Windsor council allocates extra funding to road repairs while transit gets less than requested

Windsor's city budget added funding to repair local roads, which council says have been neglected. But while it allocated future money for roadways, it stopped short of giving transit the same long-term supports.

The city will spend an extra $4.4 million over the next four years to help revive ailing residential roads, a much-discussed issue during council budget deliberations Monday. 

The decision, made as part of the 2023 operational budget which includes a 4.48 per cent property tax increase, dedicates extra money from the asset management plan to repair local residential roads, in addition to funding already earmarked for the city's larger roads. Such larger arterial or collector roads, like Ouellette Avenue or EC Row Expressway, have traditionally been prioritized for repair over smaller streets in the city's road rehabilitation budget. 

"I've got residential roads in Riverside that have not been touched in 75 years,"  said Ward 6 Coun. Jo-Anne Gignac during Monday's budget deliberations. "Residents are getting a little frustrated in terms of saying to me, 'when are we doing it?'"

City staff said they will soon bring a report back to council about which roads to prioritize for upcoming repair using the newly approved funding. 

Council votes against funding transit fleet reserve

Transit was the other significant topic of debate Monday, as council opted to trim from the budget a request from Transit Windsor in a bid to lower the tax hit to residents. 

Council opted against spending $480,000 to create a transit fleet reserve, which would help the city replace buses as they age out of service. This is an item in the city's Transit Master Plan, which was approved in 2019 and looks to improve the service over the next decade.  

Transit Windsor executive director Tyson Cragg said it would be a long-term benefit that won't impact the transit service short-term. But, he said, there's always next year. 

While Monday's budget provides millions in new funding for roadways, one advocate said it seems transit funding is still the first to go. 

"From a funding standpoint, it shows that transit is still first on the chopping block to go when it comes to trying to rein budget costs in," said Gabriel Ciavaglia of Activate Transit Windsor-Essex.

"It still shows it's not as big of a priority to council as I think other cities deem transit to be."

Cragg said the budget was a win for transit, with about a million new dollars flowing to the service at a time when buses are "bursting at the seams."

"I'm happy to say our service plan was approved through council yesterday," Cragg said. "That will allow us to put in close to 18,000 new service hours and reallocate about another 30,000 service hours, so there is going to be some significant change coming up late this year and into early next year with some significant improvement in frequency, more service, more routes, better service on Sundays."

Cragg added that the service funding also includes the 418X, which connects transit users from Tecumseh Mall to the Lancer Centre at the University of Windsor. The new route is tentatively expected to start this June.

In response to this, Ciavaglia said his group was pleased to hear that the service got funding to make these improvements, but added that there is still always more room to "grow." 

"The Transit Master Plan is already behind schedule, as we've said before," he said, adding that a transit garage is something his group would like to also see funded into the future. 

Transit Windsor riders told CBC News Tuesday that they're disappointed the service didn't get that pocket of funding to eventually replace old buses, but they said the service improvements are welcome news. 

"One of my biggest priorities for me personally is making sure that certain buses have more frequent pickup times," said Sam Peters, a student who estimated they take the bus at least 10 times a week. 

"There are some buses in the city that come every 40 minutes, which makes it really hard to plan and to get buses consistently, especially when there's like give or take three to five minutes of being early or late on some routes."

Transit fares will go up 10 cents to $3.25 on July 1.