County Transit

Options include ride-sharing pilot

Public transit for Prince Edward County was on the agenda at last Thursday’s hybrid Committee of the Whole meeting, including exploring ride-sharing options, especially when it comes to accommodating the needs of the local tourist population. Emily Cowan, Director of Community Services, Programs and Initiatives, provided an overview on what transportation options are already in place, together with some new ideas being considered, such as a ride-sharing option to help provide possible solutions to challenges around the availability of taxis.

Cowan noted public transit has been running in the County, in conjunction with Quinte Transit, since the beginning of the pandemic with the help of a community transportation grant. She said while ride numbers had been good, especially during the unknowns of a pandemic, getting the message out to people was the biggest challenge. She noted the service was being used by residents, such as seniors who had doctor’s appointments in Belleville, and students who wanted to get to the Quinte Mall, for example, as well as serving daily those living in Belleville but working in Picton. “I don’t think the people really realize that that is what our bus service is here to do,” said Cowan. While County Transit service offers flex routes and fixed routes, Cowan said if there is a route that isn’t currently accommodated, County Transit will make it work just by calling them. “It’s really as simple as that,” she said.

After a successful pilot project last year, the beach shuttle service to Sandbanks Provincial Park is being proposed for a second year and will be extended for a longer period of time, subject to government funding. Last year, Cowan said they saw a total of 60 individual rides for the service. Council endorsed continuing the shuttle for the remainder of the Community Transportation Funding, which ends on March 31, 2025.

A new idea for this summer being explored, subject to receiving tourism relief grant funding, is a dinner-hour weekend shuttle between Wellington, Bloomfield and Picton, from May to October. “This is another way of figuring out who needs lifts where, and who’s comfortable taking public transit if that is going to be a successful service; we are trying to give people as many options as possible,” said Cowan. She said they had heard from restaurants, businesses and accommodators that the main problem is people getting to dinner and getting home. “We would like to see who would be using that and what the experience is.”

Councillor Janice Maynard had a problem with staff’s recommendation that up to $115,000 be allocated to fund the dinner-hour shuttle from the Municipal Accommodation Tax (MAT), should the tourism relief fund application be unsuccessful. “That is a benefit to the tourism sector and to the tourists, and I am not in favour of that coming from the municipal share of the MAT funds, which I thought was going to be used to mitigate the impacts of tourism,” said Maynard.

She suggested instead taking the money from the new Destination Marketing Organization (DMO). “DMO is going to have potentially $700,000 a year to spend and this to me would fit,” added Councillor John Hirsch. Council voted against allocating up to $115,000 from the MAT funds for the dinner- hour shuttle, but voted in favour of directing staff to establish a pilot project with County Transit, pending the success of the Tourism Relief Fund application.

Still early in its exploration, being considered is a ride-sharing service for Prince Edward County. Vince Scott, Regional Operations Manager with Uride gave a deputation to council about the ride-sharing service, which serves mid to small towns, and was started five years ago in Thunder Bay with the intention to prevent impaired driving. A major challenge the County faces, and the reason why other ride-sharing services are not interested in setting up here, is the County’s expansive geography and its low-density population, including the long distances between pick-ups, open-ended runs, as well as driver earnings and how rates could be fairly structured. There was also concern about whether there were enough drivers locally to recruit. “We really recognize that Prince Edward County residents need different options and we thought what can we do to work with the city to fill some of these gaps,” said Scott. He acknowledged Uride had never embarked upon a community such as Prince Edward County before with its associated challenges. “The County is not one of our target populations, but we think it provides a unique opportunity,” he said. “This would be a first for us, which is why the thought came of let’s try a pilot project, something that could potentially work for Prince Edward County, as well as for Uride to see if this is something we can maybe figure out together for the citizens.”

Uride differs from some of the other ride-share applications as they do not tend to fluctuate rates. “People hear about surge-pricing really raising prices for demand and we tend to not do that, we tend to keep a steady rate in the markets we operate in.” Councillor John Hirsch said a lot of the usage for the service would be by people where price is really not a problem. “People of reasonable means who are here to spend money, their issue is timing,” said Hirsch. “They are frustrated because they can’t get a cab to get from here to there, or the wait is going to be ridiculous and the ability to have a relatively rapid and direct customer service is going to be worth the dollar for many of these users.”

Councillor Phil St-Jean took issue with mention in the report of a subsidy of potentially $100,000 to make fares accessible and a pilot successful. “I struggle to see that this is a good thing, a $100,000 subsidy to an unknown entity,” said St- Jean. “And I can just see everybody screaming with some 57 [taxi cab] licensees in our municipality saying, what are you doing subsidizing an outside corporation when we are still struggling ourselves,” he said. “These are local people who live here, they are established and they are trying to earn a living in this business. I need to know if this $100,000 subsidy is a requirement of having Uride show up here.” Cowan clarified that since no negotiations had begun, the subsidy was added to the report to make Council aware there may be a subsidy requested.

Council voted to direct staff to negotiate a service agreement with Uride for a pilot program up to one year. The April 7 Committee of the Whole meeting is available for viewing on the County’s YouTube channel (bit/.ly/LiveStreamPEC) with associated documentation available as part of the agenda package found on the County’s website. For those looking for existing County Transit options, please visit countytransit.ca.