Since around 2012, Trent University has charged the TCSA $60,000 a year to help pay for snow removal on campus.
Both the TCSA and Trent have not been able to find proper documentation about this snow removal fee, or proper record of any transactions taking place.
It is thought that a conversation in previous years was had about TCSA contributing to snow removal fees via our transit levy because of our Trent Express buses utilizing the roads on campus.
Upon researching this annual charge, the TCSA began conversations with Trent about the validity of the charge.
We challenged that the university should not be using student levy money to pay for services that should already be in place. Furthermore, the TCSA transit service does not create or require any extra maintenance in regards to snow removal.
Emergency and university services vehicles, faculty, staff, students and visitors driving on our campus use the same roads and loops as our buses.
If our transit service did not exist, the same quality and amount of snow removal would be required in order for the university to function safely.
Because of this rationale, Trent has agreed to cease charging snow removal fees to the TCSA, beginning in the 2016/2017 fiscal year.
This is fantastic news for the TCSA and Trent students! We now have $60,000 in additional funds to run our transit service. These additional funds, combined with coming under budget this year, have left us with a projected $180,000 in surplus to spend on increased service.
We are very excited to announce that based on student feedback, the TCSA has now eliminated the exam bus schedule.
Our East and West Trent Express buses will be running on the regular Monday-Friday schedule (every 10 minutes) until April 22 (our summer schedule will begin April 25).
During weekends we will still be following the weekend schedule, and as usual, there will be no late night transit service during exams and throughout the summer.
All schedules are available on the TCSA website.
Student feedback also asked for improvements to our summer schedule. We are happy to announce that we have improved our summer transit service to ensure buses will consistently run every 40 minutes on the West Bank.
Thank you Trent students for providing us with your feedback, and we hope you enjoy your new and improved transit services.