Expanded program will give all New Tecumseth residents access to bus stops

Residents who live in Tottenham and the town’s rural areas who don’t drive will soon have a way to hop on the County of Simcoe’s LINX bus that travels between Alliston and Bradford.

At its Nov. 30 meeting, council approved a budget recommendation to make changes to the Community Transportation Program, which subsidizes the cost of taking a taxi to certain locations in town for seniors and people with mobility issues.

The program will be opened up to all residents of New Tecumseth who need to go to and from any bus stop within town, from Monday to Friday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Council has also agreed to include banks as another eligible destination for seniors.

Other eligible locations for these users include medical appointments, grocery shopping, the 54 Plus Seniors Centre, and service trips for the Community Living Associations for South Simcoe and Children’s Treatment Network.

The program currently costs the town $35,600 annually to run.

A person using the service has to pay $3 out of pocket for each in-town trip and $5 for trips between communities.

The town expects to provide 300 trips per year to the LINX stops. At $16 per trip, this will add an additional $4,800 to the annual operating cost of the program.

This was one of several changes council has made to the draft budget since it was first presented last month.

The most significant addition was to move forward with building the new administration centre at the former Alliston Union property at 25 Albert St. W. Another $2.5 million was added to the budget, which brings the total cost of the building to $19.3 million when factoring in spending from prior years.

Other additions include $20,000 to pay for maintenance and repairs at the Tottenham Food Bank to allow the building to meet COVID-19 health regulations, $10,000 for the South Simcoe Arts Council, $40,000 in dedicated annual funding for the Gibson Centre, and a one-time grant of $40,000 to the Alliston Out of the Cold program.

The proposed levy increase has risen slightly from 1.95 per cent to 2.28 per cent. The special levy to build up the asset replacement reserve remains unchanged at 0.5 per cent.

For the owner of an average assessed home worth $452,695, the increase works out to about $63.

The proposed increase to the water and wastewater rates remains unchanged at four per cent.

Council will vote to ratify the budget Dec. 14.