Seniors at Good Companions Centre win back their bus service

Viola Golden volunteering at Good Companions

Whoever said you can't fight city hall clearly doesn't know the seniors at Ottawa's Good Companions Centre.

After losing frequent bus service outside their centre when the LRT came on-line, they took their bus beef to the top and won.

The wheels on the bus will indeed be going round and round outside the Good Companions Centre once again much to the delight of the volunteers and members, many of whom had abandoned the Centre simply because they could no longer get there.

Today's unexpected announcement about the return of their coveted bus service sparked an impromptu serenade about Bus number 16 as one seniors’ group attended their weekly guitar lessons.

“Oh, oh, the 16 oh, the bus down in the valley oh,” they sang.

The Centre used to be served by a number of buses, arriving every few minutes right outside the door.   When the LRT came on-line, that service was cut to every half hour with an option to walk 300 hundred metres to the Pimisi Station.

“When you get a bus only every half hour,” says senior Francis Lake, “it can get pretty cold out there.”

“I have some exciting news,” Monique Doolittle-Romas, the executive director of the Good Companions Centre told a group knitting in another room. After an intensive lobbying effort, success.

“Mayor Watson just sent me a letter confirming that the number 16 will be running in front of the centre every 15 minutes,” she told an excited group of seniors.

“When I announced it to the members,” Doolittle-Romas said, “there were tears and hugs and people saying they'd be able to continue coming in the winter.”

“We're going to add 24 trips,” explained Ottawa mayor Jim Watson, “which will mean 15 minute service on route 16 which will drop our beloved seniors right off at the Good Companions Centre.”

The mayor says these routes will be part of the bus addition announced earlier this month, paid for through those extra funds.

For volunteer Viola Golden, the news prompted a little jig.

“Great, great, great,” she sang, “I can get here in half an hour instead of 90 minutes or two hours.  That makes a lot of difference.”

They say you can’t fight city hall?

“Apparently we did,” says volunteer and board members Brian Robertson, “apparently we did.”

The Good Companions Centre says it lost more than a dozen volunteers and 10% of its membership in the few weeks that the bus service changed.  Now they're on the phone, frantically calling seniors to hop on the #16 and come on back.