A call for out of town buses to use the bus station.
During Wednesday's Environment, Transportation and Public Safety Committee Meeting, councillors were given a report on out of town buses, and where they are parking their buses while picking up and dropping off passengers.
This stemmed from a council question in October where a bus was dropping off passengers in front of Windsor Police Headquarters, with concerns that the bus was stopping on a busy street, and that passengers were in an area with no bus shelter.
Administration stated in the meeting this is a designated bus stop for FlixBus, and a right-of-way permit was issued for the company in 2022 to use the space on Goyeau Street as a stop. Administration says this was due to timing issues at Windsor International Transit Terminal (WITT).
Ward 3 city councillor, Renaldo Agostino, says this causes a flurry of issues, but says it seems like these companies are just trying to avoid paying to park at the WITT. The fee per bus company to park at the Terminal is $50,000 a year.
Agostino says he's heard complaints from numerous people on this issue.
"When you're getting phone calls from people that are concerned about old ladies sitting outside in the freezing cold for two hours waiting for a bus, or people walking into random building's in the area asking if there's bus tickets for sale. And then hearing about near collisions for cars, it just doesn't make any sense to me."
He says while FlixBus has a permit to park on the road, other companies have been doing the same thing despite not being allowed to.
"Who's policing this? Who's monitoring this? Is there any enforcement on this? So because of that, we really need to do a dig deep in and see what we can do to help these companies get to the bus station, which is why we built it."
Agostino adds that these bus companies should be using the Windsor International Transit Terminal.
"It has shelter, it has ticketing, it has an empty base, there's availability. Is this just companies trying to find ways to cut costs, and in turn by finding those ways to cut costs have they identified by not using a municipal bus station in a way that they can make more money, and have more problems for us."
The committee has asked for a report to come back to the Environment, Transportation and Public Safety Meeting with different options and ideas for where these bus companies can be parked in the city.
Agostino adds that he hopes the report comes back to the committee swiftly, as he feels this is an ongoing issue in the downtown core.