‘They should lead by example’: transit advocates on Regional Council

The phrase ‘seeing is believing’ isn’t cutting it with Metro Transit advocates.

The group of citizens who ride transit frequently think Regional Council members should “learn by doing.”

“I think councilors and the mayor need to lead by example. I think it would be really cool to get on your bus in the morning and say “Oh there’s Mayor Savage!” It would give them an opportunity to speak to people where they are,” said Kate Watson, a Transit Advocate.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "I think councilors and the mayor need to lead by example. I think it would be really cool to get on your bus in the morning and say "Oh there's Mayor Savage!" It would give them an opportunity to speak to people where they are," said Kate Watson, a Transit Advocate.

The Moving Forward Together Plan got its first approval from council after 23 proposed changes were added to its list for review.

READ MORE: Halifax Transit revamp to get another review before final decision. 

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Public engagement surrounding the changes has been extremely high.

“It’s important because transit is a big part of how our city and our region are going to grow over the coming decades,” said Scott Edgar, a member of the It’s More Than Buses advocacy group.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "It's important because transit is a big part of how our city and our region are going to grow over the coming decades," said Scott Edgar, a member of the <a href="https://itsmorethanbuses.com/" target="_blank">It's More Than Buses advocacy group.</a>

Edgar says there’s a need for organizations like his to connect with Regional Council and raise concerns about current transit issues.

“There’s a need for this group because the way that the Halifax transit system has grown really over the past several decades has been kind of haphazard and it’s resulted in a lot of duplication of routes, a lot of inefficiencies,” Edgar said.

Much of the concern that’s been brought to council have to do with the inner corridor of routes.

“A sense of better connectivity and more reliability I would say are the big issues and not having necessarily these very long routes that are hard to manage over periods of time,” said Coun. Jennifer Watts of Peninsula North.

While there’s no timeline on when the recommendations will come back to council with individual reviews, Watson feels now is the perfect time for Regional Council members to start riding transit in an effort to gain more perspective into the issues they’re trying to solve.

“We want councilors, we want the mayor, we’d love to have senior transit staff on those buses seeing things from the ground up. I think we should call it ‘Let’s Take Transit Together,'” Watson said .