{"id":33405,"date":"2021-01-19T13:29:48","date_gmt":"2021-01-19T18:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=33405"},"modified":"2021-01-20T10:07:03","modified_gmt":"2021-01-20T15:07:03","slug":"its-important-that-maritime-bus-survives-the-pandemic-says-transport-action-atlantic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/its-important-that-maritime-bus-survives-the-pandemic-says-transport-action-atlantic\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s important that Maritime Bus survives the pandemic, says Transport Action Atlantic"},"content":{"rendered":"

In early January, Maritime Bus announced cuts to its routes in New Brunswick, saying it could no longer afford to run service between Campbellton and Moncton, and Fredericton and Edmundston. The company also announced service reductions from Fredericton to Saint John and to Moncton, initially set to happen on Jan. 15.<\/p>\n

In the company\u2019s announcement, Maritime Bus president Mike Cassidy blamed the service cuts on the refusal of the New Brunswick government to join Nova Scotia and PEI in providing financial support for the regional passenger bus network.<\/p>\n

When asked about it at the time, Premier Blaine Higgs said that Maritime Bus\u2019s financial troubles pre-dated the pandemic, and were not COVID-19-related.<\/p>\n

But Higgs seems to have changed his mind more recently.<\/p>\n

Last week, Maritime Bus announced a two-week reprieve to its service cuts, now scheduled for Jan. 31. The reason is that a group of northern New Brunswick municipalities\u2014among those who will be hardest hit by the cuts\u2014are working at getting access to federal Safe Restart funding earmarked for municipalities.<\/p>\n

When reporters asked Higgs about the proposal, he told them funding to support Maritime Bus service is \u201cconfirmed as a COVID related expense,\u201d a full reversal from his opinion the previous week.<\/p>\n

It appears the New Brunswick government is not open to providing provincial funding, but will consider allotting federal funding meant for municipalities to help see Maritime Bus through the pandemic without cuts to service.<\/p>\n

New Brunswick missed the boat on Safe Restart funding specifically allotted for public transit, when the government failed to apply for it in 2020.<\/p>\n

\n

\"A<\/a>

Maritime Bus kiosk in Moncton. Photo by Ted Bartlett.<\/p><\/div><\/figure>\n

CHMA spoke to Ted Bartlett of\u00a0Transport Action Atlantic,<\/a> to talk about the possible cuts, and the hit that regional transportation has taken in the Maritimes over the course of the pandemic. The conversation took place just shortly before Maritime Bus announced they would extend the deadline for the service cuts to Jan. 31.<\/p>\n

We started off asking Bartlett about the impact of the potential Maritime Bus cuts:<\/p>\n\nhttps:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Ted-Bartlett-Jan-14-2020-EDIT.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

\u201cWhere it\u2019s going to really hurt is in northern New Brunswick,\u201d says Bartlett. \u201cThey will lose their only public transportation links with the rest of the province.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bartlett says that\u2019s a serious issue, because it\u2019s affecting essential travel to services that are only available in centres like Fredericton or Moncton. \u201cWe\u2019re not talking leisure travel trips,\u201d says Bartlett. \u201cThese are trips that have to be made, pandemic or no pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Passenger rail service through northern New Brunswick was cut off last March when VIA Rail suspended the Ocean due to the pandemic. Maritime Bus stopped their connection into Quebec at the time, but maintained their routes in New Brunswick.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey continued to provide the important service within New Brunswick,\u201d says Bartlett. \u201cThey\u2019re doing their best to maintain some limited service to the people of the province, or to the people of the Maritimes. And they are to be commended for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bartlett says that\u2019s why Transport Action Atlantic believes the province should extend a helping hand to what he admits is a for-profit company.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey certainly have not been making any profit since the pandemic hit,\u201d says Bartlett. Maritime Bus reported significant losses in 2020, with a drop in ridership from 191,000 patrons in 2019 to 69,000 in 2020. \u201cNow they\u2019re somewhere between $3 million and $4 million in the hole as as a result of lost revenues,\u201d says Bartlett.<\/p>\n

Bartlett says that New Brunswick\u2019s refusal to support Maritime Bus through the pandemic betrays a \u201clet them eat cake\u201d philosophy when it comes to public transportation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit of a cavalier attitude that the government seems to be taking in this case, and towards public transportation in general,\u201d says Bartlett. \u201cThe poor people have no buses to ride? Let them drive cars,\u201d he says, ironically. \u201cWell, they don\u2019t have cars.\u201d<\/p>\n

'Building back better'<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cWe need to start thinking now of building back better, post-pandemic,\u201d says Bartlett. \u201cWe\u2019re talking public transit, we\u2019re talking inter-city motorcoach, we\u2019re talking passenger rail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bartlett even acknowledges a need to consider air travel, though he points out that as, \u201cthe most climate unfriendly of all means of passenger transportation,\u201d the need for air travel is probably not as great as some think. \u201cWhen we talk building back better, we should be casting our eyes towards more environmentally friendly means of transportation as well.\"<\/p>\n

Take the well-travelled road between Sackville and Moncton, says Bartlett. There should be bus service several times a day between the two towns (currently service runs four times a week.)<\/p>\n

\u201cIn any other progressive country, there would be,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the necessity of travelling to Moncton is even more pronounced, as it is the closest place to get tested for COVID-19. Not only does Sackville not have a testing site, but there are no local health clinics, where people without family doctors can get access to non-emergency health care. The closest of these are in, you guessed it, Moncton.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to have GO trains running between Sackville and Moncton,\u201d says Bartlett. \u201cBut we can have some sort of public transportation. We certainly should have a VIA train, at least once a day in each direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n

\"Ted<\/a>

Transport Action Atlantic president Ted Bartlett, on the train. Photo courtesy of Twitter.<\/p><\/div><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Before the service was suspended due to COVID-19, VIA\u2019s \u2018The Ocean\u2019 was running three times a week through Sackville, between Halifax and Montreal.<\/p>\n

While he looks to the provincial government to provide support for regional bus service, Bartlett looks to the federal government to help with passenger rail.<\/p>\n

Bartlett says that it will take political will, and financial commitments to new rolling stock and refurbished rail lines, to revive The Ocean to a functional version of its previous self.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Bartlett and Transport Action Atlantic are asking the Higgs government to, \u201cgive serious consideration to helping Maritime Bus through this rough passage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very important to the people who have no other transportation options,\u201d says Bartlett, pointing out that Maritime Bus is a regionally owned company, unlike the multinational that ran bus service previously. \u201cIt\u2019s important that Maritime Bus survives,\u201d says Bartlett, because the company \u201chas some commitment to the community, and believes in the need for motorcoach.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In early January, Maritime Bus announced cuts to its routes in New Brunswick, saying it could no longer afford to run service between Campbellton and Moncton, and Fredericton and Edmundston. The company also announced service reductions from Fredericton to Saint John and to Moncton, initially set to happen on Jan. 15. In the company\u2019s announcement,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":33423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,2602],"tags":[5175,4121,823,5174],"radio":[227],"origine":[274,275,277],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33405"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33405"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=33405"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=33405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}