Empty Bus Goes Round And Round

Empty Bus Goes Round and Round

Money For Nothing and a Ride For a Fee.

It’s been several years now that the much-celebrated Clarington Bus Service has been in action. Yet after several years it is even more apparent that it was started before it’s time. The amount of riders usually can be counted on one hand, on a good day two.

What is the problem? Why is it not being used more? And must important why are the residents of Clarington subsidizing others travel?

If the bus is full and ran right it might even have a chance of breaking even, or making a small profit.

Several of our members take the bus occasionally and all have the same compliant. It takes a circuitous route around Bowmanville with no coherent structure. It stops way to frequently to get anywhere quickly and it takes way to long to get from point a to point b. It has been timed to take 32 minutes to get from the corner of Concession and Mearns to the Zellers Mall. Talk about inefficient route and too many stops. A bike ride would take only ten and a car less then five!

The often coined phrase of "Want to take a tour of Bowmanville? Well take the bus?"

"Want to be late for work? Take the bus!"

These are often coined phrases when it comes to the Bowmanville bus service.

A solution would be quite simple and should have been utilized right from the beginning. One bus route goes north south down Liberty, and the other goes east west down highway two. Therefore if someone wants to take the bus from Freeland they walk over to Liberty. If you are taking the bus north or south from highway two then walk over to that route and transfer to the Liberty if needed to go north south. The other idea is a basic circle route.

But the current route has too many stops; it seems to stop every hundred meters in some places. The other problem is the circuitous route. Some have likened the route to have been drawn out by a drunken blind man. If this could be adjusted then ridership might go up. Currently a lot of people would rather walk, ride their bike, taxi it or bum a ride rather then take the "Tour of Bowmanville Bus Service."

The monthly fee of almost a hundred dollars doesn’t help either, that is almost $1200 a year! ($2.90 a trip) That hurts ones pocket book and just think it probably still doesn’t make money.

Hopefully with the incoming administration they will look at the Bowmanville Bus Service and adjust it accordingly so the empty bus doesn’t continue going around and around burning up all that fuel to carry few people around. Or possibly dropped altogether until we actually have enough people concentrated in one area to make it worthwhile. Which with our current addiction to house construction in Clarington won’t be long.

The other problem with the basis of the bus service is that many of the people in other communities use the bus service to either get to work or to school/college. But in Clarington where most of the people travel outside of Clarington to go to work, maybe the GO is good enough. Even though Clarington has the "Live, Work, and Play " signs, there isn’t much work here and the stuff we do have is far from the bus routes. Therefore we just live and of course play at are indoor rec. as we pay the debt down, okay we digress.

The other often asked question is why is it being subsidized by Durham taxes by people that are living outside the core and are miles away from the nearest stop and will never use the system. Think Kendall, Burketon, Solina, Newtonville etc? Actually why is it being subsidized at all? It’s not like people’s cars are being subsidized!

In the end the point is that the Clarington bus system needs a major overhaul and some new ideas. Hopefully with some new blood coming in as elected officials they can get this done.

Because right now the system is inefficient, and underused, and quite possibly not even needed at all!

Till Next Time The Clarington Tax Guardian