North Grenville Mayor Nancy Peckford says she’s been interested in the River Route since day one.
“The minute we learned of that pilot program in the southern part of the counties,” she says, “I was on the phone with Mayor Brett Todd and a couple of the other mayors, who’ve been instrumental in bringing that to light, and I have signaled a strong appetite to potentially connect that service to our community, or to build upon that existing service.”
Peckford says some of her interest in the bus route comes from rising demand for public transit in North Grenville. “Certainly, as people get older, and they’re not able to drive anymore, or we have a lot of youth in the community that are working part-time,” she says. “They need access, obviously, to a vehicle to get to and from work, and I think there may be an appetite in the coming years to see a more comprehensive service.”
The River Route is a bus route that moves for twelve hours a day through South Grenville, stopping at popular workplaces along the way. It began operating in August with a six-month pilot program, and reports during that time say the bus route has been developing as expected. A detailed breakdown of the route’s ridership is being prepared ahead of the pilot program’s end date in February.