SYDNEY, N.S. — Officials with Transit Cape Breton say efforts at adjusting bus runs have already made a difference in reducing crowds and wait times for Cape Breton University students at bus stops.
“Things have been going very well,” said Cathy Donovan, manager of transit and fleet maintenance for the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.
Donovan said they saw a real reduction in congestion last week, based upon the changes they’ve been making.
Donovan and other administrative staff have been visiting bus stops and analyzing the runs to determine where the largest numbers of CBU students are catching the bus. The focus has been on establishing patterns with the students using the buses in conjunction with their university classes.
“Some stops might be completely full at one time and not another, “ she said.
“There’s certain stops that have a lot of students living around that location so we have more students there all the time and other stops at different times of the day, depending on the times of their classes.”
Downtown Sydney has been identified as a regularly congested area, along with CBU.
Last year, adjustments were made around the students' classes. This year, the university extended its classes, which once again requires changes to the transit service. It usually takes a month to a month-and-a-half after classes have resumed to have the transit routes figured out.
“We haven’t set anything in stone yet, we usually do that around the end of September or early October,” Donovan said. “We work very closely with the university with regard to establishing these patterns.”
While visiting the stops, transit staff has been talking to the students as well.
The students also email and phone Transit Cape Breton regarding their concerns, with the biggest complaint being wait times.
Although the routes are being adjusted, Donovan said they won't make any definitive changes until the patterns have been established.
Issues with the Glace Bay and New Waterford bus routes are also being worked on.
Last year, the CBRM added four extra buses, which simply run between Sydney and CBU at peak times. Transit Cape Breton is looking at putting those buses in place permanently.
Donovan said they not only have an excellent relationship with the university but also the students union.
“We always take into consideration the opinions of the students and are certainly well aware with their struggles."
Last year, once wait times were corrected, the major concern the transit service heard from students was a lack of bus shelters, a situation which Donovan said the CBRM is in the process of rectifying.
On Thursday the CBRM announced 10 new bus stops are being added in areas across the municipality, a 50-50 cost sharing project between CBRM and Pattison Advertising, which holds the advertising contract for Cape Breton Transit.
Jillian Moore, communications for the CBRM, said they don’t have a cost breakdown for Pattison’s five shelters at this time, as Pattison is taking care of their own. As for the CBRM’s five shelters, the municipality doesn’t have a final cost as they are waiting on new quotes for a specific type of shelter.
The turnaround with the municipality's transit was not easy to prepare for, Donovan said.
Six or seven years ago the CBRM was looking at eliminating transit due to lack of ridership.
“It’s a big turnaround and all we can do to keep up with it,” she said. "We’re very limited in resources so the changes we can make are very limited.”
There are 33 buses within Transit Cape Breton that include the Handi-Trans system.
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