Changes coming to several HSR routes
Published March 6, 2020 at 7:35 pm
At a General Issues Committee budget meeting on Wednesday (March 4), councillors voted to cut back roughly 19,000 hours of service from the HSR in an effort to alleviate tax increases.
At a General Issues Committee budget meeting on Wednesday (March 4), councillors voted to cut back roughly 19,000 hours of service from the HSR in an effort to alleviate tax increases.
A staff report on Underperforming HSR routes was presented to the committee and it outlined possible changes and cuts to several routes throughout the system that could potentially result in savings for the city.
On average, the HSR delivers almost 900,000 hours of service annually.
Most changes involved adjusting frequency on a number of routes. That would mean fewer buses on those lines and service start and end times moved by a couple of hours. Holiday service will also be scaled back.
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One route, however, will be getting the axe: No. 42. The 42 to the Mohawk quad-pad arena on the East Mountain will no longer see weekday service but will still run on Saturdays, courtesy an amendment introduced by Councillor Tom Jackson.
The report on the cuts was compiled by staff at the urging of council who have been looking for ways to reduce this year’s tax increase, which sits at around three per cent currently.
Staff looked at boarding numbers to come up with these suggestions and included the “Council approved service standards in the local 10-year strategy,” the report says.
In all, 28 HSR routes are impacted by changes and the savings are projected to be approximately $750,000 when all is said and done.
At the meeting, staff seemed hesitant to say that they supported these changes.
Public Works GM DanMcKinnon said the changes come at a “terrible” time.
One of the other proposals in the report was suggesting a fare of $1.90 for the Peach Festival shuttle that the HSR has offered for free for a number of years, as well as a $1 fare for a summer shuttle from downtown Hamilton to the waterfront.
Mayor Fred Eisenberger pointed out that if the city wants festival attendees to leave their cars at home and prevent the congestion sometimes found around the festival grounds, the introduction of a fare seems disingenuous.
Ultimately, the Peach Festival shuttle will still be free to use, as well as the summertime waterfront shuttle.
These changes will also reportedly not impact those routes on the Mountain that are supposed to see an increase in services in the fall of 2020.
Some councillors questioned the fact that these proposals were put forth without public input and before receiving the results from the HSR’s Re-envision study that is compiling feedback from HSR users in an effort to improve service.
The study is being carried out in partnership with researchers at McMaster University in the Faculty of Civil Engineering.
Councillor Maureen Wilson struggled with the fact that the public wasn’t consulted and she said under these circumstances she could not properly assess the impact on users – particularly women who might be using some of the underperforming routes on off-peak periods to get home from work.
Ward 3 Councillor Nrinder Nann echoed Wilson’s concern but when it came time to vote, they were the only two holdouts.
Transit advocates have taken to social media to voice their frustrations with the decisions made on the HSR service.
“The ideology of austerity overruled good planning and proper democratic process,” Tweeted Ian Borsuk, from Hamilton Transit Alliance, an organization facilitated by Environment Hamilton.
“This is not how to respond to the #ClimateEmergency, this is now how to build transit ridership.”
Environment Hamilton also Tweeted their frustrations with the way these changes came about.
“Our executive director Dr. Lynda Lukasik said in her delegation, the way the city consults with the public must change and become much more transparent and effective. Surely even the Councillors who voted in favour of these cuts can see why this process frustrates so many.”
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