I’m going to digress from some of the big things I’ve been talking about lately to talk about a small thing close to home. Regular readers will be aware that my local route is R22 Audley South in Ajax.
At yesterday’s DRT executive meeting, an item dealt with a petition provided by a local resident on the route asking that the route be altered to remove a looped portion of the route. To help you visualize this, the relevant section of the route is at right.
As you can see, the bus currently goes east on Ashbury Blvd, south on Hoile Drive, and then straight up Audley to Bayly Street. The petioners want to have the bus turn left from Ashbury directly onto Audley, bypassing the area south of Ashbury completely. Their stated concerns are:
- Economic Viability
- Home Owner’s Discomfort
- Child Safety
- Environmental Considerations
While it’s true that these streets (particularly Hoile Drive) are narrower than the other streets the route travels on, and that it the southern portion of Audley abuts the waterfront trail, I can’t help but feel that these reasons are really a politically careful way of saying “I don’t want a bus on my street”. Normally, I would tend to discount such sentiments in favour of the larger public good, but this route change is not a new idea.
DRT itself has considered making this change in order to shorten this long route so that bus drivers will have an easier time keeping to schedule. Removing this loop would shorten the route by a minute or two, with minimal impact on riders in the affected area who could walk to the corner of Audley and Ashbury to catch the bus.
The recommendation to the DRT executive was for staff to prepare a report, so we’ll need to see what the report says when it is available, but despite the apparent nimbyism of this case, the homeowner’s do have a point here, and DRT should seriously consider removing this loop.
Routes in Ajax and Pickering are in need of significant realignment to make them more direct. It is not necessary to get every bus within a two minute walk of every house; rather, it’s important that routes travel efficient routes with useful destinations along the route. This one change will not solve the problems, but it would be a step in the right direction.
Finally, I should make it clear that I do not live on the affected streets and was not asked to sign the petition. My interest is as a transit advocate and rider on the route, not as an affected homeowner.
Filed under: Routes
When this route was first implemented in 2006 I was surprised to see the loop at the bottom. Why DRT found this necessary was beyond me. Complaints about the loop began not long after the route started. They were not so much about the loop but were more about not in my backyard.
DRT has stated it was interested in moving more routes to a grid system. The loop takes away from that concept.