Huntsville improves bus schedule with shorter trips and more daily runs

HUNTSVILLE · The Town of Huntsville has rolled out a new, improved transit schedule as of Monday. The changes decrease idle times, reduce waits and add more stops throughout the day. The single bus route through town now takes 72 minutes to complete, down from 88 minutes. There will be nine buses a day in each direction, an increase from seven, with service running between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Jordan Schmidt, the town’s director of operations, said affordable public transit is a foundation of quality of life for many residents. “Affordable public transit is the foundation of kind of quality of life for elderly residents, students and people that don’t have licences,” Schmidt said in an interview. The route runs from the Bickley Ford dealership to Laketree Residences and back, with the final bus of the day ending at the Walmart stop.

The town revised the schedule after reviewing operational inefficiencies with bus operators. “We reviewed the timing with the bus operators and it looks like we were having a lot of standby time, waiting at stops. So we wanted to revise the stop timings to better serve the public and the ridership,” Schmidt said. These changes are early steps in a plan developed after a 2018 transit study found demand for more frequent and higher-quality service in Huntsville. Following that study and a period of fundraising to acquire grant money, a committee of councillors and town staff formed to create a plan for future expansions. “We’re doing this as a first-year pilot program,” Schmidt said. “We’ll make some minor changes just to better serve what we’re doing right now, but we really want to get six months to a year under our belt before we make any major changes, just to look at the data.”

While the latest update does not expand the geographic coverage of the transit system, Schmidt said the town is looking to service major employers and subdivisions on the edges of Huntsville as a next step. “We’re always looking for opportunities and partnerships to expand. We’re working with the district as well to connect Huntsville to the other local areas. So that’s the Phase 2 that we’re working with,” he added. Signs at bus stops will be updated during November. Until then, riders can view the new schedule online at huntsville.ca/transit. Physical copies of the up-to-date schedule are available at town hall, the Canada Summit Centre and the Huntsville Public Library.

With files from Muskoka Region