A grant from the Ontario Ministry of Transportation that briefly made public transit and non-emergency medical transportation a reality in the United Counties of Prescott and Russell (UCPR) is coming to an end.

A report on the regional government’s seven-year transit experiment was delivered to UCPR Council on Wednesday, January 28. Since 2019, the UCPR has received funding from the Community Transportation Grant Program which enabled the implementation of the PR Transpo regional public transit pilot project, including an intermunicipal transportation service managed by the UCPR, as well as a non‑urgent medical transportation service offered by Carefor Health & Community Services. The PR Transpo intermunicipal service was suspended in June 2023, and now with the ending of the grant funding taking effect on March 31, the Carefor service will also end.   

The initial amount of transit funding the UCPR received was $2 million. It was eventually increased to $2,975,534.90. In 2025, the agreement with the Ministry of Transportation was amended once again to extend the funding period for the non‑urgent medical transportation service offered by Carefor by an additional year, until March 31, 2026, without increasing the total funding amount.

During the seven years of the program, the UCPR spent $105,000 of its own funds on the PR Transpo Intermunicipal Transportation Service and Carefor contributed $264,234 for the non‑urgent medical transportation service. No further funding for the program was allocated in the 2026 UCPR budget.

Both the intermunicipal bus service and the non-urgent medical transportation service were initially pilot projects. The intermunicipal service used a series of routes connecting each of the eight UCPR municipalities using minibuses operated by Leduc Bus Lines. In June 2023, council approved the permanent suspension of the PR Transpo Intermunicipal Transportation Service due to the network’s insufficient performance, low cost effectiveness, and labour related challenges encountered during the pilot project. At the same time, council approved the continuation of the non‑urgent medical transportation service offered by Carefor.  

At the January 28 UCPR Council meeting, Russell Township Mayor Mike Tarnowski noted that access to transportation is an established part of the UCPR’s Community Safety and Well-being Plan. He said council should reaffirm a commitment to find new options or partners for provision of a similar service.

“There is a demand of residents in our county that need this kind of public transportation,” Tarnowski remarked.

Casselman Mayor Geneviève Lajoie also suggested the UCPR work with Alto to ensure residents can easily access the proposed high-speed rail service which is being planned for the region.

Hawkesbury Mayor Robert Lefebvre said the intermunicipal service was not organized in a way that best served communities.  

“We need to consider pockets of communities and how to bring the population into areas where they work,” he said.

Champlain Township Mayor Normand Riopel said the service was costly to provide and it was difficult to justify the cost when usage was so low.