By Cecilia Nasmith
Cobourg's accessible Wheels Transit service will have Century Transit operating extended hours as well as regular service, council voted at Monday's commitee-of-the-whole session.
Century had offered regular hours and BTS Network operated the extended hours – until 11 p.m. daily - following a recent bylaw passed by council Dec. 2. When it came time for BTS to sign the bylaw, however, they declined.
Director of Public Works Laurie Wills said the bylaw had been passed based on verbal agreement with BTS. When presented with the bylaw on Dec. 21, they said they wanted to renegotiate.
Left scrambling, Wills approached Century.
“Luckily, they could run until 10 p.m.,” she said.
“They actually could have run until 11 if we had pushed it, but at this time, we took a look at all our stats to confirm how much Wheels was being utilized in the after-hours.”
During the eight-month trial period, she said, no one booked an appointment past 10 p.m., and there were only two bookings even that late. Also during that time, there were only a handful of trips booked on weekends.
And because of the reduced hours, she said, they can stay within their budget.
“The agreement with Century, past the end of February, is month-to-month and we would have to give them 30 days' notice if something else came up that helped us to address the 24-hour taxi issue,” Wills added.
For now, however, accessible transit is available weekdays from 6:15 a.m. to 7:45 p.m. (with extended hours until 10 p.m.), and from 8:15 a.m. to 6:45 p.m. Saturdays and from 8:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. Sundays.
Councillor Emily Chorley recounted the story of a user who was told the service was only available for medical appointments. In fact, Wills said, it is for any qualified rider for any reason at all – though priority is given to medical appointments so someone planning something like a shopping trip might have to take an alternate time slot.
