Grand River Transit

[danbrotherston]

I certainly hope so.

I'll say it again, AFAIK not one single road widening project has been cancelled at a regional level. This region's priorities are crystal clear.

As much as I'm normally a transit advocate, there are some legitimate differences between operational and capital expenditures. If this is a permanent rollback of transit service it's terrible, but a temporary suspension of a service when demand for that service has dropped sharply isn't comparable to cancelling a capital project. As far as I know transit capital projects, like new buses, the new bus garage, ION phase 2 planning, etc are still proceeding as before. Even though with the service cutbacks a new garage is hardly necessary, the expectation is that the cutbacks are temporary and the full schedule will be reinstated soon enough, and the garage will be well used.

There's lots of legitimate criticism to go around of how the region prioritizes roads excessively, being upset about operational adjustments I think just undercuts the criticism when real issues are pointed out. I think asking "why are we spending all this money on road capital projects, when trail usage is soaring during the pandemic and we need to expand trails" is a much fairer issue with the region's priorities.

You make an absolutely reasonable point. I think what I am expressing is my complete lack of faith in the region not to cut transit and cycling projects first, while roads remain sacrosanct.

That being said, I think cycling should be the top investment at the regional level over the next few years, followed by walking. Usually cycling is last, cars are first, and transit, is second, but transit is going to be set back substantially by this event for quite a while.  But I seriously doubt that will happen.