Free rides for kids on the buses for an extra 8 months in Mississauga

Kids can ride public transit buses in Mississauga for free and older adults can get on board at a greatly discounted rate for an additional eight months after city councillors agreed to extend a MiWay pilot study until the end of 2024.

Accepting a recommendation from senor city staff, Mississauga councillors agreed at a public meeting last week to allow the MiWay pilot study to continue until Dec. 31. The trial run, launched last May 1, had been scheduled to conclude at the end of this month.

The program extension is expected to be officially approved at this Wednesday’s meeting of city council.

Under the pilot study, kids ages six-to-12 travel on MiWay buses free of charge (with a Presto card).

Older adults, meanwhile, benefit from the initiative as well. The $1 fare pass for passengers ages 65-older is extended under the pilot to provide rides at that rate around the clock.

Prior to the launch of the pilot program, kids ages six-to-12 paid a $4 cash fare (or $1.75 via Presto card) while those under six already rode free of charge.

The test-run is expected to inform future transit decisions in the city while also encouraging more ridership, officials said earlier.

At last week’s general committee meeting, city staff noted that during the initial pilot phase, MiWay “observed a remarkable 109 per cent increase” in ridership compared to pre-pandemic levels in 2019, with substantial growth in adult and student fare categories.

“However, children and senior ridership levels had not fully rebounded to pre-pandemic figures, prompting the need for the program extension to encourage more consistent usage among these demographics,” noted transit director Eve Wiggins.

“With this initiative, our goal is to encourage more families and seniors to adopt MiWay as their main mode of transportation, giving them a firsthand look at how transit can be affordable, safe, reliable and convenient.”

MiWay reminds children and older adults to have their Presto cards set to the appropriate fare category for their age group. Older adults can also choose to pay a $1 cash fare.

Transit officials noted the initial financial impact of the pilot program is a projected revenue decrease of $950,000 ($200,000 attributed to the free child fares and $750,000 to the reduced senior fares).

However, they added, the increase in adult and youth ridership is expected to offset that decrease, “maintaining a balanced budget while promoting greater transit use among all age groups.”

In an update to Mississauga councillors late last fall, senior city staff wrote in a report that overall MiWay ridership during the first six months of the pilot (May 2023 through October 2023) was up 12 per cent from the same time period in 2019, just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.