Join our upcoming All Caucus Call to hear about two municipal initiatives that have helped transform local public transportation systems.

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Dan Hendry, Sustainable Initiatives Coordinator at the Limestone District School Board, will present on the City of Kingston’s High School Transit Pass Program, awarded FCM’s 2018 Sustainable Communities Award.

Dan Hendry has a simple but powerful model to transform public transportation and it starts with training youth. On-bus orientation and free passes have increased high school ridership from 28,000 to close to 600,000 annually in Kingston, Ontario. The underlying philosophy in the development of this project has been: with encouragement, mastery of transit tools, true-life experience and a bus pass in hand students will gain independence and confidence.

*Check out Dan's TEDx Talk below to learn more.

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Sharmarke Dubow, Councillor for the City of Victoria, will also speak on the City’s fare-free transit for youth and how this access to transportation can improve health outcomes and reduce inequality.

Sharmarke Dubow is a Victoria City Councillor and United Nations human rights fellow. Sharmarke strongly believes that City leaders ought to focus not only on service delivery, but on efforts that create a sense of participation and belonging, to the benefit of all community members. Sharmarke has taken great steps to make life more equitable, inclusive, and affordable for people in Victoria. He has brought forward motions to make public transit free, start a renters advisory committee to give tenants a voice for stronger tenant protection policies, has worked to bring an equity lens to decision-making at the City level, introduced a ban on carding-street checks - a harmful and discriminatory practice, and fought for the addition of affordable housing in Victoria as well as retaining existing rental housing.