After a year of trials the Northumberland Line of the Commuter Connect pilot, which connected Campbellford, Brighton, Colborne and Cobourg to other transit networks, is being shut down.
The pilot program was launched to study the feasibility of connecting Northumberland communities with both each other and GO transit in Oshawa.
While the Durham line in the pilot has shown continued growth, the Northumberland line has seen limited ridership growth and hasn’t been able to generate revenue, and as a result the line will be terminated as of November 30.
During the year-long pilot project, 513 one-way rider credits were sold for the Commuter Connect Northumberland Line, and 3,055 tickets for the Durham Line. $359,000 in operating expenses were incurred, with $45,000 generated in ridership revenue and $50,000 provided by the province through Metrolinx to gain ridership data.
Some challenges that were identified for the line were low population density over a wide area and the prevalence of private vehicles, which made it difficult for public transit lines to gather enough ridership.
