For almost two years now, Land O’ Lakes Community Services (LOLCS) has operated a Child and Youth Transportation Program. A Trillium Foundation grant, as well as the combined effort of various agencies in Lennox and Addington, made the program possible.

“Now that the Trillium grant is about to run out, the Child & Youth Transportation Program is in danger of becoming extinct. The grant from the Trillium Foundation will be finished as of January 2012 and there are currently no funding options to staff the coordinator position,” said Cheryl Hartwick, the chairperson of the Child and Youth Committee, which oversees the program.

While the transportation programme raises funds to pay for rides through various activities, it needs to find some core funding to keep an office, phone, and part-time co-ordinator in place.

Becky Kavanaugh coordinates volunteers and drives for the children and youth in the area. Since January, there have been 73 drives at a total of 5,838 kilometres. The program currently has four volunteer drivers (and sometimes borrows from the seniors’ transportation program when necessary).

“Although 73 drives may not seem like a lot to most people, to the kids (and their families) who have been able to participate in community events and to get to appointments, it is amazing. If we cannot find sustainable funding for the staffing position, the program will end and that would be devastating to the people who utilize it,” Hartwick said.

LOLCS is currently seeking a way to maintain the program and any ideas would be welcome.

“Please contact Becky at 613-336-8934 if you can help in any way or have any thoughts on how to keep this valuable program operating,” Hartwick said.

Local bus operators expressed solidarity this week with their colleagues from the Independent School Bus Operators Association (ISBOA), who staged an 80-bus convoy to Queen’s Park on Monday, followed by speeches and a rally.

The event was timed to coincide with the Rural Ontario Municipal Association meeting in Toronto this week, in the hopes that municipal politicians would take a supportive message with them to the private meeting with provincial ministers that are a feature of the conference.

ISBOA has been asking the province to reconsider a Request for Proposal (RFP) policy for school busing contracts, which has been coming into force incrementally across the province since 2010.

ISBOA says that the RFP process, which has been employed on a widespread basis in other jurisdictions such as the United States, leads to market dominance by three large multinational busing companies, and puts independent operators out of business.

According to information that has been gathered by ISBOA, savings in transportation costs that resulted from the first round of RFPs were lost when the RFPs were re-negotiated a few years later, because only the large companies are left in the market.

On the eve of last October’s provincial election, a moratorium on further expansion of the RFP process was announced by then Minister of Education Leona Dombrowsky to allow for a task force to look into the process further and make recommendations to the ministry.

The task force, headed up by former Integrity Commissioner for Ontario, Coulter Osborne, has just submitted its report to the current Minister of Education, Laurel Broten.

Two events have brought some urgency to the activities of ISBOA, however.

The first is that the moratorium on RFP processes has already been ended. School boards in the London/ Thames Valley area are pressing forward with an RFP process before waiting for the Coutler Osborne report to be considered.

Secondly, the recently released Drummond report into overall government spending recommends that the government accelerate its implementation of the RFP process, citing a 34% increase in transportation costs since 2002.

In response, ISBOA charged that Drummond’s findings were based on incomplete information about costs.

“The 34% increase has nothing to do with how student transportation is procured,” said ISBOA Executive Director Steve Hull of Hull Bus Lines in Petrolia. “A quick look at the three main costs of the industry: wages, bus costs and fuel, tells the real story. The minimum wage in 2002 was $6.85. In 2012 it is $10.25 – a 50% increase. Bus costs in 2002 were $81,802, in 2012, $93,503. This increase was largely due to increased safety and emission standards, regulations that were mandated by government. The average price of fuel in 2002 was $0.63, in 2011, it’s $1.05, an increase of 67%.”

Hull concludes that the increase in costs since 2002 has little or nothing to do with the way contracts are arrived at.

Frank Healey, of Healey Bus Lines in Smiths Falls, addressed the media at the rally at Queen’s Park on Monday. He asked that the moratorium on new RFPs be reinstated at least until the Coulter Osborne report is released to the public and is fully considered by the Ministry of Education.

“I am here today, on behalf of nearly 200 school bus businesses in Ontario, to ask for the release of the Coulter Osborne Report, a report which we believe supports our 3-year plea for a procurement policy appropriate for our unique industry. Out of frustration and fear for the future of their family businesses, companies from across the province have sent 80 buses to Premier McGuinty’s front door to ask for his support,” Healey said.

For almost two years now, Land O’ Lakes Community Services (LOLCS) has operated a Child and Youth Transportation Program. A Trillium Foundation grant, as well as the combined effort of various agencies in Lennox and Addington, made the program possible.

“Now that the Trillium grant is about to run out, the Child & Youth Transportation Program is in danger of becoming extinct. The grant from the Trillium Foundation will be finished as of January 2012 and there are currently no funding options to staff the coordinator position,” said Cheryl Hartwick, the chairperson of the Child and Youth Committee, which oversees the program.

While the transportation programme raises funds to pay for rides through various activities, it needs to find some core funding to keep an office, phone, and part-time co-ordinator in place.

Becky Kavanaugh coordinates volunteers and drives for the children and youth in the area. Since January, there have been 73 drives at a total of 5,838 kilometres. The program currently has four volunteer drivers (and sometimes borrows from the seniors’ transportation program when necessary).

“Although 73 drives may not seem like a lot to most people, to the kids (and their families) who have been able to participate in community events and to get to appointments, it is amazing. If we cannot find sustainable funding for the staffing position, the program will end and that would be devastating to the people who utilize it,” Hartwick said.

LOLCS is currently seeking a way to maintain the program and any ideas would be welcome.

“Please contact Becky at 613-336-8934 if you can help in any way or have any thoughts on how to keep this valuable program operating,” Hartwick said.

Photo: Becky Kavanaugh and Pam Lemke of Land O'Lakes Community Services

Thanks to a grant totaling $3000, which was received from the Napanee District Community Foundation (NDCF) and the Mazinaw Community Fund, the Land O'Lakes Community Services (LOLCS), located in Northbrook, will be able to offer new and improved services to individuals in the local community.

One LOLCS program that will benefit from the grant is the Community Support Program, which will now be able to offer a new homemaking program to seniors and physically challenged individuals in the community who require assistance with basic homemaking. The new program will get $2000 to support 30 individuals/families by matching them with local homemakers, who will assist in their homes with a number of basic tasks, including cleaning and meal preparation and also with one-time jobs.

The program, which was started in April of 2011, is currently serving 22 individuals in the community. Pam Lemke, the community support program coordinator with LOLCS, was thrilled and very grateful when she was presented with the grant at the NDCF's AGM in late June of this year. “This grant will go along way in helping seniors stay in their homes by allowing them to receive the essential and basic homemaking services they need to keep them there,” she said.

The remaining $1000 in grant funds will augment the existing LOLCS child and youth transportation program, which provides transportation to children and youth who must travel to medical appointments and to other community and school events. LOLCS offers a myriad of other services designed to help seniors and people with disabilities remain in their homes. Their other programs include caregiver support, Meals on Wheels, and social and dining services. For more information about the Community Support Program contact Pam Lemke at 613-336-8934 ext. 229; toll free at 1-877-679-6636. For more information about the Child and Youth Transportation program contact Becky Kavanaugh at 613-336-8934 ext 257.

After meeting with representatives from the Independent School Bus Operators of Ontario (ISBOA), Ontario’s Minister of Education, Leona Dombrowsky, has placed a six-month moratorium on a new 'Request For Proposal' bidding process for school bussing contracts.

The existing system is based on ongoing contracts, with fees being set annually by the local school boards.

ISBOA was formed in order to advocate against the Request for Proposal process, which the independent operators worry will force most of the small independent companies out of business as large multinational bussing companies lowball their bids for the routes.

According to ISBOA, once the local companies are out of business, the multinationals will be able to recoup their losses by putting up the price when the contracts come up for renewal, because the competition will be gone. ISBOA says that in the end, a local industry will be gone and transportation costs will end up higher than they would have been otherwise.

According to ISBOA executive member, Mary Stinson, this is exactly what happened in the Sudbury district, which has been using the Request for Proposal system since 2001.

“The first time the process was used in Sudbury, just about all of the local companies lost out and they ended up going out of business. So, now that they are negotiating the third five-year contract, the multinationals have no competition and transportation costs are going up by 13%,” she said.

In their meeting last month with Minister Dombrowsky, ISBOA executive members presented exactly this scenario, and urged her to reconsider instituting the system throughout the entire province as had been planned.

In the media release announcing the six-month moratorium on further implementation, Dombrowsky wrote: “In recognition of the concerns and issues expressed by both school boards and operators, I believe that taking an opportunity to review competitive procurement processes for student transportation would be beneficial for all parties.”

Dombrowsky also wrote that she would be appointing a task force “that will review the competitiveness of processes used to procure student home-to-school transportation, paying specific attention to their fairness, transparency, accountability and value for money.”

The task force will report to the Minister of Education on December 1.

Sean Payne, of Martin Bus Lines, is the president of the ISBOA. He described Dombrowsky's letter as “truly encouraging,” noting that Dombrowsky also referred to working with a “vibrant, multi-operator student transportation community.”

The moratorium and task force have implications for the upcoming provincial election as well. ISBOA had been planning activities around the campaign, which will now be cancelled as they participate in the task force.

As well, the task force will be reporting after the election takes place and the outcome of that election could effect the reception the report receives. On December 1, the task force report could be arriving on the desk of a new Minister of Education, perhaps one from a party other than the Liberals.

by Jeff Green and Julie Druker

Smooth sailing for Frontenac Transportation Service at county – budget debate set for next week

Executive directors Don Amos of Northern Frontenac Community Services (NFCS) and David Townsend of Southern Frontenac Community Services (SFCS), along with Linda Rush, the co-ordinator of Frontenac Transportation Service, presented an outline of the amalgamated service.

The Frontenac Transportation Service combines the services of Rural Routes Transportation Service, which is run by NFCS and serves residents in North and Central Frontenac, and the transportation services by SFCS for South Frontenac residents, forming a single service for the entire mainland portion of Frontenac County. The county has been supporting both services for a number of years, all the while encouraging them to combine forces.

County Councilor, Central Frontenac Mayor Janet Gutowski, congratulated both agencies on their collaborative approach to what is a very valuable service.“This service is allowing people to stay in their homes and to get to appointments and is keeping them healthier. I am very pleased that the Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) is aware of what is happening and that they are seeing the value in this service as well.”

She said she would be supporting this year’s request for a $86,000 subsidy from the county.

County Councilor, North Frontenac Mayor Bud Clayton, wondered about collaboration with the Land O'Lakes Community Service. “Funding from the LHINs says you must be seamless with your transportation and there are folks from the north west part of North Frontenac that depend on the LOLCS for their transportation. Since you are asking this county for money, is there any way of getting some of it to LOLCS to help their rural transportation program?” he asked.

“We are not opposed to collaboration with LOLCS,” Linda Rush added. “There have been discussions with LOLCS and it is something that we have explored in the past.”

Warden Davison said, “This collaboration is something we asked for years ago and I commend both of you for your work.”

A funding request for Frontenac Transportation Services is included in the 2011 Frontenac County budget.Ompah joint firehall/ ambulance base plan grinds to a halt 

North Frontenac Mayor, County Councilor Bud Clayton expressed more than a little bit of frustration at Frontenac County Council last week as a debate over the proposed Ompah ambulance base/fire hall project dragged on.

“It is time to get the whole issue resolved and continue with the process to finally get the project built,” Clayton said.

But at the end of the day there was even less clarity over the issue. In response to a county staff report seeking direction from county council in order to proceed with a request for proposal for a project manager, the council ended up passing a motion asking staff for yet more information, thereby putting the entire project on hold once again.

Further complicating matters were the statements from a number of members of county council, which place in doubt the council's commitment to see the project come to fruition at the Ompah location.

The question that is confounding all involved at this point has to do with the size of the fire hall portion of the building and the corresponding amounts that the township and the county will pay for its construction

“At some point someone told someone that the fire hall itself would be 4000 square feet, but that is nowhere in any of our communications,” said Bud Clayton.

The revised total combined square footage of the two buildings that has been under consideration in recent weeks is for a 4,500 square foot building with a 3000 sq. foot section for the fire hall and 1500 sq. foot ambulance base.

Based on a protocol that has been agreed to on a senior staff level, the project is to be funded at a ratio of two thirds from North Frontenac Township and one third from Frontenac County.

It is this ratio that North Frontenac would like to see revisited, for two reasons. Firstly, they want some flexibility over the size of the fire hall in order to give themselves some flexibility over costs. Secondly, while estimates for ambulance base construction come in at $195 per square foot based on the cost of the recently constructed ambulance base in Sydenham, fire hall construction is less expensive, about $128 per square foot according to figures supplied by Paul Charbonneau, the Director of Emergency Services for Frontenac County.

North Frontenac would like the county to affirm their commitment for an upset limit of $300,000 towards the project, and has agreed to a county staff requirement that the project be completed using a project manager and a design-build construction contract following LEED environmental construction guidelines. The township would pay the rest of the cost.

“We might have to think of being flexible in our design to get the costs in line. We might have to reduce the size of the fire hall without affecting the ambulance base,” said North Frontenac County Councilor John Inglis.

But once the debate at county council was joined, it did not stick to the narrow issue of cost ratios. It quickly expanded to revisit the decision to build an ambulance base in Ompah in the first place, particularly because that decision also committed the county to replacing the existing Parham base with a new one in Sharbot Lake

Councilor Gutowski again aired her concerns about that move.

“I wonder, is there is a chance to revisit that issue?” she asked. “Not only was there no GIS mapping in 2008 when the analysis was done but in my mind I cannot separate the spending of $300,000 now and the extra $800,000 that is going to come as a result of this.”

When the decision was made in 2008, Paul Charbonneau said that the two options that he proposed would ultimately costing about the same amount of money because the cost of purchasing the Parham base, which the county now rents, and the county’s share of the Ompah project costs are about the same.

“All we want to do at this time is to get on with the project and build what county council has agreed to build in North Frontenac,” Bud Clayton reiterated in response to Janet Gutowski's comments. “The fire hall will likely go up at the cost of approximately $125-$130/square foot and the ambulance base at $200/per square foot and both buildings will be somewhat around the same size.”

Warden Gary Davidson said, “I'm a bit concerned with those numbers. If you think you can build for 60% of the cost of what we are building at, I wonder about the quality of that proposed building. Just what are we building here? A pig in a poke? I would like to see some drawings.”

Janet Gutowski wondered if these two buildings are not really better off being addressed as two separate projects.

“The sizes of the buildings have not yet been clarified so I am uncomfortable supporting a recommendation about the funding ratio because it seems premature. This whole process has been entirely too politicized. The highest criteria that we should be looking at, and one that this current proposal has never met regarding the location of the station, is response times. This is a matter of life and limb; putting a station in Ompah is going to leave a gap and require more financial wrestling to try to build a new station in Sharbot Lake. I am not prepared to support that at this time. We need more up to date statistics on mapping, location and response times,” Gutowski said.

Councilor John McDougall (South Frontenac) concurred. “My concern is that the community originally was not involved in these discussions. Moving the Parham ambulance base is a real concern. I feel right now there is a lack of clarity on the issues and I would agree that there needs to be more discussion.”

Councilor Clayton made once last effort to keep the proposed plan alive.

“What we're looking at here is a 2500 square foot fire hall and a 1500 square foot ambulance base, with the cost of building the base being higher that of the hall. All we are asking for right now is a different funding model. If doing so is going to cause all sorts of grief and force us to go back to the table then we are willing go ahead with the 2/3, 1/3 ratio that has been put forth.”

Paul Charbonneau said that changing the size of the building would definitely change the funding ratio as well as a number of other issues.

At the end of the day the staff report on the matter was received for information.

At this point no date has been set for setting out a request for proposal for the project.

The matter will undoubtedly be discussed at North Frontenac Council on Monday (March 28). 

Detailed roads study presents options, but council blocks them all

The world of municipal politics is sometimes akin to driving on a poorly maintained gravel road. Progress is slowed by bumps and potholes, and sometimes the road washes out altogether.

The drive for a regional road system to cover all of the major arterial roads in Frontenac County under one financial umbrella, which was initiated by county staff a couple of years ago, seems to be akin to a washed out road after a meeting of county council last week.

A detailed 150-page study of the road rehabilitation needs throughout the county, which was undertaken by Andrew Grunda, associate director of Watson & Associates, was presented to council at their meeting on Wednesday, March 16.

The Watson report included a preliminary analysis of the regional roads life-cycle capital needs and the fiscal implications associated with moving towards a sustainable funding for those assets and proposed numerous options to the county to address their road issues.

In a nutshell the final goal was to look at the long term sustainable funding levels for the various road networks as well as at different fiscal models available to the county to ensure service delivery over a 30-year period (2010-2040).

The report proposed three options for what are to be considered regional roads. The options range from a network including only the 382 kilometres, to a second option that includes arterial roads as well, which would include 454 kilometres of road, and a third that includes other major roads, for a total length of 519 kilometres of road.

Andrew Grunda summed up the report’s findings this way:

“At this stage in using a life-cycle based needs assessment, the county’s financial data is telling us that there is a significant amount of capital for a regional roads network that requires immediate attention - somewhere in the neighborhood of $37-$42 million. Overall, when we look at the fiscal impacts we see that having a county funding option does provide a more standardized source of funding and a broader funding pool for those regional roads assets. In most cases, with the exception of South Frontenac, the county funding scenario provides for a mitigated funding implication for those municipalities, which will tend to do better under a county approach as opposed to a status quo. That approach also provides a pool for the immediate needs required in South Frontenac.”

Essentially, as South Frontenac faces up to the cost of rehabilitating Road 38 in the near to immediate future, a regional system would enable those costs to be shared across the county, but in the longer term as roads elsewhere in the county need major work, the relative bulk of South Frontenac's population will become a source of revenue for smaller municipalities, and ratepayers in South Frontenac will end up subsidizing road costs throughout the county.

The Watson report concluded that further work on the plan needs to be done, including an engineered assessment of current road conditions and asset management practices, as well as the possibility of extra funding that the system might access, which is not flowing to the townships for road construction currently.

This could include provincial grants and/or allocations of county gas tax revenues and some of the savings the county has received through the provincial upload of social service costs.

“The benefit of having a regional system is to tackle the affordability concerns of some of the smaller municipalities in the county and maintaining a consistent, stable funding source at the county level,” Gunda concluded.

Warden Gary Davison, who is also the Mayor of South Frontenac Township, spoke out against the entire plan.

“All of this information you have gathered comes from our own various departments from information that we already have in our data bases,” he said, “We in South Frontenac have a five-year roads plan and have also looked 10 years down the road. I'm not in favour of where this study is taking us and I think we need to take charge of our own information. I believe we know what the local needs are and I think that our public works managers want to do this on a local level. Yes, we need to leverage the county for gas tax but we have spent a lot of money on ICSP programs that don't necessarily address what the crux of the gas tax money that was sent down from Toronto was to do, which was to maintain roads and bridges.”

Later in the meeting, a resolution was put forth to reconstitute a working group to consider how the Watson report can be implemented.

Deputy Warden Janet Gutowski supported the motion.

“Roads and infrastructure is a huge problem and for us to stick our heads in the sand is not appropriate. We need to come up with a plan and tackle this issue in a collaborative manner.”

A number of the new county councilors expressed the need to take more time to first review the report before acting further on the report.

In a recorded vote of 5-3, Warden Davison, councilors Doyle, McDougall, Jones and Purdon voted no, and Councilors Gutwoski, Clayton, and Inglis voted yes.

On October 12, a group of school bus operators serving students in the Limestone, Prince Edward Hastings, Catholic School Board of Eastern Ontario launched a suit against their employer, Tri-Board Transportation Services, in the Belleville Court.

The suit alleges that the RFP (Request for Proposal) process through which the bus routes in the region will be divided up for five years starting next fall, constitutes a “breach of contract, negligence, negligent misrepresentation, and breach of the duty of fairness”. The suit asks the court for an “interlocutory and permanent injunction” restraining the closing of the RFP, which is scheduled for October 31.

The plaintiffs in the case include a number of small and medium-sized bus companies that have been delivering children to schools in the region for many years for Tri-board and Tri-board’s predecessors, and part of the statement of claim is that the RFP process is skewed in favour of larger companies, many of whom have no history in the region.

They say that larger companies can bid on up to 20% of the routes that are available, and in so doing they can submit low bids, offsetting the low-profit rural routes with profits from urban routes.

Smaller companies, including three in Central and North Frontenac, are only interested in the routes they have already been serving, but they are finding it difficult to complete a number of the questions in the RFP pertaining to managing fleet size, garage space, and others.

The suit also alleges that as the only potential employer for their services, the Tri-Board is responsible for some of the costs that the existing operators incurred in recent years, as they upgraded and purchased new buses and routes when other operators retired.

The suit also points out that the RFP stipulates that Tri-Board has the right to disqualify any bidder who has levelled “any lawsuits against Tri-Board or the school board in the last five years,” a move that the plaintiffs say is “an unlawful and improper attempt of Tri-Board to insulate itself and its conduct from judicial oversight and to intimidate operators from seeking access to justice in the courts of Ontario.”

The suit also alleges that of the 55 current operators in the Tri-Board region, 27 have not even picked up the RFP papers because “the terms of process are prohibitive.”

The RFP process for school bus service has been coming into force throughout Ontario, and there are a number of jurisdictions where it is in place already. According to the plaintiffs, the result has been devastating to the local operators in those jurisdictions. Research done by the Independent School Bus Operators Association indicates that the move to fewer and fewer large operators across North America has led to increased costs to school boards, and ultimately taxpayers as well.

The suit also refers to a provincially appointed task force, headed by former Justice Coutler Osborne, which raised serious questions about the process and its implementation in particular circumstances. Even though the Ministry of Education did not cede to many of the chief recommendations of the task force, it did leave local boards and transportation corporations with leeway in the decision about how to change procurement policies for bussing services.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs point out that “The Ministry made it clear that school boards and transportation consortia are not required to procure student transportation contracts through an RFP process and that alternative methods are acceptable”. The suit says that therefore Tri-Board was not forced to use the RFP process they have chosen.

The lawsuit is before the court in Belleville, and it will need to be heard in short order if it is to achieve its primary purpose, which is to stop the RFP process before October 31, when the bids are due. 

Photo: Frontenac County Warden Janet Gutowski (centre) flanked by (L to R) Frontenac County politicians Gary Davison, Del Stowe and John McDougall, Bud Clayton, Allan McPhail, John Inglis, and Dennis Doyle, cutting the ribbon to open the trail.

The official ceremony to mark the opening of the first phase of development for the South Frontenac section of the K&P trail was set for 11 am last Friday, August 31. But an hour earlier a small group gathered 8 km away at Orser Road, at the spot where the K&P trail leaves the City of Kingston and enters Frontenac County.

That group included a woman on a horse, a number of cyclists, including South Frontenac Mayor Gary Davison and his grandson, and a runner or two.

The horseback rider was the official participant in a riding, biking and running relay to usher in the trail opening, and she carried an old railway spike that had been unearthed a couple of years ago as part of a trail cleanup. Everyone else was just there to enjoy the trail.

The trail runs straight and smooth past farmland, some rural houses, and the occasional wetland (i.e. swamp). A couple of kilometres in, the bike portion of the relay started, and the spike was passed, but the relay was really a convoy at this point, as runners, cyclists, and horseback rider alike continued along.

The running section was last, up a gentle 2 kilometre stretch from the bridge over Millhaven Creek to the spot where the K&P joins up with the Cataraqui Trail and heads towards Harrowsmith, where it crosses Road 38.

Walkers were supposed to join the convoy at that point for the last kilometre of the relay, but there were none to be found. So, Gary Davison and his grandson pedaled off to find them. Fifteen minutes later a couple of people could be seen ambling down the trail, followed by a few more. The convoy moved forward to meet them, and by the time the group had made it within 500 metres of the finish line, they collided with a larger group of politicians, trail fans, and others, and everyone headed off to the finish line together.

By the time the entire crew reached Road 38, there were about 50 people waiting for a chance to cross over Road 38 and get down to the speeches, ribbon cutting, and cake eating - the normal stuff of official openings.

Warden Janet Gutowski spoke of the trail as a new form of transportation corridor for the future of Frontenac County. "Residents once used the K&P on a daily basis and I can't wait to see that happen again,” she said. “People will be able to enjoy the wonderful and diverse natural environment, whether they are using it for recreation, fitness or active transportation.”

Member of South Frontenac Council were out in force, Other speakers included the aforementioned Mayor Davison, as well as Councilor Allan McPhail, who is the chair of the Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority and a member of K&P Trail Committee, Councilor Del Stowe, who is the chair of the Catarqui Trail Committee, and Councilor John McDougall.

Also on hand were representatives from Pillar Financial and Robinson Investments of Sharbot Lake. In a gesture of support, Mathew Robinson announced that the company will be donating $5,000 per year for 5 years to help bring the South and Central Frontenac portions of the trail to fruition.

The K&P railway line was a unifying feature for Frontenac County 120 years ago. The nine stations in Frontenac County were the transportation corridor that brought settlement, and economic opportunity, up the line from Kingston to Snow Road and on to Renfrew.

The opportunity proved fleeting, and Canadian Pacific Railways eventually took over the line about 100 years ago. As the 20th Century wore on and roads replaced rail lines as corridors for the transportation of goods and people, the K&P faded away.

Its rejuvenation as a trail has been a long-term goal, both in Frontenac and Renfrew Counties. The northern section, from Sharbot Lake to Renfrew (about 130 kilometres) is intact, and managed by the Eastern Ontario Trails Alliance, and the piece within the City of Kingston is also intact and managed as a non-motorized multi-use trail.

It is the section from Orser Road at the southern edge of the County up to Sharbot Lake, a sporadic mix of informal trails and rights of way that run through lands or next to lands owned by sometimes reluctant, and sometimes downright oppositional landowners, that is under development. It is in this context that South Frontenac Township and Frontenac County became involved in bringing a trail to fruition several years ago.

The first phase of a three-phase plan for the South Frontenac portion of the trail is what was opened last week.

There are now about 12.5 kilometres of trail open in South Frontenac, from Orser Road to Petworth Road (between Harrowsmith and Hartington), and there are over 28 kilometres left to complete to bring the trail up to Tichborne.

The final 8 km. section, from Tichborne to Sharbot Lake, will pose a particular problem because portions of the railway right of way in that section have been sold off to the adjacent landowners.

The K&P trail implementation plan only says “Route to be determined in reference to that particular section.”

But none of the these sometimes daunting problems dampened spirits in Harrowsmith last week, where there was a strong feeling that the way to proceed is clear, work hard to solve one problem and to finance one section at a time, and just like the old Kick and Push Railroad, eventually there will be a 180 kilometre trail from Kingston to Renfrew, which will not only unify Frontenac County but will also provide a crucial link between the Trans-Canada Trail at Sharbot Lake with the Cataraqui and Rideau Trails to the south and east.

Photo: Jeannine Albert of Plevna in the new retrofitted NFCS van, which can now offer subsidized wheelchair accessible transportation to clients in central and north Frontenac. Courtesy of Catherine Tysick

For those in need of wheelchair-accessible transportation, Northern Frontenac Community Services (NFCS) can help. With their recent acquisition of a 2001 retrofitted Chevy Venture van in October 2011, the organization for the first time ever is able to offer their clients in Central and North Frontenac subsidized wheelchair-accessible transportation. Clients now will be able to arrange transportation to medical and other appointments.

The benefit to clients is huge, since prior to the purchase clients needing such transportation had to rely on private transportation services provided either through Lanark County or the City of Kingston, which due to the long distances involved could be quite expensive. Clients now can receive the service at a reduced fee due to having a vehicle in the area.

Catherine Tysick, the community support manager at NFCS, is currently the only driver qualified to drive the van and she has been trained in the methods of properly securing different types of chairs into the van. To date the van has made four trips, three for a client in Plevna attending medical appointments at Hotel Dieu hospital in Kingston, and the fourth for a client in Westport needing to attend a medical appointment in Sharbot Lake.

While Catherine says that NFCS at this point has not been inundated with requests for the service, she also said that the number of calls for the service are increasing. “Though some people may be able to afford this service from other private area service providers, many cannot, so this is another important service that we can offer our clients, which enables them to stay in their homes longer by allowing them to access the services they need. We just got a call recently, for example, from someone looking for respite services but who requires wheelchair-accessible transportation to get them there. We are also hoping to be able to train the client’s personal support worker, who will then be able to provide the necessary transportation.”

Tysick said that the safe transfer of clients in wheelchairs can often be what is preventing clients from making even just short local trips to area services. “Transferring is what can be difficult, and is often when dangerous falls can occur, so to be able to offer our clients this service is an important and also very wonderful thing.” Catherine is looking for volunteer drivers interested in taking the necessary training course needed to qualify them to drive the van. Anyone interested can call Catherine Tysick at NFCS at 613-279-3151.

May 1st of this year marked the second anniversary of the creation of Frontenac Transportation Service.

Transportation programs have arisen to address some of the huge challenges for people who live in rural areas and cannot drive or do not have easy access to a car. This can easily happen as people get older or develop illnesses or disabilities, and find that they can no longer drive as comfortably as they used to. It can also be pretty hard to keep a car on the road when the economy is bad, and families often need two cars to get the whole family where it needs to go. These are just a few of the reasons that people might make use of Frontenac Transportation Service (FTS).

FTS was the amalgamation in 2011 of a number of transportation services offered by Northern and Southern Frontenac Community Services, including the Rural Routes Transportation Service in Central and North Frontenac. With support from the County of Frontenac, the new service was developed to serve the whole county north of the 401.

FTS operates principally on a volunteer driver model. Requests are made for transportation and volunteers are found to fill the requests. The drivers volunteer their time, but are paid a mileage rate to cover the costs of the drives. Currently there are about 60 volunteer drivers distributed throughout the entire service area. Some drive occasionally, and others are on the road almost every day. Currently the service arranges around 600 drives a month and the number of requests is steadily growing.

The service can be used by any resident of South, Central or North Frontenac Townships.

The cost to use the service is .50 cents per km. For those who would find that cost too high, there are a number of ways to help to cover these user costs through programs at Northern and Southern Frontenac Community Services.

As requests for the service continue to grow, FTS is always interested in recruiting new drivers. It also welcomes any requests for rides. For information or to arrange a ride, call 613- 279-2044, or 1-877-279-2044.