With Cochrane On-demand Local Transit (COLT) consistently being thrown under the bus by many in town, a driver for the polarizing, but much-needed, transit system shared with The Eagle why the wheels on the bus may not go round and round so smoothly all through the town.
The source, who spoke on a condition of anonymity but provided The Eagle documentation proving they are currently employed with Southland as a driver for COLT, argued there are problems that need to be addressed to ensure the public transit service can better reach members of the community who need it.
“Being involved with a growing transit system sounded interesting,” the driver said. “I never imagined how chaotic it would be. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
The driver reached out to The Eagle after the newspaper's report last week on a recent committee of the whole discussion that surrounded a COLT-related presentation.
One of the major problems for the system implemented by COLT, the driver noticed, is the amount of time riders spend on the bus. In one recent instance, they noted a trip that was supposed to take three commuters from Fireside to the downtown area ended up taking much longer than expected.
“As per the system, we bring the people downtown, but not there,” he explained. “First, we stop at The Quarry 8, near Wal-Mart, pick up some people, bring them back to Fireside, and the people from Fireside are still on the bus.”
After making other trips with the original passengers from Fireside still on board, only until other trips have been completed would they finally reach their intended destination. The round-about route turned their original 10-minute trip into a 30-minute or longer drive around town.
In terms of stops around Cochrane, with 149 different destinations where riders can plan to ride, the driver felt there are way too many stops and they are not all well thought out.
“The bus stops are like 100 metres apart from each other, or you have bus stops in a parking lot where you drive through playing children at the Boys and Girls Club,” they said.
“I don’t know who put that stop in that parking lot, but you have to turn around [there] and go back out. In the afternoon, kids are playing then they have to remove all their hockey stuff or whatever they are doing, and it’s just like, what the heck?”
The driver added the current six stops in the downtown area should be halved, only keeping the stops near the Shell gas station, McKay’s Ice Cream, and RBC.
“The other three, you can remove because there’s either parked cars anyways in the middle of the street, so you have to put your four-way flashers on, and hopefully the customer shows up on time – otherwise you block the street for five minutes, if you are lucky,” he said.
The amount of COLT bus stops was also addressed during the committee of the whole meeting, where director of community services for the town of Cochrane, Mitchell Hamm, provided a short-term recommendation in the form of optimizing stops.
During the meeting, Hamm outlined that transit planning advocates up to 400 metre or a five-minute walking distance between stops. Through optimizing the number of stops, Hamm said it would reduce COLT’s efficiency. Through stop optimization, Hamm said it could increase bus productivity by limiting buses meandering.
In terms of ridership, during peak hours, the driver said the most passengers they have onboard is roughly eight. But on average, they only see around two or three people at a time catching a ride via COLT.
“I never have more than 10 or something like that,” they said. “So, the bus is never full.”
Information presented by Hamm regarding COLT's low ridership outlined that trips are generally shared by few riders, with few high-occupancy rides. On average, COLT has 4.8 passengers per vehicle hour.
Outside of the driver’s seat, the driver argued the Ride COLT app remains a mystery for both drivers and users alike.
“The app is unreliable, it’s way too complicated, and I hear about it every day,” they said. “The app is kept secret from the drivers. We aren’t allowed to give input, feedback – nothing.”
The driver argued Cochrane hopped on implementing public transit way too late and is now paying the consequences of previous negligence.
“[Cochrane] knows they are growing,” they said. “Developments everywhere, but transit? Who cares. Now we have the mess.”
Rather than having a fully on-demand system, the driver argued a hybrid system with fixed routes and on-demand options for select parts of town would be the best possible solution to address many of the current issues.
In terms of what goes on behind the scenes, the COLT driver said with the way things are looking right now, they worry the service will continue to be a bumpy ride.
“The problem is, Southland figures it runs good like that because no one is doing anything,” they said. “The Town doesn’t seem to care because they don’t have a dedicated transit person who can ask questions to Southland, or people behind the scenes and stuff like that.”
With two future communities on the horizon for Cochrane, the driver is worried that if COLT doesn’t change, the problems for drivers and riders will only get worse in the months and years to come.
“You’ll have more riders, which means more you have more trips, so you need more buses, and you need more drivers,” they said.
The Town of Cochrane did not respond to a request for comment from The Eagle prior to the newspaper's print deadline.
Coun. Alex Reed, who shared his thoughts and raised questions after the presentation at the committee of the whole meeting last month, said Cochrane needs a public transit service and sees it as something critical for the future of the community.
“I would see public transit as an essential service,” Reed said. “But like all essential services, oftentimes the expectations far outpace the community’s ability to afford it.”
Reed said a balance needs to be found to ensure that a system can be built that is within the Town's budget.
“So I support an efficient and cost-effective public transit system,” he said. “But not at any cost that would simply be viewed as a blank cheque.”
