Need a ride to work? Mayors push for London-St. Thomas bus link

London and St. Thomas mayors are pushing for transit service between the two cities, with thousands of jobs coming to the region and others already here to feed demand.

Though the need for London-St. Thomas transit has been discussed for years, recent industrial development and the impending arrival of mega-employers including Amazon in Talbotville and Volkswagen are the catalyst to finally make the route a reality, St. Thomas Mayor Joe Preston said Wednesday.

“There’s a true economic reason for it to be there,” he said. “There are six ways from Sunday to get to Toronto, but we can’t get them 15 miles up the highway to London? It doesn’t make sense.”

Officials announced this spring plans to open a multibillion-dollar Volkswagen electric vehicle battery plant in St. Thomas in 2027, expected to attract suppliers to the area as well. The plant alone is expected to employ about 7,000 workers.

Other mega-projects are in the offing, Preston said, including an Amazon distribution center at the former Ford Talbotville site. The operation, with about 1,500, workers, is set to open this year.

In London, Phase 5 of Innovation Park, near Highway 401 and Veterans Memorial Parkway, is set to begin later this year. A London Transit Commission bus route from Argyle Mall to the area launches June 26.

A transit route also could support the Maple Leaf Foods plant on London’s southern edge on Wilton Grove Road that started production last fall, Preston said.

Preston envisions hourly transit service from London to St. Thomas, passing by the Amazon site, or Maple Leaf Foods, or both. The route would use small buses, carrying 15 to 17 passengers, so they could operate at nearly full capacity from the start, he said.

It would be integrated with both St. Thomas’s and London’s transit systems, so riders would not have to pay two fares, he said.

While he believes one-way fares of $5 to $10, or monthly passes, would make the route self-sustaining, neither St. Thomas nor London city hall wants to assume all risk for the project, Preston said.

“We’re asking the province to backstop this. We feel pretty comfortable that it will not be a money-losing venture, that it will pay its own freight,” he said. “But neither of our communities wants to take on that risk or liability without some support from the provincial government.”

The province is being asked for less than $1 million to launch a three-year pilot project, Preston said.

He and London Mayor Josh Morgan hope to speak with Transport Minister Caroline Mulroney at the Association of Municipalities of Ontario annual conference in London in August.

“We’re actively engaging with the province about transit between our communities,” Morgan said. “When you think about how many people go between London and St. Thomas on a daily basis, how many jobs each of us has in our industrial areas, it only makes sense to investigate how we can flow people more efficiently between those areas.”

In London-St. Thomas route makes particular sense with some of the transit pieces in the city’s south end, including the southern terminus of London’s bus rapid transit at White Oaks Mall and the new route through Innovation Park, Morgan said.

“There’s a movement of people that has to happen in this area that, through collaboration with Mayor Preston and the province, maybe we can find solutions to,” he said.

In London-St. Thomas bus link would add to intercommunity routes between London’s Argyle Mall transit hub and Dorchester, London and Grand Bend, and Strathroy and Grand Bend, Morgan said.

“This could be a very popular piece,” Preston said. “Right now, the only way to get between London and St. Thomas if you don’t have a car is to take a cab, and that’s about $40.

“We’re quite anxious to move this forward.”

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