ROBERT KIRWAN - WARD 5
 PUBLIC
TRANSIT
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Public transit is one of those issues that seems to come up
every election and is the one that most sitting councillors will
point to as one of their greatest achievements. Nevertheless,
while we will readily admit that the public transit services are
excellent in the City of Greater Sudbury, we still need to
remember that only about 4% of all people in Greater Sudbury use
public transit as a means of getting around, but those 4% of the
population are mainly the ones who may not have any other choice
or option. Therefore, it is important that we do what we can to
provide them with a level of service that will satisfy their
needs. Otherwise we leave them stranded and cut off from the
rest of our community.
I am committed to doing whatever we can to maintain the level of
service we already have and perhaps improve on some of the
routes, especially in Valley East. The biggest
difficulties and concerns I am hearing from Valley East
residents is with respect to the length of time it takes to get
anywhere in Sudbury when you use the City buses. With the time
it takes to get to the bus stop, to transfering to go anywhere
but downtown, to the times of the last buses in the evening, the
service is just not sufficient to meet the needs of the vast
majority of people living in Valley East.
I also receive letters such as the one below from a lady who
recently moved to the Valley and finds the level of service
unsatisfactory because of where she happens to live. There are
more people with similar concerns about the service to areas
that are along Main Street between the border of the Valley to
Kalmo Lake Road. Listen to her concerns:
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Good morning Mr Kirwan, I am doing some research at
the moment as to which candidate I intend to vote
for in my area, because I have only moved to the
Valley as of August 2013. I was in Sudbury on Third
Avenue for the 15 years before that as a home owner
and am now a home owner in a subdivision that is off
Main Street. My biggest issue with my move to the
Valley has been the public transit. I have a
daughter who would have to walk 2+ kms to get to the
closest bus stop to travel anywhere in Greater
Sudbury. I understand living in the outskirts that
it will take more time to get where you are going,
as compared to living right in Sudbury, but I do
expect to have bus stops closer to my home. I think
that the transit route should be running down Main
St and turning around at Kalmo Beach, and heading
straight back to 69N to continue its route. There
are homes all along Main St., and three
neighbourhoods - one at River Road, one at Elm St.,
and one on Whitson Lake. This route would add about
15 minutes in length to the present route. This
route would mean that citizens can actually access a
Municipal Beach that has life guards all summer
long. This is a route with a fairly narrow road, no
sidewalks, and minimal shoulder space. All ages of
people are seen walking every day along this stretch
with cars zooming by them. The only item that would
be needed to facilitate this route would be a 'turn
around' area at the end of the route either at the
end of Main St., or in the Kalmo Beach area. The
citizens in these three neighbourhoods could then at
least walk to Main St., to access the transit. Our
kids, and the non driving citizens can not get to
the Howard Armstrong Center, nor any other store or
restaurant in Val Caron.
I do not think it is reasonable that I pay the taxes
I do, yet many other outlying areas have transit
access closer than mine.
I read your bio on your website and I am going to
research the balance of the candidates. I agree that
there are big issues to deal with in Sudbury, but I
will be wanting to support the politician who will
be fighting for some fair treatment for the citizens
in the Valley, because clearly the infrastructure
has not kept up to the population boom.
Thanks for listening to my concerns
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This lady makes some excellent points and she is not alone with
this concern. I am not sure exactly what the solution is, but
there are places in Valley East that are basically cut off from
public transit and if a portion of property taxes are going to
be used to fund public transit, then it only makes sense that
the level of service be as close to equal as possible.
I want to point out that this is indeed "part of a big issue"
for the City of Greater Sudbury. The issue is one of meeting our
responsibilities to provide the same level of basic services to
all of our citizens. There is a certain minimum standard that
must be met. It may not be that we can provide transit services
in the Valley every half hour, but surely we can provide service
several times a day. Perhaps the answer is a "transit on demand"
service whereby a person can call up and book a time for pick
up. Or we may be able to provide a general "hub" approach where
we have an intra-community bus again.
Whatever we do in the Valley can be replicated in other outlying
communities as well. That is why this is a big issue for Sudbury
and is one that we need to address. The lady who wrote the
letter above has a very valid concern which has been a
long-standing problem. It may end up being more costly to
provide satisfactory transit services to some of the further
reaches of the Valley, but is so then it should be done. One
should not be forced to suffer from a lower standard of service
just because they decide to move to the Valley from Sudbury.
I did a survey of people in Valley East to find out some of the
concerns about the public transit system and the ones who said
that they did not use public transit pointed out several
challenges that the City may or may not be able to resolve.
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- The distance to walk to the nearest bus stop is a
barrier for some. If they go shopping they often have a long
way to walk to get to their home and if the weather is
inclement it presents a real problem.
- Many people say that they do not like having to transfer
at the downtown bus terminal when they need to go anywhere
but downtown. It often means waiting for lengthy periods to
catch the next bus and they find the downtown terminal
intimidating with the people who often hang around there.
- A number of people said that it takes far too long to
get anywhere because of the scheduling and the wait times
for transfers. Many people say that with the buses scheduled
so far apart in time, they often have to leave for their
destination far earlier than desirable and cannot catch a
bus to come back to the Valley at a decent or convenient
time. A doctor's appointment in town might take up six or
more hours of the day because of the bus schedule and
transfering.
- It seems as if the people who live on the bus route and
who work or otherwise want to travel downtown do not mind
public transit and seem to use it whenever they can. But if
you are going anywhere but downtown, it is likely that you
will find some other means of transportation.
- Some people would like to see a bus coming back to the
Valley much later so that they would be able to return home
by bus after a night of drinking, but that wouldn't solve
the problem of transfers and/or distance to walk home from
the bus stop.
- It also seems as if the transfer tickets run out after
so many minutes. And from what I am hearing, if the bus from
the Valley is late, a person may miss out on the transfer
and have to pay to go to the next connection.
It would appear as if the community of Valley East may not be
suited to much better transit service than we already have
without incurring tremendous expense that would be hard to
justify considering that so few people actually use public
transit. There may be similar challenges in other parts of the
City of Greater Sudbury and some city-wide policy changes may be
able to address them. Having several transfer sites may work to
solve some of the issues. Putting more buses on the runs and
scheduling buses closer together may help, but all of this
involves more funding.
What must be determined is just how much more the
public transit system can be improved in Valley East without it
being cost prohibitive. The other issue is that despite the
improvements, will there be any significant increase in
ridership or is Valley East, buy virtue of the type of community
we are, simply not a public transit type of community. Perhaps
even with buses running every 15 minutes, we simply cannot solve
all of the transfer issues which are the real culprit and hence
our ridership is never going to improve. Maybe Valley East and
the rest of the outlying communities are just not suited to the
same level of service as in the high density Sudbury section.
Those are things that must be determined moving forward in order
to come up with the right level of service that can and should
be provided by the City of Greater Sudbury. Your continued
feedback on this topic is greatly appreciated.
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