Residents worry Purcells Cove bus cut would mean fewer people enjoying wilderness

Residents in the Halifax-area community of Purcells Cove say a proposal to cut bus service limits options for locals and reduces access to outdoor spaces — just as the city's first wilderness park is set to open in the area.

Halifax regional council is set to vote Tuesday on the proposed change in service, as laid out in Halifax Transit's Moving Forward Together plan, a strategy for overhauling transit in the municipality.

It would see Route 15, which runs from Bayers Road to York Redoubt, replaced by the 25 and 415. Route 25 will go as far as Williams Lake Road, and the 415 would provide only peak-time service from Bayers Road to York Redoubt.

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Municipal officials say ridership on Route 15 is too low to support an all-day service and the cost too high, and at least one transit advocacy group argues the money would be better spent on supporting other routes.

But Purcells Cove resident Geoffrey Grantham told the CBC's Information Morning that cutting Route 15 will have consequences for the ability of people without cars to enjoy the wilderness.

"The Number 15 route has ... superb wilderness areas that are really close to the urban core," Grantham said.

The new 154-hectare Halifax Wilderness Park on land off Purcells Cove Road is set to open around August 2019, he said, just when the bus cuts would go through.

"It's very ironic, and I believe that the service levels should be kept as it is."

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Grantham said he frequently goes on hikes in the area, and often encounters people who are impressed by how accessible the wilderness is.

"I meet young people all the time who are just thrilled to be there, that they didn't have to drive three hours in a car to get there; they could just take a bus, get off and have a nice hike, and they're just amazed that it actually exists this close to the urban core."

Grantham said the proposed changes reduce access to wilderness at times when people want to be exploring those spaces, such as the weekend. 

But the transit advocacy group It's More Than Buses supports the reduction in service. 

"There are a lot of communities in HRM that are quite low-income and marginalized in various ways that don't have access to transit that's as good as Purcells Cove Road is going to have, and in some cases don't have access to transit at all," said the group's chair, Scott Edgar. 

Edgar said the low ridership numbers on the 15 — Halifax Transit reported an average of 13.6 passengers per hour on the route during the week — mean the resources spent on that route could be better used elsewhere, such as with Route 25.

"I think Halifax Transit understands that if they were to take those resources that they're currently spending on the Number 15, and spend them elsewhere ... they're going to be able to make those resources of use to way, way more people."