Walking in a winter wonderland – on the side of Highway 62

Story by Ludwick Chapman; video by Sarah Law

BELLEVILLE – The distance from my house in Foxboro to the Walmart on Millennium Parkway in Belleville is around 5.7 kilometres. If I can’t get a ride in the morning to my journalism classes at Loyalist College, that’s the distance I have to walk – on the side of busy Highway 62 – to catch the No. 10 Belleville Transit bus to school.

Although Foxboro is next to Belleville, there’s no dedicated bus service between the two places. So walking or hitchhiking are my only options on mornings when I can’t snare a ride with my roommate, who has a car, or my landlord, who sometimes can drop me at the Quinte Mall.

I could call a taxi, but the flat rate one way is $23. That’s more than I can afford on my student budget.

I live in Foxboro because I wasn’t able to find rental accommodation in Belleville at the start of the 2018-19 school year. The shortage of places for students to rent hasn’t changed this year.

Paul Carr, a member of Belleville city council who represents Thurlow ward, where Foxboro is located, says expansion of public transit to the ward is being discussed. But the idea has stalled because it would result in a property-tax increase to homeowners in Thurlow, he said. Currently they don’t pay anything toward Belleville’s transit system.

“When you start to expand the service, because there is a property-tax subsidy (to pay for it), then you’re basically asking people to pay more in their property taxes for a service,” Carr told QNet News this month.

Belleville Mayor Mitch Panciuk told QNet News that council would like to expand the transit system to include the urban parts of Thurlow ward – like Foxboro – but “we’re going to have to find a way to make it affordable for the people that live there.” Council will have to “come up with some creative solutions and find the funding for it,” Panciuk said.

Until then, I guess I’ll have to keep walking.