Sean Marshall

Tag: Essex County

  • Ride CK: A rural connection

    Ride CK: A rural connection

    A Ride CK cutaway bus in Chatham

    In 1998, the new City of Toronto was created when the Progressive Conservative government led by Mike Harris forced the merger of Metropolitan Toronto and its six constituent cities and borough. Dubbed the Megacity, it was part of a new round of municipal restructurings that affected much of the province, with Hamilton and Ottawa getting the same treatment three years later. Making less news in 1998 was the abolition of Kent County and the amalgamation of all 21 of its towns, villages and townships with the City of Chatham, creating the new municipality of Chatham-Kent.

    Over 25 years later, there are challenges remaining from amalgamation. The new, larger municipality must administer a large mostly rural area but where nearly half the population lives in just one urban centre. But there are benefits, such as a consolidated library system that provides rural residents with more materials and services. Importantly too, is that Chatham-Kent was one of the first municipalities to introduce a rural transit service to connect outlying communities with the city centre, expanding the reach of Chatham’s existing urban bus system.

    Three Ride CK routes — A, C, and D — extend from the bus terminal in Downtown Chatham to Wallaceburg (the second-largest community in Chatham-Kent), Dresden, Blenheim, Ridgetown, and Tilbury, covering most of the former towns that made up Kent County. (A fourth route, B, was proposed to serve Thamesville and Bothwell, but has not been implemented.) There is also a seasonal summer bus that serves the lakeside communities of Erieau and Mitchell’s Bay, echoing the former Chatham, Wallaceburg, and Lake Erie electric interurban service.

    Most RideCK buses — local and intercommunity — are cutaways, meaning that the passenger seating area is in a separately-built body added to a cab and truck chassis. Though these vehicles are popular for paratransit services, low-ridership rural routes, and in smaller communities like Brockville, they do not offer a particularly smooth ride. However, they are an economical option for smaller communities.

    Bus stop in Wallaceburg

    Each of the three intercommunity routes operate Monday through Saturday, with two morning and two evening round trips, with an additional midday run that leaves Downtown Chatham at 12:15 PM on weekdays; this additional trip was added several years after service began. There is a timed transfer to the local Chatham routes, allowing for onward connections to shopping, schools, medical services, employment, or social activities. All three rural routes also stop at the hospital in Chatham. The midday trip was added to provide an early return home for anyone taking the bus from outlying areas, such as for a medical appointment, and not then stuck waiting an entire day in Chatham.

    I rode RideCK between Chatham and Wallaceburg and back in early February 2026; the midday 12:15 departure had decent ridership with six other passengers leaving the bus terminal (a seventh got on at the big box retail cluster north of Chatham’s urban area); there were five other passengers on the way back south on the first evening bus (5:45 PM leaving Chatham). Given that Chatham-Kent has maintained the service for so long is indicative of how the rural buses are seen as a necessity in the municipality. In Wallaceburg, on-demand local transit is also available, a recent improvement by the municipality.

    Intercommunity routes have a flat cash fare of $5.25 (though online materials still show the older $5 fare), though transfers to local transit are provided.

    Ride CK Route A between Chatham, Wallaceburg, and Dresden

    Though Routes A and C are fairly direct, Route D involves a long one-way loop to serve several small communities (including Cedar Springs, Buxton, and Merlin) before continuing to the former town of Tilbury and then back to Chatham. The route passes near, but does not stop at, Pain Court, and completely misses Wheatley.

    The circuitous Ride CK Route D making a one-way loop through Cedar Springs and Tilbury

    Though Chatham-Kent should be commended on identifying the need for rural transit and maintaining it for over two decades, it still demonstrates the challenges and gaps of operating a municipally provided rural transit service. Ideally, Chatham-Kent would be able to partner with neighbouring Lambton and Essex Counties to provide direct service to more communities. Tilbury should be part of an east-west service between Chatham and Windsor along the Highway 2 corridor, serving towns along Lake St. Clair such as Belle River. That would open connections to the University of Windsor and the main St. Clair College campus, along with other destinations, while improving service to Tilbury.

    Route D, then, could be straightened and routed to serve Wheatley, even continuing west to make a connection to Leamington (which sadly, is losing its bus service to Windsor). With good scheduling, such connections could allow passengers to continue on VIA Rail service to London and Toronto.

    Ontario needs a province-wide rural transit strategy with long-term funding and strong incentives to get reluctant municipalities (such as Halidmand County) on board. Until then, it is up to each local area to determine what, if any, transit service could look like, and up to residents to demand — and make use — of these services.

    I have also made some changes to my Canada Intercity Transportation Map for March 2026, with a few revisions to Flixbus’ Ontario operations and intercommunity transit routes. As always, please contact me with any information that I have missed. While I’ve tried to keep this map as accurate and up to date as possible, Canada is a big country. 

    Unfortunately, the costs of maintaining this website and the ArcGIS Online portal to my maps continue to rise, especially as the amount of information provided and the number of views grow. If you enjoy my work and find the maps useful, please consider buying me a coffee to help with those costs. Thank you!

  • Missing connections in Windsor-Essex

    Missing connections in Windsor-Essex

    Downtown Detroit, as seen from Downtown Windsor, on a gloomy November morning

    Windsor, Ontario, is built on transportation. The city’s position, right across the river from Detroit, has shaped the region ever since French settlers made their home on the wide, short, slow-moving river between Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair. (The river’s name, Detroit, is the French word for strait.) The narrow river made it a hub for shipping and for railways, followed by rail and road tunnels and highway bridges.

    As the American auto industry got its start in Detroit, propelling it from a minor regional centre to the fourth-largest city in the United States, Windsor was a natural spot for companies like Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler to set up their first international operations. Canadian distillers and brewers also made Windsor their home and independent towns and cities lined the river, with names like Walkerville and Ford City. (These locales amalgamated with Windsor in 1935). The city had two electric railways: the Sandwich, Windsor, and Amherstburg (SW&A), a local streetcar and bus operation that also ran suburban lines to Amhertsburg and Tecumseh and the Windsor, Essex, and Lakeshore Rapid Railway (WE&L), which extended to Lake Erie at Leamington.

    Today, Windsor has a population of 230,000, while neighbouring towns and townships in Essex County add another 200,000 people to the region. Though Windsor’s auto industry has been in flux since the 1980s thanks first to free trade agreements and now by US tariffs and protectionism, the region’s population continues to grow.

    However, despite the region’s history and growth shaped by water, rail, and road links, public transport is lacking in Windsor-Essex, with several routes in peril. This is despite the presence of the University of Windsor, St. Clair College, two major hospital campuses, and a large built-up prewar urban area. Windsor was also the only large urban municipality to completely cease transit operations during the COVID-19 pandemic, where others continued to provide basic services subject to health and safety restrictions.

    On August 30, 2025, Transit Windsor’s Tunnel Bus service was cancelled, after Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens vetoed a council decision to maintain the service (funded partly by an increase in the one-way fare from $10 to $20). Even though the historic cross-border relationship is strained by threats of annexation, tariffs, and an authoritarian president, the Tunnel Bus still provides an essential link for business and leisure, with many fans of Detroit’s sports teams on the Canadian side of the river, and hundreds of workers crossing daily to Detroit’s offices and hospitals. Without access to an automobile or an expensive cross-border taxi ride, the bus is the only year-round way to get to the United States between Fort Erie and Walpole Island, as neither the tunnel or the Ambassador Bridge allow pedestrians or cyclists.

    The new Gordie Howe Bridge will include a new multiuse path. However, it is not convenient to Windsor or Detroit destinations, nor is it close to decent transit options on either side of the soon-to-open crossing, including the Q-Line Streetcar, D-DOT and SMART buses, or intercity links such as VIA Rail, Amtrak, or Greyhound.

    The Linq, the new privately-operated Tunnel bus between Windsor and Detroit

    There is, however, a new privately-operated bus service, called The Linq. It has several used transit buses with bike racks and offers trips every two hours for a $15 one-way fare. It is a downgrade from the Transit Windsor-provided service, but the connection is still there.

    The main benefit for the City of Windsor’s withdrawal of tunnel service is that the agency now comes under provincial, rather than federal, labour laws. This reduces the number of paid sick days (from 10 per year), saving the city between $1.4 million and $1.6 million.

    Though the Linq tunnel bus passes by the Windsor transit terminal, it doesn’t stop close by

    Unfortunately, there is no direct connection between Linq and Transit Windsor. The only pickup location in Windsor is at the corner of Bruce Avenue and Riverside Drive, a five-minute walk from the transit terminal where the former city-operated bus departed from. Though the Linq bus passes by the Windsor terminal, it does not stop right there. The route still serves the Rosa Parks Transit Terminal on the Detroit side, along with the stop by the tunnel entrance next to Mariners’ Church.

    Regional (dis)connections

    LTW 42 bus at Essex Sports Centre

    While visiting Windsor, I wanted to ride Route 42, the bus service linking Windsor with the towns of Essex, Kingsville, and Leamington. Operated by Transit Windsor using urban transit vehicles, the service got funding from the province, the County of Essex, and the Town of Leamington. It operates three weekday and two Saturday round trips, charging a flat $10 one-way fare or a $15 same day return fare, with free transfers to Leamington’s LTGO on-demand service and Transit Windsor’s urban routes at St. Clair College.

    The service began in 2019, replacing a long-discontinued intercity coach route operated by Greyhound Canada and Chatham Coach Lines, along the old route of the WE&L Rapid Railway that ran until 1932. The bus only makes four stops: St. Clair College in Windsor, and sports and recreation centres in the three towns. The route’s number is not inspired by Douglas Adams but by the 42nd parallel, which runs a few hundred metres south of Leamington.

    LTW Route 42 route map

    Unfortunately, the three sports centres are poor locations for promoting transit ridership. In Essex, the arena is a 10-to-15-minute walk to the town centre, a reasonable stroll for many. In Kingsville, the arena complex northeast of the built-up area is 2.5 kilometres from the town centre, a 35-45 minute walk with no local transit options. Without access to a car ride, the Route 42 service becomes inaccessible to many potential users.

    Previous coach service operated by Greyhound and Chatham Coach Lines stopped in the town centres.

    Essex Town Centre, a 10-15-minute walk from Route 42 at the sports centre

    As of April 30, 2026, the LTW Transit service connecting Windsor with Essex, Kingsville, and Leamington will come to an end. This was a matter of funding. The provincial rural transport funding program came to an end, and neither the County of Essex nor the Town of Leamington were willing to continue subsidizing the service beyond the end of the academic year.

    Though the province is willing to fund expensive new highway and transit projects in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, including new subways and light rail and sprawl-inducing freeways, it is unwilling to back the provision of small town and rural transit services that connect residents to larger centres, whether it be for work, school, health appointments, shopping or social connections. Without a province-wide strategy and a sustainable funding program, services that started up with much promise are disappearing in places like Grey and Oxford Counties and Napanee and Deseronto.

    It also does not help that Windsor-Essex does not have a regional level of government or even a degree of cooperation between the various municipalities. In York, Waterloo, Durham, and Niagara, regional governments have taken over transit services and are working to connect their entire regions together, even rural communities. Even Simcoe County provides a regional transit service to its smaller towns. The suburban Town of Tecumseh has a limited transit service separate from Windsor’s, while LaSalle and Amherstburg contract Transit Windsor for limited service within their communities. A regional transit service, subsidized by the entire Windsor-Essex tax base, could go a long way.

    That’s a wrap

    To conclude this post, I have few other observations of riding Transit Windsor over two days in late November. There are several ways that transit service can be improved, including better wayfinding, better connections between modes, and giving passengers a better view.

    VIA Rail runs four daily trains between Toronto and Windsor, from a station in the Walkerville neighbourhood, three kilometres east of the downtown core. Passenger trains on the CN line used to continue to the downtown waterfront until the 1960s, when service was cut back to Walkerville, which had a wye to turn trains around. Eventually, all the CN, CP, and Michigan Central tracks and docks were removed from the riverside, which allowed Windsor to develop a lovely waterfront park system.

    VIA Rail Station, constructed in 2012, replaced a smaller modernist structure built in the early 1960s

    The Crosstown Route 2 along Wyandotte Street stops nearby the VIA Station off Walker Road, about a five-minute walk between bus and train. But getting between the two modes is not clear. Apart from a VIA Rail logo on the transit map, there is little indication of this useful connection at the station or at the bus stops on Wyandotte. Route 2 offers decent service during daytime hours, every 10-15 minutes on weekdays from 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM, but it quickly drops to every 30 minutes at 6:30 PM. Saturday daytime service is every 20 minutes, and on Sundays, every 40 minutes. Frequencies on other core routes, including the 1A and 1C Transway buses, is similar.

    Compare this with Kingston, a city less than half of Windsor’s size, which provides direct transit service onto the VIA station grounds. In London, the downtown station is a more prominent landmark, and easy to get to by multiple routes.

    As a regular transit passenger used to fare cards, transit apps, and open payment systems, I found myself annoyed by having to carry exact change — a toonie, a loonie, and three quarters — every time I rode. Transit Windsor does have plastic fare cards, but they can only be loaded up with individual fares or a 15-day or 30-day pass, not a declining balance that could be used on regional routes. As cash is less common as a payment type (with some smaller businesses going cashless), larger transit agencies should catch up.

    The typical view from a Transit Windsor bus

    Finally, I became annoyed by how many buses in Transit Windsor’s fleet are fully covered by vinyl advertising wraps, excepting only the windshield, front door, and driver’s side window. Even the LTW 42 bus, which goes a long distance at higher speeds, was fully wrapped. I took six different buses in two days and only one wasn’t wrapped. It makes for a miserable time as a rider, especially one who wants to see the neighbourhoods the buses pass through; I explained why advertising wraps are a bad idea before. At the very least, ad wraps should limit how much of the passenger window area is covered, as the TTC does.

    Windsor has all the essentials for building a good transit system: a large pre-war urban area, post-secondary institutions, hospitals, and a well-populated and growing exurban and rural periphery. It just needs the leadership to recognize its potential.

  • A patchwork of new intercity connections in Ontario

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    RideNorfolk buses at Norfolk County Hall, Simcoe

    Over the last three years, I wrote about the gaps in intercity rail and coach services in Ontario, and how some companies were working to fill them.

    In Northern Ontario, Ontario Northland and Kasper Transportation worked to fill the void left by Greyhound’s departure from Western Canada, with both companies offering new links to towns such as Hearst and Fort Francis.

    Unfortunately, there have also been some setbacks. Wroute, a shared taxi service in the Kitchener-Guelph-Hamilton triangle, was operational for less than a year. Though GO Transit added new weekday trains between Guelph and Kitchener, none allow for Kitchener-bound commutes, and there has not been interest in serving those gaps identified by Wroute.

    Outside of Northern Ontario and the Golden Horseshoe, many cities and towns remain disconnected from nearby communities and larger centres. Though every city and town in Ontario had daily bus and/or rail service in the 1980s, many communities are now completely inaccessible for anyone without access to a car. Though GO Transit expanded to Peterborough, Brantford, Niagara, and Kitchener in the last fifteen years, they are extensions of GO’s radial network from Toronto rather than a true intercity network.

    St. Thomas, population 41,000, is the largest city in the province without any passenger links, despite being a short drive to London. Many other cities and towns — particularly in Midwestern and Eastern Ontario — find themselves in similar situations. A few other cities, such as Sarnia (which has just one train a day each way to London and Toronto), are grossly under-served.

    But thanks to municipal innovation and a new provincial grant program, this is finally changing. Though several municipalities addressed this problem early on, three new inter-municipal bus systems began operations in 2019, with many more launching this year.

    (more…)