A city committee is pledging its support for maintaining transit service in Windsor.
On Wednesday, the Environment, Transportation and Public Safety Standing Committee approved Transit Windsor's 2021 budget with unanimous support.
The document calls for a nearly 5% budget increase due to higher costs across the board combined with extra COVID-19 expenses.
Councillor Kieran McKenzie sits on the committee says further investments need to be made in transit.
"The report does highlight the fact that we do need to continue to invest in transit in order to make the system reliable and for the users of transit to be able to incorporate transit usage into their daily routines."
He says the committee is fully committed to making transit the best it can be.
"We are going to have significant pressures with regards to transit providing every level of service coming up in our budget deliberations, but this standing committee making this statement here today is continuing to walk the walk on public transit."
New Ward 9 councillor Kieran McKenzie at Windor City Council's swearing in ceremony on December 3, 2018 (Photo by AM800's Zander Broeckel)
McKenzie says he's hoping all of council lends the same support.
"This committee is communicating to the community that we are prepared to continue to make investments to provide that service and to stay on track with the service levels that we've talked about providing the community. I think it's a very important decision that we're making here and I hope that we'll see unanimous support."
The 2021 Transit Windsor budget calls for a 4.88% increase amounting to nearly $740,000 more than 2020.
Transit's budget will now go to council for further discussion during the city's 2021 budget deliberations which are expected to get underway in late February.