North Bay transit to see $4.1 million worth of upgrades
North Bay is upgrading its public transit with a combined investment of more than $4.1 million from the federal, provincial and municipal government. The city is purchasing two new gas buses and six hybrid buses. They are also buying new maintenance equipment, including two sidewalk tractors and five transit-vehicle lifting device. Funding will also go toward upgrading the transit terminal with a video screen displaying arrival times, as well as new heating, ventilation and air conditioning. North Bay Mayor Peter Chirico said the eventual goal is to test what these hybrid buses can do – how they can reduce emissions and how we move into the next decade of greening. “Northern Ontario is a different place than Toronto to move right to electric; I don’t think it’s tried, tested and true. We’ve seen some communities go directly to electric and wish they had gone the gradual way,” he said, adding hybrid will eventually be replacing the older fleet. Chirico said the city’s fleet department does a good job maintaining the city buses with a life expectancy of six to seven years for a transit bus. “We’re working on nine to 10 years … They’re not cheap. The more we can keep them on the road, the more maintenance we can do in addition to the regular maintenance – these are the things that can help extend the life (of transit buses).” North Bay continues to try and recoup transit riders lost during the COVID-19 pandemic. Chirico said these improvements will help in that cause. “We’re approaching where we were pre-Covid days as far as ridership numbers, and now we’re encouraging more. With an updated fleet and the ability to service with these specialty lifts, it will encourage more people to utilize transit.” He said the improvements inside the transit terminal are safety and convenience investments. “We will see that ridership continues to grow, especially within the college and university.” Nipissing-Timiskaming MP Anthony Rota said this is a prime example of three levels of government coming together jointly to make sure we have services in North Bay. The federal government invested $1.65 million, $1.38 came from the province and $1.1 came from the City of North Bay. (Catch up on what is happening throughout the North Bay area with our noon-hour roundup. Click here to sign up for the free newsletter which will be delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.)
