The Town of Amherstburg will seek approval from councillors Tuesday night for a five-year extension and adding an additional daily trip for the transit route connecting the town and Windsor.
Route 605 began in Sept. 2022 as a two-year pilot program and runs three times a day between Amherstburg and the Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare (HDGH) terminal in Windsor.
A majority of riders using Route 605 are post-secondary students -- University of Windsor students representing 36 per cent and St. Clair College students accounting for 22 per cent.
"They're finding Amherstburg a great place to visit, maybe while they're studying, especially if they're coming from abroad," said councillor Linden Crain. "It's really helping bring more people to the town at a low cost."
Route 605’s southbound bus departs from the HDGH terminal on weekdays at 6 a.m., 1:30 p.m. and 6 p.m.
Transit Windsor data shows the monthly average of ridership for Route 605 increased from 655 in the last four months of 2022 to 1,133 for the entirety of 2023.
For the first four months of 2024, the monthly rider average sits at 1,275.
"Ridership has grown significantly," Crain said. "We're looking at an increase of up to 95 per cent since 2022. Looking at when we first started it back in September 2022 with 462 riders for that month, now fast forwarding to May of this year, there's over 1,300 a month."
Crain says the approach the town is currently taking with public transit benefits taxpayers.
"We're sharing costs with Transit Windsor and we're not actually establishing a massive bus station in Amherstburg and dealing with all of the operating costs. No different than us sharing police services with Windsor is that cost sharing leads to less of a burden on the taxpayers and the ability to expand your service."
If approved by Amherstburg council, the report will then head to Windsor's Environment, Transportation & Public Safety Standing Committee on Wednesday Jun. 26.
-With files from CTV Windsor's Sanjay Maru
