James Mackin | Contributor
Featured Image: Many York students have voiced their frustration regarding the added commute times due to the transit changes. | Fatema Ali
Since VIVA and GO Transit have stopped servicing York campus, a group called “Keep York Moving” has been working hard to bring them back.
At a meeting with York Region’s Committee of the Whole on March 7, Fred Winegust and Peter Miasek, two of the founders of Keep York Moving, presented a deputation regarding YRT’s 2018 Annual System Performance Report.
The deputation focused on restoring regular service to York, for both YRT and GO Transit. According to Winegust, the decision to remove public transit travelling to York came from the university.
York University was “clearly on the record as stating they wanted no bus service on campus,” according to Winegust. “They wanted to green up the area known as ‘the Commons.’”
Since busses stopped servicing campus, TTC subway users going to York University station are paying two different fares. GO bus commuters pay $1.50 to travel two stops from the Highway 407 station. Meanwhile, YRT commuters are paying $3.00 to travel one stop from Pioneer Village.
Students have been vocal about their frustration with the fact they can no longer get to campus as easily as in the past. Melissa Mihalis, a Seneca student, says her decision to attend Seneca was heavily influenced by the plethora of transit options once available.
“I graduated from a university that I had to take three busses to get to, which took two-and-a-half hours originally, so the whole transit system was very much in mind when I decided to come here,” according to Mihalis.
That has changed since she began her studies here, making it harder for her to travel to campus as she now takes the bus to Vaughan Metropolitan Centre, and then the subway to York.
According to Winegust, several students are walking from their transfer station in lieu of paying an extra fare.
“York Region has now documented at least a thousand YRT Bus commuters are walking in from Pioneer Village Station, or Steeles Avenue and Founders, versus paying the extra $3.00 to take the subway for one bloody stop,” he says.
Per their deputation, the roughly one-kilometre distance between Pioneer Village Station and campus “is well beyond YRT’s ‘distance to bus stop’ guideline of 500 metres.”
The biggest challenge Keep York Moving has faced so far has been “getting people who claim that they have an interest in trying to work things out for the students, to take the next step.” However, according to their most recent newsletter, they will be working with Mayor Frank Scarpitti of Markham as well as the York Region Transportation Committee to “review details behind the one-page budget recommendation which advised against restoration.”
Winegust adds: “YRT cannot return because of a yet-to-be validated $8.2 million penalty to be imposed by the TTC/Toronto on York Region should the busses return. That clause was negotiated with the belief that the university wanted to ‘green up’ the Commons, and have all busses removed from there. The fact that York University was on the record requesting the ‘greening up’ of the Commons lead to all busses removed off campus except for the York shuttle and Züm. York University reversed itself on the ‘Greening of the Commons’ policy in November 2018 to YRT and to GO in December 2018.”
