'Pretty embarrassing': Halifax advocate shares transit complaints, solutions

An advocacy group has brought the voices of Halifax Transit users, and some solutions for ongoing problems, to city hall to push for change and accountability.

Douglas Wetmore of It's More than Buses shared feedback from the roughly 50 people who'd taken thegroup'sonline survey, as of July, with the transportation standing committee of the Halifax Regional Municipalityon Thursday.

"Our hope was to at least put a spotlight on it and get council to be aware," Wetmore said after the meeting.

Wetmore said the most common responses were not new to him: poor reliability across the bus network, wait times can be 30 minutes to an hour, transfers between routes often don't line up, and overcrowded buses on busy routes are drivingby waiting passengers without stopping.

"I can no longer rely on the only transit system of Halifax. I don't own a car and relying on the bus is stressful," said one person. Another said, "There's a bus stop on Susie Lake Crescent that is literally just a sign in the grass and there's no sidewalk anywhere near it."

Respondents said accurate and timely information getting flagged to third-party apps like Google is an issue, because delays or cancellations often appear very late, if at all.

Tickets are still a barrier for many residents and tourists, Wetmore said, since only certain grocery stores or pharmacies sell them and passengers need exact change without one. The only terminal selling tickets is at the Macdonald Bridge.

While the city waits for its overdue electronic fare system, Wetmore said a quick fix would be making sure participating grocery or pharmacy chains selling the tickets within the transit boundary offer them at every location.

When asked his thoughts on private citizens pitching their own tactical solutions in the face of ongoing issues, Wetmore said "it's pretty embarrassing that this is the extent that has to go through."

Committee chair and councillor, Waye Mason, agreed the ticket situation is "egregious" while Coun. Patty Cuttell called it "embarrassing."

He said putting an electronic fare option in place is already far too late, adding thatback in 2017 Halifax announceda different fare system that was eventually abandoned.

"We think that they're getting by pretty easy, and we want to see council start [to] ask some more difficult questions for Halifax Transit to answer."

Wetmore also told the committee that despite 311 being the place to call for transit complaints and concerns, survey respondents and his own friends rarely hear back from anyone. He said the only time he got a response was when he emailed a complaint to Coun. Tim Outhit.

"That doesn't sound good, so hopefully we'll look into that as a committee," Outhit said.

Suggestions of reassigning buses, buying more

Besides the solution for more places to buy tickets, Wetmore suggested that transit buy more articulated buses which can handle the most number of riders, and move buses on under-used routes to busy ones at peak times.

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Mason said it's clear there are choke points within the system and transit data shows where they are, so putting in more advanced lights in those areas for buses to get a jump in traffic could help. He also said that moving underutilized buses to busy routes is key.

"I'm going totry and force the issue because we just need to get those buses especially on those corridor routes the 1, the 8, the 9," Mason said.

Wetmore said theonline survey is ongoing, and they hopeto share it withlocal post-secondary schools and businesses soon to get more views from workers and students, as well as suburban and rural riders.

Councillors Outhit and Trish Purdy said they planned to bring up issues with transit staff at a future meeting, since they could not ask staff questions on the same day as a public presentation.

Earlier this week, Halifax ferries went from 15-minute weekday service to 30 minutes.

Municipal spokesperson Klara Needler said Thursday that one ferry is in dry dock for regularly scheduled repairs, and the other two vessels had "unrelated and unforeseen" mechanical and electronic control issues. She said staff have reached out to themanufacturers of the vessels' affected systems, and are working to resume full ferry service "as soon as possible."

But there is some good news coming up.

Starting Nov. 20, the municipality said dozens of trips on various routes suspended since February will come back, and four new routes will begin, thanks to improvements in staffing levels.Minor schedule adjustments to 19 routes will also come in to"improve service quality and reliability."