Conestoga College wants light rail trains to pull into main campus

The region is losing up to 45,000 light rail transit riders by not putting Conestoga College’s main campus on the direct ION line.

That according to college President John Tibbits, who tells 570 NEWS that’s how many full and part-time students currently go to class on the Kitchener campus.

He says 53 per cent of the workforce in this area has taken a course at the college, adding 65-70 per cent of college graduates actually stay in the Waterloo Region, compared to 16 per cent of university grads.

Tibbits says the college is a bigger player than most people realize, and college students would therefore be better served by local transit.

“The universities draw mainly from the upper socioeconomic cortile. We draw equally from all four, and there’s many people that really can’t afford a call,” Tibbits says. “I think better transportation would enhance their opportunities to come to this college.”

As construction of Stage 1 of the ION LRT nears completion and the focus now shifts to the next stage, Tibbits says the college would like to be considered a bigger player.

“I think when people were first starting the LRT discussions, the focus was university and the downtown,” says Tibbits. “But this area here is really going to be more and more of a focal point if you look at the long term. This is almost at the centre of the region when you think of Cambridge and how far south it’s going.”