THUNDER BAY -- The vice-president of the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association says he is optimistic the Ontario government will soon announce support for a regional highway bus service.
Iain Angus made the comment on Wednesday in an interview following his participation in a conference call with provincial officials.
He described the call as the first in a number of steps to try to define how best to provide an inter-community bus transportation system in northwestern Ontario.
Angus said the province has been conducting a multi-modal transportation study for northern Ontario. As part of that process, NOMA, Common Voice Northwest and the Northwestern Ontario Associated Chambers of Commerce put forward a proposal to include bus service in the northwest.
According to Angus, the province recently produced some draft principles in which it agreed there is a need for such a service.
"The argument that we put forward is that we already have carriers in the northwest. Some of them are struggling, and we want to use them to provide the service. There's no need to create a new organization," he said.
Angus said that whether it's a local provider such as Kasper or Caribou, one of the new startups, or even Greyhound "I think that they need to be supported so that we can have the community-to-community-to community bus system that we need."
The regional lobby groups have envisaged a daily service that would bring passengers to Thunder Bay in time for medical or other appointments, and return them the same day.
However, Angus said, the feasibility of the service depends on provincial funding.
"There has to be funding. One of the things our study found was that none of the carriers really can make a financial go of it in the long term...We need to provide a subsidy."
Angus said he believes a favourable decision will be announced by the province early in 2018.
The government's Ontario Northland Transportation Commission currently provides intercity bus service to communities in the northeast.
