CKTransit has launched a new fifth conventional route in Chatham as well as an additional mid-day trip on the Inter-Urban Service after council unanimously approved the enhancements.
The additional Chatham route will provide riders with a second option to travel along Grand Avenue West to St. Clair College Thames Campus. The route will also service the new Cascades Casino, Holiday Inn, Bradley Convention Centre complex as well as Richmond Street to Queen which has been a dead zone for bus services.
“With the capacity of our current buses and the increase in our ridership, we have had some overcrowding and even some service denials on the way to St. Clair College,” said Ann-Marie Millson, Manager, Linear Assets for the municipality, in a press release. “Reliability is important to keep and grow our ridership so this new service will address that capacity issue as well as service a destination we believe will be in high demand.”
Staff will also be making minor adjustments to the existing conventional routes to better ensure they adhere to their 30-minute frequency. The additional fifth route, which will be a one-hour route, intends to have connection points with each of the existing routes to provide riders with more transfer points outside of the Downtown Terminal to get them to their destination faster.
The mid-day Inter-Urban trip will be in effect for Routes A, C, and D, which service Wallaceburg/Dresden, Blenheim/Ridgetown, and Tilbury/South Kent respectively. Mid-day run will not take place on Saturdays or Statutory Holidays.
Route A will now service St. Clair College when returning to Chatham from Wallaceburg with a minor route change in Wallaceburg and in Chatham. Route D will now service Jeanette’s Creek when leaving Tilbury and will now stop at St. Clair College. Routes A and D will cross over Route 5 as a transfer point.
“We have many riders who come into Chatham for class or an appointment and are delayed until the afternoon run begins,” said Millson. “We hope this additional mid-day trip will improve convenience and encourage more people to use it as their mobility option.”
All enhancements will be in place until June 2020. The ridership statistics will be monitored and minor changes may still occur. Riders are encouraged to monitor changes on the CKTransit website.
Details of the new service, service changes as well as printable maps will be available www.CKTransit.ca.
