Bruce County and South Bruce Peninsula are footing the bill to keep a local transit route alive until the end of the year.
On Thursday, County council approved the reallocation of $26,500 in unspent funds from the Transit Demand and Feasibility Study, to cover 50 per cent of the cost to keep Grey Transit Route 5 in operation to the end of 2024.
The rest of the funding for the route, which runs from Wiarton to Owen Sound, will come from the Town of South Bruce Peninsula.
Grey County decided to stop supporting the route after Labour Day of this year, focusing its resources on others with higher ridership.
The GTR has been supported by provincial funding since its inception, but with Ontario ending the Community Transportation Grant Program in March of 2025, the future of the service remains in doubt.
South Bruce Peninsula Mayor Jay Kirkland says unless there's changes the rural transit won't return next year.
"We are saying that this is going to the end of 2024. We're giving that much notice to the people and I appreciate the County coming in with South Bruce Peninsula," he said. "Unless we see funding from the province, this program is not, in my opinion, going forward in 2025."
From September 2022 to August 2023, there were 3100 riders that used the Wiarton to Owen Sound route.
Kirkland says while it was a well-used route in the summer, particularly when South Bruce Peninsula paid to have it extend to Sauble Beach, the lack of support from the Ontario government means another attempt at solving rural transit could die.
"They give us this bone a few years ago and now they're just pulling it away. It's very difficult," he said. "It's expensive for rural transit. Every meeting, every council I've been on has talked about rural transit, I don't know how to solve it. This was the beginning of a portion of rural transit... but I don't know the answers. Somebody needs to pull that magic out of the sky and show us how to do rural transit, because something needs to change."
County staff said they would continue to communicate with Grey County and South Bruce Peninsula to determine what options may be available for service continuation in 2025.