Question 1:
What role can transit play in reducing traffic congestion and mitigating increasing expenditures on road maintenance?
Transit is critical to getting local cars off the road and reducing congestion and traffic, particularly in and towards our downtown core and transit stations. Burlington is a commuter throughway, which is not something we can entirely control without support from the province – but we can offer our own residents better, more reliable ways of getting around which don’t require a personal vehicle or Uber/taxi. Public transit is the best way to move people efficiently in a city like ours, hands down.
Question 2:
In your opinion, what can be done to improve specialized transit for disabled riders and would you be in favour of raising the budget for this increasingly important service?
Wait times have been the big issue I’ve heard from people who rely on Specialized Transit for themselves or family members, so my primary focus would be on addressing that concern. This will necessitate a budget increase for the service, which I will support. My ultimate long-term goal will be to have a fully publicly-owned and maintained fleet of handivans to get us off out-sourcing for this critical service, whether to ARGO or taxis.
Question 3:
Burlington’s and Halton’s Official Plans call for transit’s share of all trips to rise to 20% (from the current figure of about 4%) by 2031. Do you support this objective?
Yes, and I believe we will need to start focusing on greater regional integrations to help facilitate this goal across southern Halton. Our population must increase to 1.1-million people in Halton by 2050, we can’t do this and still focus solely on car-centric infrastructure, I’m glad our Official Plans recognize this.
Question 4:
With record ridership and increasing demand, are you in favour of supporting continued expansion of Burlington’s transit system?
Yes. I believe our transit system needs a fresh and total overhaul, something I will push for this term if elected. We need to focus on system reliability and frequency, particularly for youth riders from the schools and hotspots like parks and community centres, while implementing ideas like on-demand service for greater in-community access.
Question 5:
Have you ever used Burlington Transit? Would you be willing to give it a try?
For years I took the #2 route down from Brant & Upper Middle to Burlington GO for college and work in Oakville, and had one of the originally issued PRESTO cards from when the program was introduced way back in 2010. While I don’t use transit much these days due to working primarily from home, I was already planning if elected to use it to get to City Hall from the same Brant & Upper Middle bus stop I went to all those years prior.
Question 6:
The Ontario Legislature recently passed Bill 98, the Building Homes and Improving Transportation Infrastructure Act, 2026, which gives the provincial Minister of Transportation the power to override municipal transit authorities and set routes and fares for municipal transit systems. We at BFAST have the following concerns about this legislation:
1) It could disrupt current arrangements between transit systems in Burlington, Oakville and Hamilton that provide connections between these cities.
2) The Minister could divert Burlington Transit resources — for example, to provide service along the planned bus rapid transit corridor on Highway 5 (Dundas St.), which was supposed to have been undertaken by GO Transit. This would, in effect, download more fiscal responsibility from the province to local governments.
3) Certain initiatives by Burlington Transit, such as free fares for seniors and students, could be eliminated. Please comment on this legislation and what measures you would undertake or support to ensure transit service levels in Burlington would not be degraded.
Bill 98 is a disaster on so many levels, but the potential interference it allows on municipal and regional planning is, frankly, insane and only going to create chaos. Unfortunately neither I nor any other candidate can promise to safeguard our transit systems and plans from the province’s whims, there is simply no mechanism to stop them – that will be up to voters in the next provincial election.
However, I believe if we work on improving our City Council’s poor relationship with the province and ministers, we can make ourselves less of a tempting target. The Ford government may never embrace my want for a full system overhaul with an explicit focus on reducing their favourite voting base – highway commuters – but they have demonstrated willingness to embrace ideas to create more reliable, cost-effective plans for local transit systems. If we demonstrate our solutions work, it will be harder for them to dismiss them, especially if done so with public backing. But we need to have a working relationship first to get them to listen to us, and we don’t have that right now.
Question 7:
Over the past months, a plan has been promoted wherein a private company would provide on-demand transit service to potentially replace certain routes operated by Burlington Transit. Among BFAST’s concerns with this plan are:
1) Over-reliance on one private company to provide a service that could not be easily replaced if the provider were to fail.
2) Cost escalation and more traffic on our roads as mini-buses replaced current vehicles and more drivers were needed to move the same number of passengers.
3) Diversion of already-constrained Burlington Transit budget to a private, for-profit company, resulting in lower levels of service.
We would appreciate your comments on on-demand transit in general and the idea of diverting public budgets to private corporations.
I deeply appreciate this concern about the on-demand service, and I hope to learn how we can create and fund on a public fleet to provide it. Having worked in the local transit industry on the side of a private company contracted out to do the work (a taxi company in this case), I know how costs balloon and also how unaccountable this trade-off can feel for users. I’m always for a public solution first, and skeptical of private industry reliance.
This all being said, I do believe on-demand is going to be a viable and critical service for many communities and riders in Burlington, particularly with how our system is currently set up. Even public services have to bend to the laws of supply and demand, and I know the demand is there – I’ve had people up in Kilbride in rural north Burlington ask about the pilot and whether it will be accessible for them. I want to work with groups like BFAST and others to see how we can get this service in while minimizing the negatives, narrowing it so it doesn’t affect our current system but only supplements it, what it will cost us to do so, and how reliable we can make it.