Question 1:
What role can transit play in reducing traffic congestion and mitigating increasing expenditures on road maintenance?
Effective public transit has an important role to play in Burlington’s transportation system. When transit provides a convenient, reliable and cost-effective alternative to driving, it can reduce the number of vehicles on our roads, particularly during peak periods and on heavily travelled corridors.
However, simply spending more money on transit or operating more buses does not automatically reduce congestion. The objective must be to attract substantially more people to transit and increase utilization of the service we already provide.
Burlington also faces a particular congestion problem because the QEW is frequently at or near capacity and traffic diverts onto City and Regional roads. Transit alone cannot solve that problem. We need an integrated transportation strategy involving transit, improved traffic management, appropriate road investment, active transportation and continued advocacy for additional provincial highway capacity.
Road maintenance will continue to be required regardless of transit use. Nevertheless, over the longer term, efficiently used public transit can help accommodate population and employment growth without requiring a corresponding increase in automobile trips and road capacity.
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?
Yes. Specialized transit is an essential service for residents who, because of physical or cognitive limitations, cannot use conventional transit.
Demand is increasing. Burlington provided more than 68,000 specialized transit trips in 2024, and the 2026 budget includes $404,000 for an additional specialized transit vehicle together with additional operating resources.
I supported that investment.
We should continue improving availability, booking, reliability and connections with neighbouring specialized transit systems. I am particularly interested in using technology and on-demand scheduling to make specialized transit more responsive while using vehicles and drivers efficiently.
If demonstrated demand requires additional resources, I would support appropriate additional investment based upon a clear service and financial analysis. Accessibility is not an optional component of public transportation.
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?
I support significantly increasing transit use, but I think the 20% figure needs some clarification.
The long-standing Halton Transportation Master Plan forecast a 20% transit modal share for the 2031 PM peak period. Burlington’s more recent Integrated Mobility Plan establishes different targets according to neighbourhood characteristics—for example, a 20% transit target downtown and 15% in residential areas.
Regardless of the particular percentage, we are currently nowhere close to those aspirations.
That tells me our priority should not simply be adding conventional buses. We need to ask why such a large proportion of trips are still made by other means and redesign transit so that it becomes attractive to many more Burlington residents.
I therefore support the objective of substantially increasing transit’s modal share. But targets should be accompanied by realistic implementation plans, measurable results and careful evaluation of the cost of acquiring each additional rider.
Question 4:
With record ridership and increasing demand, are you in favour of supporting continued expansion of Burlington’s transit system?
I support expansion where demonstrated demand justifies it, but I would distinguish between increasing ridership and increasing the number of individual residents using transit.
Burlington Transit recorded more than 3.7 million trips in 2025, a record. That is encouraging. It is also important to understand what those numbers mean. A person travelling to work and home five days a week generates approximately 10 transit trips each week.
Transit represents a substantial and growing investment by Burlington taxpayers. Consequently, my focus is not simply on operating more buses. It is on increasing the number of Burlington residents who choose transit, improving vehicle utilization and providing service in the most cost-effective way possible.
Where conventional fixed routes have strong demand, they should be maintained and strengthened. Where buses routinely operate with very low occupancy, we should be willing to examine better service-delivery models.
The measure of success should be more people receiving better mobility for every taxpayer dollar invested.
Question 5:
Have you ever used Burlington Transit? Would you be willing to give it a try?
Yes, I have used Burlington Transit, but I do not use it regularly because, for the trips I normally make, it is not sufficiently convenient compared with the alternatives available to me.
I think that experience points directly to the challenge Burlington Transit needs to address.
If we want substantially more Burlington residents to choose public transit, we need to provide a service that works for people whose travel patterns do not necessarily fit traditional fixed routes and schedules. Frequency, travel time, proximity to origins and destinations, connections and reliability all influence that decision.
I would certainly use Burlington Transit when it provides a practical alternative for the journey I need to make.
That is also one reason I support testing new approaches such as on-demand transit alongside well-used fixed routes. Our objective should be to make public transit sufficiently convenient and attractive that many more residents—including people like me who do not currently use it regularly—choose to use it.
The real measure of success is not simply how much transit service we provide. It is how many people find that service useful enough to choose it.
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.
I have concerns about Bill 98, but it is important to distinguish between what the legislation actually permits and what might happen under future provincial regulations.
The Fare Alignment and Seamless Transit Act contained in Bill 98 gives the Province substantial authority to establish fare structures, require unified payment systems, designate priority routes, establish service standards and require transit systems to operate outside their normal service areas.
There are potential benefits. Seamless fares, easier travel between municipalities and improved cross-boundary specialized transit could be very helpful to Burlington residents.
However, Burlington taxpayers should not be required to finance services that properly constitute regional or provincial transportation infrastructure without appropriate provincial funding.
That is particularly relevant to the proposed Dundas Street BRT. This is a 48-kilometre regional corridor extending from Hamilton through Burlington, Oakville and Mississauga to Toronto. It is a Metrolinx regional transportation initiative. Burlington should participate in an integrated regional system, but Burlington property taxpayers should not disproportionately assume the operating cost of a regional transit service.
I would therefore support:
- continued coordination with Oakville, Hamilton, Halton Region and Metrolinx;
- protecting Burlington service levels when regional services are introduced;
- requiring appropriate provincial funding for provincially mandated or regional services;
- protecting Burlington taxpayers from unfunded provincial downloading; and
- evaluating any provincially directed fare changes for their financial and service implications for Burlington.
The same principle applies to Burlington’s free transit policies for seniors and children and free evening/weekend travel for youth. Council adopted those policies locally. If the Province proposes changing them through its new fare-setting authority, I would expect full disclosure of the financial and service implications and would advocate for Burlington’s interests.
Regional integration can be beneficial. It should not come at the expense of Burlington service or Burlington taxpayers.
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 strongly support examining on-demand transit, but I think it is important to clarify what Burlington Council has actually authorized.
Council directed staff in April 2026 to develop a proposal for a two-year pilot project examining how on-demand transit could work with Burlington Transit’s fixed-route system to improve efficiency, increase transit use and extend access to residents who currently do not use fixed-route transit.
The objective is not to indiscriminately replace successful, heavily used routes with minibuses.
Where a conventional bus is carrying significant numbers of passengers, it is almost certainly the most efficient way of moving those passengers. Those routes should remain.
The question is different when a large conventional bus travels for extended periods with very few passengers. We should be prepared to ask whether a smaller on-demand vehicle could provide residents with a more convenient service—potentially picking them up closer to home and connecting them with major transit routes or destinations—at a lower overall cost.
Any pilot should be evaluated against clear measures:
Cost per passenger • Waiting time • Travel time • Ridership • Accessibility • Reliability • Customer satisfaction • Vehicle utilization • Taxpayer subsidy
I do not accept the proposition that using a private company is inherently good or inherently bad.
Burlington already purchases many services from private suppliers when doing so provides residents with better value. The relevant questions are whether the City retains control over service standards, protects customer data, maintains contingency arrangements, preserves competition, avoids becoming dependent upon a single supplier and receives demonstrably better value for taxpayers.
A pilot is precisely how those assumptions should be tested before making a major long-term commitment.
My objective is not to privatize Burlington Transit. It is to modernize it.
We should preserve and strengthen high-performing fixed routes, protect specialized transit, improve connections with GO and neighbouring systems, and use new technology and service models where they can provide residents with better mobility.
The question I will continue asking is straightforward:
How can we provide more Burlington residents with better transportation while making the best possible use of every transit dollar?