Halton's four municipalities share the costs of many large and expensive public services, including policing, water treatment and public health.
One of the candidates running for the region's top job thinks that list should include public transit.
Andrea Grebenc calls for a regional public transportation system to replace individual municipal bus services in Oakville, Burlington and Milton.
She also wants to see improved and integrated active transportation links between the four municipalities and beyond.
"Halton is an increasingly integrated community. Residents don't live, work and have fun only around home. They visit and commute to other parts of the region and beyond," she said in a Sept. 27 press release.
"Because of this growing interdependence of transportation between Halton communities, public transportation should be uploaded to the regional level."
Grebenc, a trustee and former Halton District School Board chair, is running to be Halton regional chair in the Oct. 24 municipal election.
She is facing off against former Burlington MPP Jane McKenna and Gary Carr, who has held the job since 2006.
While campaigning, Grebenc says she has been talking to people who have come to the region from communities with better transit.
"They move to Halton and are disappointed to find that to effectively move around the region, a car is necessary. This contributes to growing gridlock and increases our carbon footprint."
Integrated public transit would make travelling between communities easier and more attractive, aligning with the climate emergency declared by regional politicians in 2019.
Her suggestion echoes a call veteran Oakville transit director Barry Cole made just before retiring last year.
In his final appearance before Oakville councillors, Cole said he believed a region-wide system would eventually be necessary to improve service to riders and cover the costs of expansion and integration.
"I think that full regionalization of transit in Halton is the better way to go, and I think that it's probably the only way that each of the municipalities in Halton and the region itself will be able to meet their transportation goals," he said.
"The cost is just too much, I believe, for a single lower-tier municipality to bear."
Rob Burton, seeking a fifth term as Oakville's mayor, says his platform also supports the regionalization of transit in Halton and beyond.
He says the issue has been a topic of discussion with the province and other GTAH area municipalities in recent years and is a long-range goal that will require federal and provincial government investment.
"Truly regional (GTAH) service will break down mobility barriers and energize freedom of movement," he said in an emailed statement. "The most important thing is to understand that Halton's communities require coherent transit service across the GTAH, not just Halton, and there's a provincially-led process going on to get us there."