Six Nations Public Works and Dillon Consulting say that an "on demand transit service" would be recommended for Six Nations should it follow through with a transit system proposal.
The presentation was made to community members on March 9 at the Six Nations Community Hall where Dillon Consulting firm traffic planner Dennis Kar briefed community members on the transportation study and their findings. The transportation study was provided to community members online and could also pick a hard copy version. Dillon Consulting said that over 800 surveys were received from community members.
Currently, Six Nations offers medical transportation that is client initiated, and a privately owned taxi service also exists, but no public transportation system is currently in place.
Kar spoke on the transportation study being administered and what the findings were to community members during Thursday's meeting.
"There were a number of things that we set out to do. The first was to determine the need for transit within Six Nations and to external communities. We did that by engaging with members of the community, looking at other transit systems that operate in similar context and trying to get a better sense of if a transit system is warranted," Kar said, adding that the group will be looking at identifying different funding within Six Nations, and through provincial and federal grants to fund the service.
Kar also spoke on some of the benefits the community and it's members will be able to experience.
"Transit provides that ability to improve access to the community for those with limited options. It helps support independent living and aging in place. That's particularly important when we have an aging population and people lose their ability to drive. It's important to access affordable housing, so if there's affordable housing and you need a means to access services, places of employment, transit provides that opportunity. It provides opportunity for youth to have access to after school activities, provides access to jobs and healthcare and it helps improve community safety for those who are travelling."
He said that based on findings from the study, the community of Six Nations supports some form of transit system to be available to the community.
"There is certainly a lot of support for some form of transit service within Six Nations. In fact about 77 per cent of those who responded to the online and paper survey said they were to be likely or very likely use some form of transit service."
Kar detailed that an "On Demand Transit Service" would best fit the needs of Six Nations Community members and detailed what that could look like.
"We looked at two main recommendations, one is a local service within Six Nations, and for this we recommended putting in place an on demand transit service that operates Monday through Saturday during the day with 1 or 2 vehicles," he said. "For inter community service, we recommended providing a fixed route service to both Brantford and Hamilton. This would operate using one vehicle and would operate one to two days a week to Hamilton and one to two days to Brantford."
He said that those looking to book a ride would need to book their ride one hour in advance by either calling in or booking the ride through an online app. The transit service would optimize operations by fixing the route based on it's customers needs. He added that, currently, Brantford and Hamilton are the main travel destinations that Six Nations residents need access to based on findings from their study, but added that if they become aware of a demand for another destination, that it may also be added to system.
Next steps for the firm include taking the feedback received from the community to make changes to the planned transit system, then taking a transit system proposal to Six Nations Elected Council for an official decision to be made.
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