Dec. 15 Niagara letters: Greater spending on Niagara transit needed (St. Catharines Standard letter to the editor)

(from https://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/dec-15-niagara-letters-greater-spending-on-niagara-transit-needed/article_f367ee1f-9f7b-5637-83bc-58a50a5e5f1a.html)

Regionalization of public transit has improved service and more spending is needed, says reader

Letter to the EditorNiagara Dailies

Friday, December 15, 2023

1 min to read

Article was updated Dec 18, 2023

Invest more in transit

Re: Transit a 'pig in a poke,' Letters, Dec. 11

The above is misleading because it suggests Niagara Region Transit's budget is increasing because of hiring staff, and says, “Let taxpayers see the expenses line by line,” when they already can in extensive reports.

Transit should be where we invest more money and expand services.

The letter writer says making transit regional was supposed to improve service. It has. OnDemand reaches places without a regular bus, and co-ordinating between cities saves riders lots of time.

But this is not enough. As a rider told regional council at its Nov. 30 budget meeting, we need to “break out of the cycle of underinvesting to keep the loudest voices happy.”

Instead, council is looking to make dangerous cuts, and the transit commission is looking to cut paratransit and OnDemand, which are used by the most vulnerable people who have no other option.

Saleh Waziruddin

Letter to Niagara Regional Council against making rules for delegating more difficult

 Dear Councillors,

The current procedural rules already make it very difficult if not impossible to delegate effectively because by needing to submit a delegation by the Friday morning before a Regional Council meeting we don't know of key developments happening before we can submit our delegation. Key committee meetings, reports, and proposals may not happen until closer to the Regional Council meeting on the Thursday after the deadline to submit a delegation.

The new rule changes from the Procedural By-law Review Committee amending Section 13.5 make delegating more difficult by moving the deadline for delegating in extenuating circumstances further back two days. If it's an extenuating circumstance we might not know until the afternoon of the meeting.

There should be a normal, not extenuating, opportunity for people to request delegating to Council up to and including the afternoon of the Council and Committee meetings so that we don't have to play guessing games of what will happen in the days before the meeting to figure out what our delegation content will be. Normalizing delegation requests closer to the meetings help make delegations better informed and prepared when requesting to speak to Council.

Thank you,

Saleh Waziruddin in St. Catharines