Taking the city bus instead of the school bus may soon be a reality for students at an east London high school.
City council, sitting as the strategic priorities and policy committee, voted 13-2 on Tuesday in favour of a pilot project that would see free London Transit passes issued to Grade 9 students at Clarke Road Secondary this September. Councillors Susan Stevenson and Jerry Pribil were the only two opposed.
The pilot project is championed by Deputy Mayor Shawn Lewis, who has been working to bring it to fruition since 2019.
"It's a no brainer for everyone - the Thames Valley District School Board, the City of London, and our students," said Lewis. "We will be opening up access to before and after school sports that will not be dependent on students being able to get a ride to or from. We will be opening up the opportunity for part time jobs. We will be opening up the opportunity for co-op placements."
Clarke Road Secondary was selected as the site for the pilot due to the number of bus routes in service in the area and the available bus capacity to supported increased ridership in the mornings and afternoons.
While the details of the agreement between city hall, the school board and the London Transit Commission still need to be finalized, the plan would be to give Grade 9 students passes for the 2024-25 school year. The program would then be expanded to Grade 9 and 10 students the following school year.
"My hope is that we will eventually be following this through all the cohorts at Clarke Road and then be able to start phasing in transit passes at other secondary schools as well," said Lewis. "It is going to take time... There will be a need, in some cases, to put more buses on the routes that serve some of our high schools. So we do have to get some data first."
A similar program for secondary students has been in place in Kingston since 2012. A researcher studying that program found students that were given the free bus pass in Grade 9 were three times more likely to take public transit in Grade 12 and into their adult life.
Lewis noted the cost to get the project off the ground will be outweighed by the long-term benefits.
"The value for the city is we start working on our climate change targets, we start to work on that mode share shift that we have been talking about over the last month as part of the master mobility plan, we start to see that transit ridership increase," said Lewis. "If we have to spend a couple hundred thousand dollars to get these students on the bus and start establishing a positive transit experience for them and get all those other positive benefits that come along with it, then I think it is money well spent to try it and see if it works."