As T3 Transit prepares to tweak some routes, company is missing former international riders

A recent survey shows sentiment about taking the bus in the greater Charlottetown area has dropped in the past five years, though a Stratford official says the demand is increasing in that P.E.I. town for T3 routes that easily connect to others.

Jeremy Pierce is the director of recreation, culture and events and the deputy CAO for the Town of Stratford, which is serviced by T3 Transit along with Charlottetown and Cornwall. He said this is an opportunity for the privately operated and publicly funded system to grow.

"People ... want to see more opportunities to move about within Stratford, but also have a quicker time, quicker access routes, to get to larger centres like Charlottetown," he said.

One possible reason he cited for the loss in ridership momentum: changes to Canada's immigration system.

"The slight downtick, we believe, has to do with some of the immigration changes. We've seen a decrease in the number of visitors using the transit system to go to educational institutions like Holland College and UPEI," Pierce said.

"They've seen downturn in terms of total immigration in the province... That was probably one of our larger demographics utilizing the transit system."

Mike Cassidy, the owner of Trius Transit, which operates T3 Transit, said they are seeing ridership numbers start to flatten out, and even dip below last year's level on Stratford routes. He agrees that the immigration changes might be to blame.

For the first half of 2025, for example, Cassidy said, overall ridership is "rather flat — we are witnessing roughly one to two to three per cent growth compared to the first six months of 2024." 

We [had] students from Holland College... billeted in Stratford, right there on Heron and Rankin; we picked them up every morning. There was six of them. Guess what? They're gone.— Mike Cassidy

In contrast, during the first six months of the years 2022 and 2023, "when we were coming out of COVID, we were experiencing close to 15 to 25 per cent growth, period over period, so we have seen a saturation in the ridership this year compared to last year." 

Cassidy said T3's drivers have told him they can see population dynamics affecting ridership numbers every day, given that the system's small size lets them get to know a lot of their regular passengers.

"We [had] students from Holland College. We know that they were billeted in Stratford, right there on Heron and Rankin; we picked them up every morning. There was six of them. Guess what? They're gone," he said.

"We know we are losing people." 

Cassidy said some of these passengers left "Thank you so much for being my bus driver" notes for T3 staff as they left on their journey to seek permanent resident (PR) status in Canada.

"They tell the driver, 'Look, we have to move away, we have to go back home, we can't get our PR card, we have to go... [to] another province in Canada' to try to get their PR," he said. 

Cassidy said this is also the case for other transit systems, such as in Moncton. 

More Stratford-centric routes

In terms of trying to grow ridership among the people who have not left, Pierce said redrawing some routes could life easier within communities like Stratford.

"A lot of the respondents that we talked to over the past few years felt that it was very difficult system to navigate," he said.

"A lot of times a person that was picked up at home would have to travel into Charlottetown before getting to a destination like Sobeys to do their shopping, and at the same time, when they return, they could be entering Charlottetown before returning back to their home.

"A new Stratford-centric model would have routes within the community first, and then also allow people to travel back and forth to Charlottetown."

Pierce said T3 Transit has been listening and some new routes should be launching this September, or October at the latest.

"We're excited for it. It's been some time since we've made any major changes to the routing system, so we understand that there may be some early hiccups," he said.

"But we anticipate in the long run we will be able to make the initial changes and future changes to... have transit become part of the norm in our community."