Elections
The City of Hamilton has committed to doubling transit ridership by 2020. Do you support this goal? If so, how would you realize it?
Responses to the question: "The City of Hamilton has committed to doubling transit ridership by 2020. Do you support this goal? If so, how would you realize it?"
In This Page:
1 Candidate Response (top)
| Ward 08 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Brief Response | Full Response |
| Jenkinson, Kim | Yes | Doubling transit ridership would be a minimum goal; yes I support this 100%. To reach this goal city transit needs to make sense. There are several problems with our current transit system.
Problem: Lack of connectivity. Gore Park is our central downtown HSR core, but the Go Bus is three blocks away and there are no parking facilities at the GO station. This does not make sense for commuters trying to use the busses and trains to get out of the city to work. These commuters are the primary target for increasing ridership, we must have seamless easy to use transit to attract these potential transit users and reduce the traffic on our highways and roads. Solution: A centralized bus/train/transit system with parking available. This would be a long term goal, but the city can plan for it and invest in transit to move the City in this direction. Problem: Transit is not reliable and not user friendly. The busses are not on schedule; HSR must let people waiting know when the next bus will get there. People report the bus can be anywhere from 10 minutes early to 20 minutes late. This would not be an issue on the East/West lines on King and Main, but it is certainly an issue on the Mountain routes. If busses are not on time and connections are difficult to make or are out of the way, the transit system is not user friendly. The lack of available scheduled busses is also an issue for many riders. Solution: The technology is available to add an app for cell phones that could tell you where the bus and/or each major bus stop should have the arrival time of the next bus on an LED board. Problem: Low ridership, in part because of all of the reasons above. The cost of transit is also a barrier to many people using transit. Solution: Freeze HSR fees at the current rates. Offer further discounts to seniors and subsidized passes to low income earners. These are low cost remedies, the bus system is already in place and is not running at capacity; why not make it affordable for people on fixed incomes to increase ridership? |
Response Summary (top)
| Brief Response | Count | % of Total |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | 1 | 100.0% |
| No | 0 | 0.0% |
| Maybe | 0 | 0.0% |
1 Candidate Has Not Responded (top)
| Ward 08 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Whitehead, Terry | ||
