Owen Sound Transit is celebrating 65 years of bus service on December 1st.
Councillor John Christie says over the years its been a bit of a struggle at times to keep the transit system operational, and at one point in the early 1950’s the system actually shut down for a short period of time.
However he says the system survived and grew until the cutback and loss of transit subsidies under the Mike Harris Conservative government.
Christie says before that the transit system experienced more than 450 thousand boardings on an annual basis but after the Harris cuts, ridership plunged to around 190 thousand boarding’s a year.
He says things have improved somewhat since then as he Provincial has helped transit systems with capital purchases and returned some funding to the city in the form of gas tax revenue.
Christie says the city now has been able to increase the frequency of service and as a result of that ridership on the transit system has increased by about 18 per cent a year.
He says one of the most important developments recently was the inclusion of the need for a Transit system in the City’s official plan.
As for any future increase in the two dollar fare to ride the buses, Christie says there has been no indication from council that will happen.
Although he does admit that could change next year as a result of some of the serious financial issues facing the city, including a possible loss of certain provincial funding.