York Region Transit cancels Route 15 in Stouffville due to low ridership

The YRT also announced that Mobility On-Request Stouffville will be discontinued on weekends due to low ridership.

Yorkregion.com
April 20, 2020
Simon Martin

cancelled Route 15 in Stouffville due to low ridership. A spokesperson for the region said the route was cancelled due to poor ridership prior to the coronavirus. The YRT also announced that Mobility On-Request Stouffville will be discontinued on weekends due to low ridership.

While there were very few riders on Route 15, 16-year-old Stouffville resident Adrienne Leoni had relied on the bus to go to her school, École Secondaire Norval-Morrisseau in Richmond Hill.

While school is not in right now, the Grade 10 student noticed the signs at the bus stops when she went for walks. All they said was that service changes are coming to the bus route, and to check with the website. She looked it up and discovered it was to be cancelled.

Normally the bus ride takes her 40-50 minutes, but without this route it will take her double the time, as well as the more expensive GO bus fare.

“There is almost always other people on the bus, but I will admit it is not full,” she said.

Leoni usually catches the first one in the morning, around 6 a.m. “It gets me there way too early, but what are you going to do?” she said.

While she gets the odd drive into school some days, Leoni said she relies on the bus.

“Public transit is more and more important in this age of climate change and there are people -- not a huge number -- who rely on it to get where they need to be. Lives will be really shaken up by this.”

A ridership analysis found that Route 15 currently carries approximately 35 passenger trips per weekday and approximately two to four passenger trips on the weekend, and operates at a revenue-to-cost ratio of nine per cent. As a result, each passenger trip is subsidized by approximately $33.86 on weekdays, $119.80 on Saturdays, and $122.55 on Sundays/holidays.

“Simply, Route 15 was an inefficient use of taxpayers' dollars. It’s unfair to other residents to subsidize ridership at such large dollars amounts,” Stouffville Mayor Iain Lovatt said.  

Lovatt said he intends to ask for an increase in service on Route 9 with the future of Cornell Station.