Are you ready to talk transit? You better be because the time has come for the first meeting of Guelph Transit Advisory Committee for this term, and this year! After sorting out the usual business of starting a new term at committee, the new and old members will dig in to the business of new changes to Transit coming up later this year (budget affirmation pending) and some updates about other transit business.

NOTE: This meeting takes place at 5:30 pm at Committee Meeting Room A at City Hall.

Welcome to New TAC Members – Before getting into committee business, returning members will welcome the new ones including Maryam Rehman representing conventional transit users, community at large member Colleen Harper, University of Guelph administration rep June Baldwin, and Dania El-Ayoubi for the Guelph Wellington Task Force for Poverty Elimination.

Nominations and Approval of 2023 TAC Chair and Vice Chair – Since this is the first official meeting of the new term, the committee will have to vote for a new chair and vice-chair. Susan Carey and Frank Holden were the chair and vice-chair at the end of the term, and they may again be chair and vice-chair since they were both re-appointed. Transit GM Robin Gerus and admin assistant Judi Prigione will oversee the election.

Approval of 2023 TAC Meeting Dates – Including this meeting, TAC is committed to nine meeting dates this year, which will remain regularly schedule every third Thursday of the month at 5:30 pm with the exception of July, August and December. You can see the list of proposed meeting dates here.

Approval of the Terms of Reference – Another pro forma matter that committee needs to dispatch is the approval of the update terms of reference. The only big change for this update is that the representatives of the Guelph Wellington Task Force for Poverty Elimination and the University of Guelph administration will now both be appointed by their respective organizations.

TAC Members’ Rider Feedback – This is the opportunity for members of the committee to offer some first hand feedback about the current transit service and notes that they’ve received from other riders they know. There’s no formal report for this item.

2023 Proposed Service Changes Pending Council Approval – There’s no formal report with this item, but the information has been out there for over a year now. In November 2021, council approved a 10-year service improvement plan for transit, and a few weeks after that, they approved $1.77 million in new spending to implement the first year’s worth of changes. The second year of changes, which cost $1.26 million for 2023, are coming up for ratification at the budget meeting on January 25, and presumably this is what transit staff are going to cover.

For the record, that $1.26 million will go to 12 more operators and four more buses. This will allow transit users to see more midday frequency for the #10 Imperial, #12 General Hospital, and #13 Victoria Road Rec Centre, while also increasing frequency on the #8 Stone Road Mall bus including 20-minute weekday and Saturday service.

General Transit Update and Update on Capital Projects – No report on these two items was included in the board agenda, so these will be verbal reports from Guelph Transit management in-meeting.

SEE THE COMPLETE AGENDA ON THE City of Guelph WEBSITE HERE.