As of April 1, 2014, it will cost $3 to take a ride on Brantford public transit.

The twenty-five cent hike in fare only applies to cash transactions; the price of monthly and refillable transit B-Cards will remain stagnant.

The change in price comes as an incentive to reduce the amount of single-ride, cash transactions that take place on public transit. According to Larry Kings, Brantford’s Ward 1 councilor and transit liaison, it costs the city more to bank cash transactions than it does to maintain transit cards.

Despite the cash fare increasing to a price that is on-par with the fares of the Toronto Transit Commission and forty-five cents more expensive than Hamilton Transit, Kings claimed Brantford’s monthly passes will remain significantly cheaper, “We don’t want to hurt ridership with unaffordability.”

The City met with GO Transit last month to discuss the service expanding into Brantford. According to the City of Brantford’s Transportation Master Plan, travel between Brantford and Hamilton’s McMaster University would generate the most transit flow for the city and GO.

The plan outlines a strategy to eventually see local GO routes extend out to Cambridge and possibly Aldershot.

The city of Brantford is also looking into a new site to develop a transit terminal. According to Kings, the terminal downtown is less than adequate, “if we’re going to grow, it needs to grow.”

According to Kings, a major issue surrounding transit terminal development is the expense of expanding parking downtown to accommodate the infrastructure.  The city has developed a downtown parking taskforce to look into the issue.

As the student population at Laurier grows, the more pressing issues like inter-municipal transit and parking become. According to Kings the city is excited about increasing student populations downtown, and is working hard to accommodate the demands a larger student demographic will bring, “it’s a good problem to have.”