The slow way to Peterborough

Peterborough, Ontario, a city of 84,000 people, is about a 90-minute drive from Downtown Toronto, without heavy traffic. A regional centre for central-east Ontario, Peterborough is home to Trent University, a mid-sized liberal arts institution with about 10,000 full time students, and Fleming College, which has over 6,000 full time students and 10,000 part time students.

Given its relative importance and its proximity to the Greater Toronto Area, especially Durham Region, one might expect to find good transit links from Peterborough to not only Toronto, but elsewhere in Ontario. Unfortunately, this is not really the case.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of Greyhound Canada’s remaining service in Ontario and Quebec, there were four daily Greyhound buses between Peterborough and Toronto (three on Saturdays and Sundays), with one of those daily runs continuing east on Highway 7 to Ottawa, with stops in towns such as Havelock, Madoc, and Perth.

The scheduled time between the old Toronto Coach Terminal at Bay and Dundas Streets and Downtown Peterborough was between one hour and 45 minutes (making only an intermediate stop at Scarborough Centre Station) and two hours, 15 minutes (making local stops in Ajax, Oshawa, and Orono).

In September 2009, GO Transit first started a bus service between Oshawa GO Station, Downtown Peterborough, and Trent University, following the success of other bus services to universities and colleges in the region. Before 2020, that route made only four stops between Oshawa Station and Downtown Peterborough; all were park-and-ride lots adjacent to Highway 35/115; the bus would take just over an hour between the station and Downtown Oshawa.

Despite GO Transit’s competition, the Greyhound service remained popular, as it offered a direct, faster, one-seat ride between Downtown Toronto and Downtown Peterborough, with most buses only stopping at Scarborough Town Centre along the way. Three days a week, there were connections to Bancroft and Pembroke. GO Transit’s advantage was a slightly cheaper fare, connections to local transit and other GO services, and a more convenient service for passengers travelling between Durham Region and Peterborough. Unlike Greyhound, GO Transit continued to Trent University. Apart from the Newcastle (Hwy 2 at Hwy 35/115) park-and-ride, where passengers could connect to GO Transit routes 90/91 to Newcastle, Bowmanville, Courtice, and Downtown Oshawa, the park-and-ride stops were little-used.

In mid-2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic causing major reductions in bus and rail ridership, GO Transit cut and consolidated several services, particularly in areas where local transit agencies operate. Route 90 was reduced to early morning and late-night service between Union Station and Oshawa GO when trains were not operating. The remainder of Route 90 through Courtice, Bowmanville, and Newcastle was cut entirely. Route 91 was merged into Route 88, which added new stops in Courtice and Bowmanville.

Route 88B, which includes stops at park-and-ride lots at proposed new GO Stations in central Oshawa and Courtice, takes up to 120 minutes to get from Trent University to Oshawa Station. The regular 88 bus takes 105 to 115 minutes to complete the trip. That is a very long time to sit on a bus, especially one not equipped with a lavatory.

On Thursdays and Fridays, during regular school days between September and April, there are several express 88C buses, that only stop at Trent University, Peterborough Bus Terminal, and Oshawa GO. They make the complete trip in 1 hour 20 minutes; from Union Station to Downtown Peterborough is 2 hours, 20 minutes, not much slower than the slowest Greyhound bus.

Granted, for anyone living in Bowmanville and headed to Peterborough, the route is an improvement, with a new one-seat-ride now possible. While travelling to Peterborough earlier in September, I noted several passengers getting on in Downtown Bowmanville. But for through passengers, the backtrack to get to the Clarington Boulevard Park & Ride (the proposed location for the Bowmanville GO Station) and then the local stops to Newcastle are a bit annoying. Once on the highway, the bus has to get off at the Highway 35/115 split near Pontypool, and again at County Road 10 near Cavan and Millbrook, despite the very occasional time a passenger wants to get on or off (which has never happened when I rode Route 88). These diversions add 2-3 minutes each to the trip.

These carpool stops might be useful if there were connecting transit services, rather than just a parking lot and a bus shelter. The 35/115 lot near Pontypool is 34 kilometres to Lindsay, a town of nearly 20,000 people, but whose only transit connection is a 3 day/week TOK coach bus between Haliburton and Toronto. A shuttle connection to Lindsay (which has a local transit service) would provide new links to Toronto, Durham Region, and Peterborough. Meanwhile, the Highway 2 carpool lot does not have direct Durham Region Transit service either.

Since Greyhound Canada’s withdrawal from the Canadian market, GO was the only intercity operator serving Peterborough until earlier this year, when Rider Express and Flixbus resumed service on the Toronto-Peterborough-Ottawa route. Both companies offer express, one-seat rides to downtown Toronto, but they have two major disadvantages over GO or even the old Greyhound service: frequency and in-town connections.

Flixbus offers one daily round trip, leaving the Union Station Bus Terminal at 11:00 AM and arriving at a Tim Hortons parking lot (at 1200 Lansdowne Street West, on the southwest side of Peterborough), at 1:05 PM, with stops near Scarborough Town Centre and at Thickson Road and Highway 401 in Whitby. The return trip leaves Peterborough at 9:05 PM, arriving in Toronto at 11:05 PM.

Rider Express runs on the same route four days a week, leaving Union Station at 12:00 PM, arriving at a different Tim Horton’s parking lot (on Ashburnham Road, on the southeast side of Peterborough) at 1:45 PM, making one stop in Scarborough. The return trip leaves Peterborough at 10:05 PM and arrives in Toronto at 11:35 PM. The map below shows where GO, Flixbus, and Rider Express stop in Peterborough.

While GO stops at Trent University, Downtown Peterborough, and a park-and-ride lot on the south end of the city, Flixbus and Rider Express only stop at locations close to the main highway on the south side of Peterborough, pulling into parking lots with nowhere to sit and no real amenities, unless waiting passengers had a car to wait in or paid for a coffee or snack at the Tim Horton’s. The old Greyhound terminal, which was located on the same block as the downtown transit terminal, has since been sold, and is now converted for local community services. Though they offer a much faster ride to downtown Toronto, the private operators are neither frequent enough nor convenient enough to compete with GO.

One day, Peterborough may get intercity rail service again thanks to the federal High Frequency Rail project, still in the early procurement phase, which would provide the speedy, frequent intercity service Peterborough needs. Until then, Metrolinx should revise the entire Peterborough bus service, including working with Durham Region and the City of Kawartha Lakes to make the service more useful for more riders, with a mix of daily express buses and enhanced local connections. The Selwyn Link bus service, which connects GO and Peterborough Transit with Selwyn Township and Curve Lake First Nation at Trent University, is great example to build upon.

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I have updated the Ontario Intercity Transport Map for September 2023 with new and revised routes right across the province. The notable losses include Prescott-Russell’s abandonment of its rural on-demand service, the closure of Grey Transit Route’s service between Walkerton and Flesherton, and Trailways’ stop in Chatham. The London-to-St. Thomas gap remains unfilled, and there’s a clear gap in Huron and Bruce Counties, especially with the loss of service to Walkerton. For the most part, it is good to see most regional transit services continuing, with mostly minor adjustments.

I look forward to sharing my Canada Intercity Transit Map, based on work I recently completed for Infrastructure Canada, in the near future.