Sarnia Transit riders will notice some changes to the current routes, effective Sunday, January 18.
Sarnia General Manager of Engineering and Operations David Jackson said the biggest one is the pending elimination of the Route 5 Rosedale bus.
"With the opening of the Rapids Parkway extension, we were able to make some positive improvements for routes in the north end of the city," said Jackson. "The 5 Rosedale that went to Northgate will now become the Route 20 (Michigan-Rapids Parkway). That will bring people to our main Clearwater Terminal and go by some of the main shopping areas."
Jackson said they'll be keeping the Route 5 for a couple of weeks as an overlap so that passengers can ease into the changes.
He said a few minor adjustments have also been made.
"We're creating what we're calling the retail connector (Route 19)," he said. "We're just modifying one route that will focus on that main shopping area to make it simple. That way, people know it's the bus they can transfer to to get to the Lambton Mall and Walmart area. That led to some slight modifications for the Sherwood and Cardiff routes, just merging those into one residential route now."
According to the Sarnia Transit website, slight changes have also been made to the following routes:
- Route 1 (Confederation)
- Route 2 (Devine)
- Route 7 (Cathcart)
- Route 9 (Exmouth and Downtown)
- Route 10 (South Vidal)
- Route 15 (Bright’s Grove)
- Route 66 (London Road Express)
- Route 68A (North End Express AM)
- Route 68P (North End Express PM)
Jackson said they'll be reviewing the impact of the changes in the spring to see whether further tweaks need to be made.
The changes were approved by Sarnia City Council last July.
Notices have been posted on both the transit terminals and busses to alert passengers to the changes.
Full details on all of the changes can be found here.
