It’s great to see that city hall, which unveiled an older adult strategy last year to make sure Guelph is an “age-friendly” community, now has a plan to ensure it’s also a “youth-friendly” city as it seeks to meet ambitious targets for population growth by 2031.
City officials did an impressive amount of consulting with young people in developing the new youth strategy for 2013 to 2018. They got more than 500 responses – online and in hard copy – to a community-wide youth survey. They engaged more than 120 young people in eight focus groups. They did 50 one-on-one interviews with youths at various locations, held four school-based workshops, and received ongoing support and guidance from the Guelph Youth Council. They also interviewed more than 20 service providers in the community and at city hall.
One thing they heard over and over again was that Guelph Transit’s $64-a-month youth pass is too expensive for high school students, especially compared with the universal bus pass that costs U of G students about $93 for a four-month semester. As city hall’s youth services coordinator Adam Rutherford and Guelph Transit general manager Michael Anders note, though, it wouldn’t be an easy thing to transfer a universal bus pass system to the high schools.
Making it more convenient for high school students to buy bus tickets should be a relatively simple thing, however. And, in fact, that’s one of the youth strategy’s 10 goals for the first year of the plan – namely, selling bus tickets at all high schools. Other year-one goals include giving “marginalized” youths more priority in program planning, providing free, accessible space for emerging and existing youth groups to meet, and endorsing an anti-bullying policy for the city.
There are 10 more goals for years two to four, and 10 more – including the universal bus pass – for years five and beyond. It’s a tasty assortment, and a lot to chew on.