Trying to Keep York Moving

Nugget.ca
March 21, 2019
James Mackin

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 York Region.

They were “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, commuters travelling on YRT or GO now stop at Pioneer Village or Highway 407 station, where they then have to pay an extra $1.50 to take the subway for an additional two stops to reach the university.

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 people on a daily basis are walking in from Pioneer Village, versus paying the extra $1.50 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.”