transportation | thesil.ca

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An easier way to travel to special events is coming to McMaster, which could serve as an alternative to HSR and GO Transit services.

Two entrepreneurs have started a crowd-funded shuttle service that will connect students at McMaster to Toronto and other regions in Ontario.

“We want people to be able to explore different areas and see where the best places to eat, or the best places to go out for a night, or where the best events are in the city […] and then we want to help people get there,” said Brett Chang, co-founder of the new service called Point B.

Chang and his partner Taylor Scollon, both graduates from the University of Toronto, founded this service in order to fill a need for affordable and convenient transit.

“It will be crowd-funded transit, so every week we will put up a new event or a new place to go, and if we can get enough people to ride the bus we will run the bus,” said Chang.

The first bus, tentatively scheduled to leave from McMaster on Feb. 6, would take students to downtown Toronto and bring them back to campus the same night. The bus service will not only take students to the GTA – it is also going to be used to bring students to restaurants and events in Hamilton, or on day-trips to Blue Mountain or the Niagara region.

Although the first bus is scheduled for Feb. 6, not all of the details have been worked out yet. Point B still needs to discuss with the university to arrange an on-campus pickup.

“We are still working on the details around that, we are still working with the different stakeholders involved,” Chang said.

Chang and Scollon first began offering transit that brought people in Toronto to Liberty Village, a service that is currently on hiatus.

“We did realize that running an ongoing public transit service is difficult. You want to have a pretty big user base to do that so this is a good way for us to build up to there,” he said about beginning the service at McMaster.

Chang and Scollon will be focusing their efforts on expanding the service to McMaster, citing that there is a greater need for alternative transit in universities outside of Toronto.

“I think the problem is that there are a lot of universities in the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area which are built with inadequate transportation,” he said.

The 48-person bus to Toronto will cost $20 round-trip, which is less than the adult fare for the GO service, and it will pick students up on or near campus. Prices will vary depending on the specific trip and the number of people who sign up for the bus.

“A lot of students struggle to really get outside, enjoy anywhere outside of campus,” said Chang. “I think that you can find new alterative transit methods to show people different parts of the region, different parts of the province and go to different places, discover new things.”

“The bus can really go anywhere.”

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The Hamilton Bike Share Program has begun rolling out test phase bicycle stations around the McMaster campus and is already offering early membership access before the official bike program launch in March.

The bicycle stations are being managed and installed by the non-profit organization SoBi Hamilton, and uses fourth generation “smart bikes” provided by the New York-based organization. The bicycles have Global System for Mobile connectivity and GPS capabilities that gather anonymous data on bicycle usage such as which stations are most frequently used, which stations need to be restocked, and even alert SoBi services when a bicycle is in need of repair. By the end of the program’s full launch, 700 stations will have been installed around the city.

There are currently five stations located around campus, including two by the Health Sciences Centre, various residences and the Arthur Bourns Building. A sixth station by Mills Library is to be installed in the near future, and bike racks may be expanded according to demand.

Any level of membership can be purchased online, at a kiosk, or at the SoBi Hamilton office. This includes a discounted $70 annual fee for McMaster students, faculty and staff. A $149 founding membership is also available, which includes ninety minutes of daily ride time, a t-shirt and the ability to name a bike. The pay-as-you-go option will become available after the program’s official spring launch.

The program is also planning to implement the Everyone Rides initiative that will try to give access to people who can’t afford a membership so they can utilize the system as well.

“With the Everyone Rides initiative we’re just basically trying to get grants in different sources of funding so there’s no barrier for anyone to use the system,” said Chelsea Cox, Sobi Community Manager. “We are working on a few partnerships right now to secure that funding and we’re telling anyone who doesn’t want to join who can’t afford it to get in touch with us so we can work with them to find a solution and get them on the bikes if they need to.”

While the bike share program will by no means replace the need for busing, even in warmer temperatures, Cox describes the Social Bikes as a compliment to the current public transit offerings.

“The bus system is great and I also encourage people to use that. I think Bike Share is just really helpful in providing another option for people and more options for getting around the city are always better. This is something that’s healthy and sustainable and often times more efficient…instead of waiting for the bus for ten minutes, you can make that bus ride turn into a short bike ride. They are really convenient and fill the gaps in transit.”

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Tobi Abdul
Staff Reporter

It has happened to all of us at one point: there you are, on time for the bus, only a few metres away when it just flies by, without you on it, causing you to be late for whatever important presentation or appointment you were off to. Or similarly, it’s freezing cold and you’re on time for the bus and just before literally freezing your fingers off, it does come. But unbelievably late, causing you to be late for whatever important presentation or appointment you were off to.

If you’ve ever been on the 5 or the 51, you know that once the bus reaches campus, it basically empties. Yet, despite this, the HSR has done nothing to cater its services on the 5 or 51 towards students.

We may not pay per trip, but regardless of how much we pay in comparison to what it costs, the fact that we do should guarantee us a service that actually works for us, instead of one where it’s a gamble as to if the buses are even going to show up at all.

To quote HBO: winter is coming. And despite all the bundling up that us Canadians have to endure to survive the freezing cold, walking sucks.

The HSR is unreliable at best. I may not know much about the bureaucracy behind the bus system but I can’t imagine that it really takes that much to make sure the buses are relatively on time or viagra alternative at most, make sure the buses actually show up.

We deserve something a little better considering that we pay for this service and until the HSR recognizes the fact that the student demographic are its biggest constituents on the 5 or 51, they will make no steps to give us better service.

@toe_bee