GUELPH POLITICAST #168 – The Transit Pass with TAAG

The Service Review was delivered, council took its recommendations seriously, and the new spending it proposed was passed in the annual budget process. So everything worked out, right? Not so fast, because the work of improving transit is ongoing, and there's a group in town is keeping a watchful eye on the situation as it develops. It's time for the Transit Pass!

Back in December, the members of the Transit Action Alliance of Guelph, or TAAG, made their first appearance on the Politicast as part of a new regular initiative to cast a regular spotlight on transit issues in the city. As stated above, there's been a lot going on with the transit file lately, but some of the same old problems persist.

The City of Guelph continues to struggle with the need to balance the expansion of transit, the development of more active transportation, and the fact that this is still a very car-centric community. Since emerging last fall, TAAG has become an increasingly influential voice to promote transit options in Guelph, and behind the scenes they've been working hard to keep transit on the front-burner in terms of the City's priorities.

This week on the podcast, TAAG Chair Steve Petric and Membership Co-ordinator John Marchese join the show to talk about the work they’ve been doing, their gut reaction to the recommendations of the service review, and their thoughts on expanding the community bus. In other matters, there's discussion about their expectations of the the schedule and route review, why they're getting more councillors to take a ride on the bus, and what they’ve been hearing from city staff about transit through their advocacy. Plus, there's also some talk about traffic, regional transit, and why Guelph Transit needs to sometimes focus on the good news!

So let's catch up on transit matters on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!

You can learn more about TAAG by clicking here. Stay tuned for the second part of the Guelph Politicast's transit podcast double-header this weekend in the form of an interview with Guelph Transit General Manager Robin Gerus. The gang from TAAG will be back on the Politicast later this summer.

The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here.

Remember that the Politicast Podbean channel is also the host for podcast versions of Open Sources Guelph. The previous Thursday’s episode of Open Sources will be posted on Mondays.