Peterborough Transit is the public transport operator for the City of Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. The majority of their system consists of twelve regular routes within the urban area of the city. There are express routes to Trent University and Fleming College. An additional express route, which only operates weekday mornings and afternoons, serves the industrial area in the southeast. Several school special routes are provided to Thomas A. Stewart Secondary School, and Holy Cross Secondary School. For those who are physically unable to use the regular transit bus there is a special Handi-Van paratransit service. Regular transit bus routes operate Monday to Friday between 6:00 am and 11:20 pm, Saturday from 6:40 am to 11:20 pm and Sunday from 8:00 am to 7:20 pm. On holidays the regular routes operate on a Sunday schedule.
History
Transit began in Peterborough as a streetcar service with the Peterborough and Ashburnham Street Railway Company, which was established in 1893 and operated until 1898. This was followed by the Peterborough Radial Railway Company, which operated from 1902 until 1927. This ended the streetcar era in Peterborough. Cooney and Joplin was briefly the only transit company in the city during 1927 after the Peterborough Radial Railway Company ceased operations. Later during 1927, Border Transit Limited started. It operated through until 1978 at which point the present day Peterborough Transit began operations and continues today.
Routes
There are twelve main routes, two Trent Express routes, two Fleming Express route and a paratransit service.
Main routes
All core routes operate seven days a week at 40 minute headways. Each of these routes terminates at the Peterborough Transit Terminal, which is at the intersection of Simcoe Street and Aylmer Street in the downtown area.
Trent University Express Routes
routes connect the school with downtown and run at 10-minute headways daily during the Fall and Spring semesters, with reduced service during breaks and the Summer semester. A late night service that serves the west bank route outbound and the eastbank route inbound runs until 3:20 AM. The service is directly paid for by the students through their tuition fees.
Fleming College Express Routes
The Fleming College routes operates on weekdays. At Fleming, Kinsmen Arena, and at the Transit Terminal, these services run on a combined 15 minute schedule. The Fleming Lansdowne runs on the hour and half past. The Fleming Sherbrooke runs on 15, and 45 minutes past the hour. The service is directly paid for by the students through their tuition fees. The Late Night service runs Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights from 11:30 PM until 3:10 AM. It services the Fleming Lansdowne route outbound, and the Fleming Sherbrooke route inbound
Other express routes
The Technology Drive route operates during the weekday rush year round. All routes terminate in downtown. The TASS 9 route operates 2 trips from the bus terminal in the morning, and two in the afternoon. The TASS 4 picks up students along the Jackson Park route and takes them directly to school instead of going through the terminal.
Criticisms
Many Peterborough Transit riders have criticized buses for being repeatedly late. Since 2005, Peterborough Transit has been slowly implementing changes to improve bus schedules. In 2006, buses began running every 40 minutes, rather than every 30 minutes, since buses would often run every 35–45 minutes anyway. This way, buses could at least meet their schedules. Peterborough Transit is also frequently criticized for not having buses run late enough. During weekdays, the last bus departs from the terminal at 10:40, even though many riders need buses until around 1:00 am. It was also criticized for not offering Sunday service, a problem that was fixed in 2006. The mayor, Daryl Bennett, owner of Capitol Taxi, proposed changes that would result in the cancellation of Saturday service after 6:00 pm. However, on January 31, 2011. Peterborough city council voted against these transit cuts because of the overwhelming number of complaints from residents, and because of the perceived conflict of interest for the mayor. The buses being required to back out of the bays at the existing terminal eat up roughly 10 minutes before all buses can start their trips. This can cause buses to end up running behind schedule later on in the day, as the arrival/depart time at the terminal generally falls farther and farther behind the more trips that are made. Attempts to implement a Community Bus route by merging the Trent East Bank and the Nicholls Park route failed, mainly due to overcrowding issues on the route. As a result, the East Bank and Nicholls Park route returned and the Trent Reid and Trent Armour were cancelled.
