At the City of Peterborough, City Council, General Committee meeting on December 5, 2022 Peterborough City Council members voted unanimously to change the current grid system to a hub system, which was in place prior to the pandemic, by February 1, 2023 this occurred without proper consultation with the public, the yet to be established, Transit Advisory Committee or either Trent University or Fleming College. 

From listening to the General Committee meeting, it was clear that Councillors treated the election as being equivalent to consultation. In defense of the motion Councillor Keith Riel made, several councillors spoke about hearing people wanting to move to a hub system. A court case between Greenpeace Canada and the Minister of the Environment, Conservation, and Parks ruled that “A General Election Is Not “Substantially Equivalent” to the Process Required by the EBR [Environmental Bill of Rights]” while the EBR is not in effect in this case it shows that there’s legal precedent that consultation is not identical to an election.

Councillor Riel was appointed as Chair of Transportation, replacing Councillor Don Vassiliadis, despite Riel’s past statements about the grid system being a failure and attempting to debate a delegate, Wendy Walker former-TCSA President, contrary to council rules. In September former Mayor Diane Therrien stated that she and former Councillor Kemi Akapo were the only members of Council who regularly used the buses and suggested that those who were users of the system should be on the new transit committee. At the December 5th meeting, Councillor Riel made the motion “that the City Transit System return to the Hub and Spoke System effective the 1^st of February 2023.” No alternative was offered. Councillor Gary Baldwin asked Transit Manager Laurie Stratton about the best timing to change the system. Stratton responded that July 2023 was most suitable in order to communicate with the public about the changes and to hear from the Transit Advisory Committee. Councillor Baldwin suggested doing an analysis on what is working and wrong with the system. Stratton made it clear that there would be no enhancements to the bus system by February 2023 and a request by Councillor Lesley Parnell to change the date to June 2023 was rejected. Councillor Kevin Duguay talked about consulting bus drivers, Trent and Fleming about the changes.  Consultation is harder to do once a decision has been made. Consultation did not occur prior to voting for the route change. It would make sense if this was applied to public decisions. A motion by Councillor Joy Lachica which lost in a four to six vote would have resulted in the Transit Advisory Committee delivering recommendations at the earliest opportunity in April therefore, consultation will likely be delayed further. 

Cory MacLeod, President of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) 1320 was supportive of the move when quoting a tweet from Peterborough Examiner reporter Joelle Kovach which stated “It's unanimous - transit returning to a hub & spoke system (from grid system) on Feb. 1.” MacLeod added “Thank you to the City of Peterborough council for fixing Transit.”

According to Fleming Student Administrative Council (SAC) General Manager, Joel Willett, and Trent Central Student Association (TCSA) President, Zoe Litow-Daye, students and student unions were left out of the decision-making process. 

When Arthur reached out to Willet and Litow-Daye regarding whether they had been contacted by anyone at the City or on Council we were told no-one had reached out. Willet went on to say that “City Council needs to talk with stakeholders before changes are made to the transit system” especially as Fleming and Trent have “long standing relationships” with the City. Both Willet and Litow-Daye express concerns of students losing access to housing on the outskirts of the city that are not serviced by the hub and spoke system. Furthermore, Litow-Daye notes that the standing agreement between TCSA and the City states that “major service changes cannot be made during the academic year. Thus passing and implementing motion 13.b would be a violation of a standing contract and open up the city to litigation.” Willet states that the SAC “has reached out to the Mayor’s Office to discuss impacts on students and the contract”. In a recent email from the TCSA to the student body Communications Manager Christine Liu states that the TCSA “will continue to have discussions with city councillors and other stakeholders” regarding potential issues coming from the motion. Litow-Daye states that “reverting the system would leave hundreds of students stranded.”

The City has a history of ignoring student representatives. A similar decision to go to a hub system was made on July 12, 2021 which was later reversed in the following council meeting. 

The previous TCSA President, Wendy Walker as reported in an Arthur article “A Climate Emergency with a Side of Medium Transit” said “this decision was made with only monetary values in mind and without considering the City's partnership with its post-secondary institutions.” 

The decision to approve changes to the bus system without consulting either Trent or Fleming could put at risk millions in funding as stated earlier there is a risk of litigation as the contract with Trent University would be broken. 

Stratton, in an email to myself before the election, said “the new route network [grid system] improved on time performance issues stemming from the prior route network in the downtown bus terminal” and “the current staffing conditions would make the old network even more unreliable as it would also have the same cancellations compounded with the service delays from traffic.”

The change of bus system in February may have negative consequences due to the lack of consultation with Trent and Fleming student unions. Please write to your Councillor to ask for the public, Trent and Fleming be consulted prior to making changes to the transit system.