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Orangeville council considers a change in direction on public transit

April 17, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS

Orangeville Transit can do more to educate the public about the timeframes the service runs.

And this may be an opportune time to remedy that as the town considers a shakeup of the bus system’s routes.

The public transportation service’s hours of operation aren’t posted on its website. It’s listed only on the route map, said Orangeville resident Matthew Smith. He told council during its April 14 meeting that he and another resident discovered that “the hard way” during a recent Saturday evening.

“I got a phone call (from somebody) asking if the transit buses were running,”  . “I look at a PDF of the schedule and its showed at 6:30 they’re supposed to be running.”

The only way to see what the Monday to Friday operating hours are or the altered Saturday hours is to check the route map itself, he said.

“I think this should be corrected once the new routes get implemented,” Smith said.

Regarding the new routes, he said Route 2 services private property. The map shows a pair of bus stops on the Fairgrounds property owned by RioCan located north of Fifth Avenue and east of First Street.

“I know that was something the town was trying to avoid,” he said.

Tim Kocialek, the town’s infrastructure services general manager, said Fourth Street is a right of way going through that area.

“And we’re trying to provide the service for residents,” Kocialek said. “We aren’t able to [get] into some areas, but we’re going to try going through that area because there’s not a high volume of traffic causing conflicts. It helps provide the service in the area and it helps with accessibility.”

Smith said he had investigated the property by way of the municipal centre-line road geographic information system (GIS) mapping. Apparently, the town owns only the first 100 metres north of Fifth Avenue, parallel to the building that houses Leon’s furniture store.

“Anything else beyond that shows as private owned and private maintained,” Smith said.

Seems to be there’s conflicting information, Smith noted.

“The right of way does continue in roughly 100 metres like you’ve indicated,” Kocialek responded. “And then it would be on the RioCan property. We are looking at going into that area to be able to provide the service.”

Some residents would like to avail of a bus to access the big box stores in that area.

According to a presentation to council later in the meeting, proposed bus route changes are being considered to improve departure and arrival times, to increase its coverage area, and to accommodate the future expansion on Hansen Boulevard.

Matt Cebrynsky, a transportation technologist, said there are currently three routes the buses travel. The proposal being considered entails a two-route setup to serve four distinct areas.

“Currently, our buses are constantly delayed and running behind schedule,” he said. “Part of this is because they were designed with no buffer time in between to account for traffic and picking up and dropping off passengers.”

Real-time traffic data was used to time each of the change ideas proposed.

“We wanted to make sure they could either fit within a 30-minute cycle or a 45-minute cycle and also to have enough time to be able to pick up, drop off passengers and be able to deal with traffic throughout the day at the high peak periods of time.”

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