!!!
**”I was the first person to speak from the audience, but was stopped half a minute into my statement by the facilitator and Mike Spicer on the grounds that only comments on the posted three options were allowed.
Before being cut-off, I was interrupted several times by some rude residents with comments such as “have you heard the buses.”
**ANECDOTAL RELEVANCE, SEE WARD ONE, ‘Saint Evict-Us’ Ward Councillor Craven AGAINST BEACHWAY RESIDENTS.
October 23, 2014 at 8:34 pm · ReplyI am not shocked that the city hired a consultant to deal with the Route 6 – Transit Services fiasco.
It is amusing that they hire these consultants when i would have to say these “consultants” don’t even take the bus, have never stepped on a City of Burlington Bus, may not even know the routes or how to read the schedule,and hazard a guess that they have not talked to the transit operators.
In essence, who are the true “Consultants” of public transit:
1. The public who ride the bus
2. The drivers who are out there day after day.
Its humorous as well, that our own elected officials don’t take the bus, unless there is a photo op!
Yet again, money being spent to hire a consultant? Taxpayers pay staff, staff who are knowledgable, who are experts as well, they should have been directing this meeting, giving insight and yes, giving stats. Hiring a consultant to change a schedule or route to meet that GO Transit schedule is a complete waste of tax dollar! There are how many Transit Operators that could have gone out with staff and timed the route, during AM, afternoon and PM rush hour to figure out a schedule that would work for both the passenger who is transferring to GO and for the resident who is looking to make an appointment.
As far as i know, there is no requirement for a school board to provide transportation. Students in high school should not have a yellow school bus taking them to and from school. They should have the opportunity to take the bus. We have Transit Ambassadors at our high schools, promoting a transit friendly community, so to Mr. Fletcher “what exactly is the problem?” If the problem is 65 young adults are now taking the bus, then the City of Burlington, our Transit Ambassadors and our tax dollars have been put to excellent use! Leaders from all levels of government are pushing for our younger age groups to take the bus to know that they have options, there are some out there that won’t get the opportunity to learn to drive a car, or possibly be able to afford a car.
In response to those who say the busses are empty – here we go again! A bus could pass by your house empty, but who was on the bus before, or after. This “trash” talk about empty buses is coming from those who don’t take the bus because they have their 8 cars in the driveway, but one day, they will require the service and at that point would be kicking themselves in the ass because they wanted it off their street – the writer is correct, the street does not belong to you, anyone, any vehicle (unless signed) can go up and down that street all day and all night long.
So, if the numbers show that boardings increased from the previous routing, when why are spending time, and money to hire a consultant to provide different options when the current one is better than before!?
There are major arteries that don’t even have a bus that should – DUNDAS! They (staff) should be putting time and effort into creating a route to meet Oakville and Hamilton, as a City we should not be waiting for the Region to decide this, time to take the step and leap and do it ourselves! “if you build it, they will come”.
-end.
It was not a well-attended meeting, and some concerns were raised that this was due to both poor advertising and the choice of meeting location. In both cases, it seems that no special effort was made to reach, or be accessible to, the people who actually use Route 6, except for direct contact made with Notre Dame Secondary School. Valid questions were raised about why the meeting hadn’t been advertised on the bus route itself, or to the high density, and in some cases, high need areas closer to Guelph Line who rely heavily on transit. Further, Tansley Woods Community Centre on Itabashi way is in no way central to the affected neighbourhood, nor is it located on the route in question. A meeting room at Fortinos, Notre Dame or St. Timothys would have been much more obvious choices.
The #6 bus route was changed almost one year ago because Burlington Transit needed to find three to five minutes in order to meet connection times at Burlington Go and the 407 Go – the two main termini of the route. To do this, they amputated a fairly critical piece of the route that covered the Burlington Supercentre (the Fortino’s mall), Guelph line, and the high density housing along Pinemeadow Drive. The new route uses the southern portion of Headon Forest Drive, a low density housing area where residents are none too pleased with the new traffic.
Admittedly, hindsight is 20/20, but I’d like to suggest that Burlington Transit needs to assess routes with a more sensitive rubric: one that doesn’t see all roads as equal, but instead sees roads with lower-income and higher-density housing as higher priorities and links them to the services they need like local shopping and groceries. Termini are important to be sure, but as there is a more express route from the Burlington to 407 Go (Route 25), Route 6 can hardly be considered an A to B commuter route.
Another extremely valid point raised, was that the current walking distance standard also needs recalibrating in that not all 500 meter stretches are equal. For example, 500 meters of steep grade is not the same as 500 meters of leisurely stroll; and when the snow comes, we all know that there are radical differences in 500 meter lengths. Apparently Burlington Transit does not evaluate the type or difficulty of walking access – just the distance, thereby again doing another dis-service to their high-need customers.
Finally, its important to note that both public meetings were presented by a member of the UK-based consulting firm Steer Davies Gleave. In a system that seems to be trying to constantly shave dollars and minutes from its schedule – clearly to the detriment of its clients – do we really need another consultant? If this can’t be solved in-house, do we need to do some house cleaning?
Burlington Transit doesn’t just need more data, it needs to understand its customers and their needs. This isn’t just about a grid on a schedule. This is about looking after our youngest, oldest and most vulnerable – about serving the communities who actually need transit services. It seems that Burlington Transit has missed the bus.
I too have run into the problem of the City not providing data or only providing data that makes them look good. They seem to pick and choose only the data that could support the decisions they have already made.
.
“Here are the three options. Please note they did not include an option along Upland Drive that meets the criteria of providing transit to the Burlington Supercentre mall, but would consider it if the public requested it.”
If the public requested it? I’m pretty sure the public has requested service to the Supercentre. The Hamilton Spectator did an article on this matter last August 13th and reported, “Transit rider ——-, 69, has taken the bus to the shopping plazas north and south of Upper Middle Road at Guelph Line several times a week for 20 years.
She says last November’s route change has meant she has to walk from the last stop on Upper Middle Road at Headon Forest Drive to her grocery store and bank in the plazas. She would like the number 6 bus restored to its former route so there are once again stops at Guelph Line and Upper Middle Road.
“It’s not nice anymore,” she said. “My bus ticket only lasts so long, so I lose all the time walking. Some women (riders), I don’t see them anymore, because the bus doesn’t go to the mall anymore.”
That’s one request where the data is available to the public.
.
“One lady recommended going back to the old #6 route which serviced Burlington Mall as well as the Fortinos plaza.” (Above comment from Doug Brown.)
That’s 2 requests. Now, I’m requesting here that they service the Supercentre. That’s 3 requests. It only took 3 people to have the stops moved. Let’s see what happens when we have 3 requests for service.
.
“Before being cut-off, I was interrupted several times by some rude residents with comments such as “have you heard the buses.””
Burlington, the city where bullies rule.