HALIFAX -- Residents of Beaverbank, N.S., a community just outside of Halifax, are banding together after changes to bus services in the area have left many without transportation.

Beaver Bank resident, Lyle Mailman, has braved the cold to put up signs urging the community to act to restore bus services.  He says without a bus, many people living in the area have no choice but to walk.

'It means dangerous walks down gravel shoulder roads, with transport trucks carrying heavy gravel and asphalt and concrete doing anywhere between 70 and 90 kilometres an hour,” says Mailman.

One of those walkers is Ashley Lively, who has a 30-minute commute from work to home most nights. Making things even more difficult is that she will soon have to take her six-year-old daughter to school in the morning – walking along the road.

“I'm very worried for her. I mean, it's dangerous – especially in the winter months,” says Lively.

Halifax Transit’s 400 Beaver Bank’s route used to include Scotia Terrace, where the Ivy Meadows care home is located. Now, Kinsac Road is the furthest the route travels – several kilometres away from where residents say they need it.

“I really do think it was short-sighted,” says Halifax Deputy Mayor, Lisa Blackburn. “If Moving Forward Together [with Halifax Transit] is about getting more people on the bus, cutting routes is not the way to do it in my eyes.”

Blackburn says she was told the route was cut because of low ridership numbers, noting there's not much she can do.

However, many residents believe other factors should be considered. Marylyn Andrews, owner of Rocky Hollow Ranch, which provides therapy with animals, says the city must do better to be inclusive of those without vehicles.

“If we're to work with everybody, make everything inclusive, we need to have all populations,” says Andrews. “Not just the ones that can afford a vehicle, or have somebody drive them.”

Meanwhile, Mailman has put together a community group to advocate for the bus, which plans to attend a city transportation meeting on Thursday – hoping to have their voices heard.

“I understand the regional plan and the city centre plan and trying to make things that way,” says Mailman. “But we're starting to break up and isolate communities right now with some of these changes.”

With files from CTV Atlantic's Emily Baron Cadloff