ANTIGONISH: The executive director of Antigonish Community Transit (ACT) says three main topics were discussed during recent community consultations: longer hours, extending service into the weekends, and increasing the service route area.
The current fixed route in Antigonish runs Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and covers a one-hour route that goes though the Town of Antigonish and into the county, that goes past St. Martha’s Regional Hospital, and up towards Walmart and Superstore.
“The existing route has been in place for nine years now, and it just made sense to look at it. The demographics and a lot of things have changed around the town and county of Antigonish in that time period,” Madonna van Vonderen told The Reporter. “So it made sense to look and see if there were ways to make improvements and reach out to the community to see what they would like to see to improve that service.”
Halifax-based Common Good Solutions (CGS) facilitated five community conversations to provide input to help shape the future of the fixed bus route, two of those meetings were for the general public, another two meetings were designated for StFX students, while one was intended strictly for seniors.
“We had a lot of great feedback from all of the sessions that took place,” van Vonderen said. “We did a couple at StFX and that really interesting because StFX students, in particular, really didn’t know about the service, and if they did, they didn’t realize it was for everybody to use.”
One of the challenges the fixed route has had, she explained, is the perception is that it’s not for everyone to use.
“Which isn’t the case at all,” van Vonderen said. “Anybody in the town and county can use the fixed route.”
In addition to gaining the feedback from StFX students, which account for one side of the demographic range, she advised the other informative session came from the one facilitated with seniors.
“They are, in particular, the highest demographic of users on the fixed route,” van Vonderen said. “To make sure we’re fulfilling their needs was really good to get.”
The other side to the meetings, she said, were individuals who represented local employers, who suggested there was an opportunity to extend their route to include other locations that might help people get to those high-populated places.
“The reality is, there is a cost associated with making these changes; that is also a challenge that needs to be overcome,” van Vonderen said. “The funding we currently get would not allow us to make these changes.”
Prior to the community sessions, ACT received over 450 responses to an online survey in February.
She indicated that information along with the information gathered at the community conversation level, is being crunched by CGS and they are looking at all the information, what it will cost to make the changes, how they can make the changes and making suggestions on possible stop locations.
“Basically, we’re waiting on them to crunch the information and get back to us with a plan going forward,” van Vonderen. “We expect to have it by early-June. Then it’s my job to implement some of the suggestions. There will be some low-hanging fruit that we probably will be able to take advantage of right off the bat.”
Some of that will be making simple changes to the route to allow for service in areas they’re currently not in now, but she noted until they have the report in hand, and the board has a chance to look at it, they’re delaying any decisions.