Cathy Greer couldn’t hide her smile.
Despite wearing a mask for the official unveiling of two new fully-acessible transit vans for Midland outside the North Simcoe Sports and Recreation Centre Friday morning, the Community Reach’s executive director’s eyes expressed her happiness.
“We’ve been driving our vans for the last 10 years and they’re getting pretty old,” Greer said. “These two new vans are larger and can accommodate larger wheelchairs.”
The vans, which were presented to Community Reach by the Town of Midland and Simcoe North MPP Jill Dunlop, were funded, in part, by the federal and provincial governments through the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program (ICIP).
“This is excellent news to increase accessibility in our region,” said Dunlop, who also wished everyone a Happy Franco-Ontarian Day.
“We are fortunate to have Community Reach provide critical transit services for people with accessibility challenges in Midland. I know this (the vans) will serve the community well and will help people better access services.”
The town received news in April that it had been approved for a combined $568,300 for two projects under the Public Transit stream, in addition to a $36,600 investment previously announced in 2019.
Midland Mayor Stewart Strathearn said the town is fully committed to ensuring it’s accessible to all residents and that purchasing the two transit vans goes a long way in furthering those efforts.
“The fleet we have has been well used and well loved,” Strathearn said. “We all realize Midland’s population is aging. This will help get people where they need to go.”
And the need is definitely there, according to Greer, who noted her organization accommodated 7,000 riders in 2018 with that figure jumping to 19,000 riders the following year.
“We have experienced some breakdowns with a couple of the aging Midland Accessible Transit vans so these new vans will be reliable and ultimately safer going into the winter months,” Greer said, noting the vans also help as more people are now retiring to Midland.
“The population is getting older and more people are moving up to this area.”
As well, Strathearn noted work is currently underway to complete an online transit portal that will provide both accessible and conventional transit riders with access to scheduling, vehicle tracking and online transit smartcard reloading.
He added: “Combined with these new accessible transit vans, Midland will have a much more reliable and user-friendly transit service to get residents where they need to go.”
The Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program is a federal-provincial cost-sharing program which includes up to $30 billion in federal, provincial and other partner funding over 10 years. Ontario’s share per project will be up to 33.33 percent or about $10.2 billion spread across four streams: 1. Rural and Northern, 2. Public Transit, 3. Green, 4. Community, Culture and Recreation.