Students crowding on to the 91 Express Bus at a Fanshawe College stop.
Not everyone can afford a car. Paying for insurance can cost people hundreds, gas prices continue to get higher and higher, and maintenance can add a few hundred dollars more. That’s not even taking into consideration the price of vehicles lately, where even used cars have price tags in the thousands. It’s a matter that plenty of folks in London deal with, and for those who don’t have their own vehicle, traveling through public transit or alternative transportation is their only option.
So what’s going on in London to help these people get around?
According to London Transit’s General Manager, Kelly Paleczny, the city’s putting over $300 million into public transit infrastructure. The big player in the planned infrastructure improvements is the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system: a series of bus routes on bus-only lanes, aimed at mirroring the features of a rail system with the flexibility of road traffic. The initial plan had five routes: a North, South, East, West, and Central connecting route. As of now, only the East, South, and Central routes are being considered, leaving up to $120 million unaccounted for.
“The money has to be spent by 2027,” Paleczny explains. “There are any number of other transit projects that funding could support, so it’s not to say the funding won’t be spent. It just isn’t going to be spent on the West or North corridors of the BRT.”
One possible option? Improvements to bike and pedestrian infrastructure.
Andrew Hunniford, General Manager at the London Bicycle Café, ditched cars for bicycles and hasn’t looked back. What he has looked at is the current state of London’s bicycle infrastructure. “Right now their current state, and how they’re addressing it, could really be described as ‘they just aren’t,'” he explains, pointing toward a relative silence on any biking infrastructure upgrades being proposed for the city. “It’s a fragmented network with some pieces of infrastructure, but they more exist like demos or show pieces. You could think of the Colborne bike lane as a good example: when you’re using it, it’s terrific. But it’s not connected to anything and it goes from nowhere to nowhere.”
Hunniford sees the expansion of roads as pushing out alternative modes of transportation, leaving pedestrians and bikers at the mercy of motor vehicles. His hope for a future in London is one that gives everyone the ability to navigate the city on their own terms:
“The real test is ‘can my nine-year-old daughter navigate under her own power to the local community center?’ Which I don’t think is unreasonable. She has the physical ability to do it. She has the personal tools that she needs. She’s capable of doing it on a bike. What she lacks is the infrastructure that would let her do it safely. You just need somebody to give her the space in order to be able to do that.”
Until the city decides what to do with its millions in infrastructure budget, the city’s current reliance on vehicles seems to be staying as it is. For those who can’t get their own vehicle, the improvements to bussing will be bringing more Londoners around town. For those on bikes or on foot, it remains to be seen.
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