Regional transit in Niagara region

[roof_top_eagle]

It seems to me the government of Ontario should keep their mouths shut about green initiatives until they can get decent transit systems in place all over the Provence. In areas like Niagara you have 4 or 5 decent sized cities that don't have any connections other than cabs within 15-20 minutes of each other. I for example can't get to work 10 minutes by car from my home on a bus because it's in thorold, practically a suburb on st. Catherines and Niagara Falls. If they insist on talking green make it so I don't have to pay massive gas prices for a 10 minute commute.

If you don't have a car and live in Niagara Falls you have to pay $60 for a cab to get to and from renewing your health card because the building is in St. Kitts. We need some kind of transit system that gets us around. I don't know how much longer my car is going to last and I'll end up having to quit my job because of it dying.

We hear all this hype about expanding Hamilton's transit system but our local cities can't decide on who pays what so they are taking their time.

Some people who have brains know that all you have to do is pool the money and pay what needs to be paid. It's simple.

So this leads me to my question, does anyone know what is holding them up and how people can push them to get to action on this? It's been several years in theory and no action. No one I contact is answering my emails or phone calls on the subject and frankly I can't afford gas much longer much less a new car. I'm sick of governments bringing up valuable ideas and then putting them on the back burner and never getting to them.

Oh and if you live in Niagara falls and work past midnight, good freaking luck, the buses don't run if you start late or finish late. Yet the city is a tourist town and we run off our late night workers. The hotels don't let you park on hotel property so even if you have a car your screwed. You have to park a long ways away or take a bus that isn't there.

[WIP]

I don't know how long it will take, but back during the Depression, when Niagara was one of the few places in Canada that were seeking workers, my father moved up here from Quebec and he was able to get to around to jobs he held at the Welland Chemical Plant, Thorold Paper Mill and a few others I have forgotten, because there was a rail system connecting Niagara Falls with all of the towns along the Welland Canal, from Port Colbourne to St. Catharines.

It was lack of demand that killed the streetcar and bus systems after WWII, when all of the factory workers started buying cars. I don't know if it's still there, but part of the old streetcar line was still left in the middle of Pine Street in Thorold. Soaring gas prices are going to cause more hardship in small towns than in densely populated cities where the transit system survived over the years, but as more people can't afford to drive, they should be banging on the doors of their aldermen and regional councillors to get some of that transit funding that the feds are handing out.