As students learned at great cost during the winter 2008-09 OC Transpo strike, a strike can turn an easy errand into a lengthy and frustrating expedition.
Now, students in York Region, a 1,800 square kilometre super-suburb of more than a million people, have to endure the same fate. The citizens of this enormous borough need to call on the province to make York Region Transit (YRT) an essential service.
Students use YRT to commute to more than a dozen colleges and universities in the Greater Toronto Area. For some, it’s only the first leg of a daily hop between multiple jurisdictions and their various transit services.
Although routes that share service with the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and other municipal transit services are still running, getting much farther than your doorstep in that mammoth, car-dependent collection of cities is pretty much impossible without a transit service you can rely on.
While drivers and mechanics contracted to operate YRT’s fleet must be able to collectively bargain, their ability to strike paralyzes the lives of those without access to cars or taxicabs. Many of those people happen to be students.
In an area where a one car per person household is common, public transportation must serve as the dependable, alternative in a carbon-friendly future.
When these services can be halted any time labour negotiations go south, the fledgling YRT fails to appeal to commuters and an already congestion-plagued region sinks further into deadlock.
As they have already done with TTC, the Ontario government must make YRT an essential service — for students, for the environment, and for an end to gridlock.