Failing grade for Milton Transit in Toronto Board of Trade report

A scathing report has given Milton Transit a D-, tied for the worst in the GTA.

The Toronto Board of Trade released a comprehensive report card of local transits with Toronto and Mississauga scoring the highest grade, B, while Milton and Oakville tied for the worst.

The transit systems were rated in several categories, the most heavily-weighted being reliability. Also taken into consideration was frequency, coverage, transit priority (things like dedicated lanes and signal priority), 24-hour service, integration with neighbouring transit systems and how much the service grew from 2010 to 2019.

Milton Transit scored poorly in every category except growth, where it was easily the highest among the services rated in Toronto, York, Mississauga, Brampton, Durham, Hamilton, Waterloo, Oakville, Burlington and Guelph.

The most deficient area was in transit service frequency and base service coverage. According to the report, 89 per cent of residents are within walking distance of a transit route, second worst behind Hamilton, and only 58 per cent of jobs are within walking distance, significantly behind the second worst, 78 per cent in Hamilton.

Milton is one of only two services, along with Oakville, that doesn’t have a max 15-minute route and even when the time is expanded to every 30 minutes, less than 10 per cent of residents and jobs are covered. In all other areas, that number is at least 65 per cent.

Other than growth, the only positive for Milton Transit was integration with other services thanks to bus connections with GO bus and rail services. Even that, however, was a limited positive as the report pointed out there is no service integration with neighbouring Oakville and fare payment is not integrated with Presto.

To read the full report, visit here.