Lengthy bus commute forces public transit user to decline job offer

Tara Brosseau was fully vaccinated and ready to return to in-person work after acing a job interview and landing a coveted job offer near her Riverside home. 

"Being a person with a disability... I'll be honest, finding employment isn't the easiest for myself or anybody to really do," said Brosseau.

But the joy of finding full-time employment was replaced by devastation when she realized public transit options would turn a 10-minute commute by vehicle into a daily trip lasting longer than two hours across two bus systems. 

"To be offered the job and then have to worry about how I'm going to get there... it's devastating," she said.

Brosseau sees it as another example of how accessible transit options in Windsor-Essex put people using the service in inconvenient positions, something Windsor councillor and Transit Windsor advisory committee member Rino Bortolin has heard before.

"To me that's emblematic of the exact logic and reasoning as to why we do need to invest in transit at this time," he said. 

Brosseau's options inconvinent, expensive 

Brosseau applied to a job posting that had two locations, one easily accessible by public transit. She was offered a position at the second location. 

"When I found out where the job was, I knew transportation was an issue."

She looked at taking a cab but costs would be beyond $300 a month. Handi-Transit, an accessible transit option available in Windsor, did not drive to the office she would work out of.

Catching the first Transit Windsor bus of the day by her home and transferring to Tecumseh Transit at Tecumseh Mall was her most cost effective option, but she says it would require 12 hours a week of time commuting for a job 6 kilometres from her front door.

"It was just very disheartening to know that regardless of how many options I had, none of them could get me where I needed to be."

Brosseau said she'll look closer at the places she applies to in the future, but connected this disappointment to previous experiences using public transit in the region. 

"I feel that a lot of their routes aren't relevant to popular destinations. For me to get to the mall from here is over an hour with a transfer," said Brosseau. 

2022 city budget suggests upgrades, but skips key route

There are proposed investments in the upcoming Windsor budget that Transit Windsor says will increase services options and make public transit more effective for users.

There's a $1.8-million increase in the 2022 operating budget, with about 75 per cent of that covering salary adjustments and the rising cost of fuel. 

The city would also spend $392,000 on the permanent addition of the 518X route connecting St. Clair College to Devonshire Mall, a pilot project that started in September that was saved in the 2021 budget process when the college promised to cover half the costs. 

The budget also proposes doubling the fare for the tunnel bus from Windsor to Detroit, making it $10 a trip. That would cover what Windsor-Detroit BorderLink charges Transit Windsor for each trip, rising to $9.75 on Jan. 1.

There's also $37-million in the 10-year capital budget to replace aging buses with new vehicles, $802,000 to implement Phase 1 of the Transit Windsor master plan, which will cover the cost of new software that will help make routes more effective. 

But staff say a proposed route that Transit Windsor refers to as "a key building block" for changes under the Transit Windsor master plan should not be funded at this time.

That route, 418X, would connect transit users from Tecumseh Mall to the Lancer Centre at the University of Windsor while adding 15 full-time jobs at a cost of $1 million.

Bortolin wants to see that route funded.

"We hear over and over that ridership is down. People have suffered because of the pandemic so we can't increase taxes and yet this is the actual time we do need to invest," he said. 

Meanwhile, Brosseau is focused on applying for her next job. She said she'll look carefully at where potential employers are located before applying.

"It's unfortunate that I had to miss out on full-time employment because transit just doesn't work."