Ticket to ride

In the department of things-the-municipality- ought-not-be-doing, the latest candidate must surely be County Transit. It is a layer of municipal bureaucracy, that, despite its name, doesn’t actually deliver transit services. In fact, Quinte Transit provides transit services in Prince Edward County. It owns, operates, licenses, maintains, and eventually disposes of all buses used in the County. County Transit writes cheques. And hires consultants. It’s a layer of admin over a layer of admin.

In truth, County Transit doesn’t even write the cheques. Federal funders have figured out that the County is a redundant middleman and thus writes its cheques directly to Quinte West for the buses used on County routes—cutting the municipality out of the loop.

Quinte Transit is the service— County Transit is a barnacle; superfluous to purpose, adding no apparent value to the service— save for dreaming of a bigger future. That brings us to a council committee meeting last week.

It was here that County Transit unveiled a new strategy with the help of a consultancy, Left Turn, Right Turn. The assignment was described as a refresh. The report is modest in its near-term ambition. Nothing much will change in the next year or two, but in the meantime, County Transit intends to apply for funding from the Ontario Transit Improvement Fund (OTIF), perhaps by the end of 2026 or early next year. Then big things might happen.

If successful, the OTIF grant would fund a dedicated on-demand service for Picton. It might also add a weekday, year-round extension of service to Wellington.

Council learned, however, that while the multi-year provincial funding could be significant in the first year, it would ratchet downward over the term of the grant. By which time the municipality would be on the hook for paying for expanded services on its own—or else terminate them.

County Transit is a remnant of an era at Shire Hall when anything was possible—a wave of new population and homebuilding would soon demand— and pay for big transit services, waterworks, and such. Thousands of new homes and taxpayers would mask any mistakes Shire Hall made.

Indeed, last week’s report cites expanding transit service as a response to growth delayed, but growth nonetheless.

“As the population grows and ages, as younger families move into the area, and as new residential development increases density, expanded transit services will play an important role in supporting community livability,” writes County Transit co-ordinator Vincent de Tourdonnet in the strategy report.

He assured Council his department wasn’t asking for new funding, but rather seeking endorsement of a vision—as well as continued support for existing services, “as we prepare for the next growth phase,” said de Tourdonnet.

Who doesn’t like a vision?

Sadly, there is nothing in the County’s record or its development patterns that suggests such growth is imminent or even likely. Indeed, virtually all new homebuilding last year—anemic as it was—happened in the rural countryside outside Picton and Wellington. Far from transit. Far from pipes. All that remains are the bold predictions of developers and consultants. Echoes from another era.

But even the rather modest status quo appears fragile. According to the report presented last week, a Summer Weekend Connector service linking Wellington to Picton relied on $58,666 ($35,000 from Municipal Accommodation Taxes and $23,666 in private sponsorships). The service delivered 931 rides over 11 weeks. Back-of-the-envelope math suggests County Transit paid $63 for each rider. Buying each rider a taxi chit would appear to be a more economical way to provide transit services.

Yet the report gushes the Wellington Weekend Connector as “demonstrating the power of community partnerships to serve both residents and the tourism sector.”

It’s a stretch.

In 2007, the Women’s Institute kick-started transit in Prince Edward County—13 years before County Transit came along—with funding largely intended to ensure isolated seniors could get to medical appointments and perhaps do some shopping. It grew over time to assist folks travelling from Picton to Belleville for work—or vice versa. These were modest but attainable ambitions.

It was enough until 2020. Then ambition grew— ballooning like much else at Shire Hall.

Now it must be scaled back. Scrapped even. It isn’t clear that the County needs a full-time bureaucracy to write a cheque to Quinte Transit once a year.

Ultimately, it is the scattered distribution of the County’s population that will constrain transit ambitions in the County.

Mr. de Tourdonnet acknowledged the impossibility of County Transit’s mission. He pointed to the thousand kilometres upon which folks reside in Prince Edward County and said that it “will never be served well by public transit.”

“It is a physical reality,” said the County Transit co-ordinator. “It won’t happen.”

rick@wellingtontimes.ca