Riel commits to investing in buses

Peterborough mayoral candidate Keith Riel announced last month that he will support the expansion of public transit in the city if he wins this fall’s election.

As reported in the Peterborough Examiner by Sebastian Johnston-Lindsay, Riel signed a pledge at a meeting with labour leaders in May, committing to “invest” in Peterborough Transit in line with the Transportation Master Plan of 2024.

The plan proposes a significant shift in city planning and funding priorities from cars to buses. It predicts an inevitable increase in use of public transit and active transportation (walking and cycling), but also calls for a three-fold increase in funding for public transit to support that transition by increasing the frequency of the existing bus trips and introducing additional routes.

Riel’s pledge to the unions is the first significant statement by any of the five mayoral candidates about public transit.

In his time as City councillor for Ashburnham, Riel has taken some positions on the transit system that don’t align with the Transportation Master Plan he has pledged to support as mayor.

In late 2022, Riel urged a reversal of the adoption of the grid system for buses, calling it a “failed system,” and a return to the hub system, as reported by the Examiner at the time.

The Transportation Master Plan treats a grid-based network as a given. The significant additional investment in public transit would result in expanding and entrenching the grid model. 

Similarly, while the plan does not explicitly propose lower fares, it does note that eliminating fares altogether would increase ridership by 8.6%. The intent of the plan is to encourage a shift towards higher use of public transit by current drivers.

As reported by Currents in 2024, Riel joined nearly all of his fellow councillors in voting for a fare increase, shifting the cost of public transit further onto users, in order to lower a proposed tax increase.

Riel said at the time that he wished there was a way to target the increase such that people in poverty would be exempt from the higher fares.

There are existing systems to support the transit costs of people on Ontario Works and ODSP, but the key is that ridership should be increasing, and needs to be less targeted, not more.

Riel’s platform doesn’t address transit or transportation directly. 

Keith Riel’s campaign did not reply to our request for comment.