The #16 bus to return to part of Main Street

According to information the OECA has received from Councillor Chernushenko’s office, OCTranspo plans to reinstate the #16 bus on part of Main Street sometime this spring. Plans are to have the #16 from downtown come up Lees Avenue as it does now, and turn left onto Main Street and continue south on Main Street as far as Hazel Street, where it will make a left turn into the parking lot of Saint Paul University, and terminate its run at the university. Plans are to eliminate the existing route west on Hawthorne Avenue, up Elgin Street and around the police station. OCTranspo also plans to renumber the existing twice-a-day #5 run from Sandy Hill along Main Street to the hospitals on Smyth Road. Presumably these two runs will become a #16 route.

OCTranspo has not consulted the OECA on these changes, despite our numerous requests for consultation. We have sent a number of e-mails and made a specific presentation to the transit commission requesting that the #16 be reinstated all the way down Main Street and up Smyth Road to the hospitals. This proposed change will not meet any of the community’s needs, and ignores our many requests for a reinstated route to the hospitals on Smyth Road.