Transit May See Significant Saturday Change

Despite the challenges and problems the COVID - 19 created to the City's budget and operations there may well be a sunny side due to the pandemic.

The sunny side might well be changes in the Transit system to serve its riders better and hopefully increase ridership in the process.

Changes aimed at improving the Saturday service.

During the pandemic riding Transit has been free - MJ Independent file photo

During discussion of the quarterly departmental reports city manager Jim Puffalt said there is a potential of utilizing Dial A Bus to help improve bus availability on Saturdays.

Additionally once school starts - September 8th - the early morning service will return, he said.

“We have been tracking our numbers for about a year and certainly when school is in the early morning bus are full,” Puffalt said, adding “the late day routes are certainly not full to any degree so we are looking to add a bunch in the morning.”

Late afternoon bus ride pre-COVID - 19 Pandemic - MJ Independent file photo

Puffalt said Transit is moving towards a more customer driven approach, being available in higher times of demand and moving to alternatives when ridership demand is low.

“When there are customers we will run transit and when there is not we will seek to reduce or go to tele-bus.”

Councillor Crystal Froese said she had been contacted by people who have now returned to work and are having a difficult time getting to work in the early morning.

“People are already back to work and I have heard from a few citizens who are struggling because there is no early bus and so they are having trouble getting back and forth to work,” Councillor Froese said before asking if there was a possibility of extending Dial A Bus to the early mornings as she had been told it is highly popular.

Dial A Bus is a service where riders phone in advance and book a ride instead of Transit operating full routes at times where demand is low.

Puffalt said Dial A Bus had been used since the Transit service was revised for the COVID - 19 pandemic but “there has not been a big uptake on that.”

Dial A Bus though is being looked as a possible change to the regular Saturday service. Under the regular Saturday service buses only come every 80 minutes.

“Because you know on Saturdays it’s actually quite an extended time period to get the bus so is that an option as we move forward? We are not sure as of yet so we are evaluating as we go,” he said.

Puffalt said the stats proved with the return to school there was a need for not just the full regular bus service but also an additional bus due to the demand.

If people were having problems getting to work because of the lack of early morning transit they should call him but it was only three weeks until the early morning runs were set to return.

BY THE NUMBERS

As part of the City's assistance extended to assist residents during the COVID - 19 pandemic Transit, on a reduced schedule, has been provided for free.

Therefore for the April - June quarter the revenues from ridership was $0.

Ridership initially fell in April 2020 compared to April 2019. This year there was 3287 riders compared to 5366 last year.

The numbers bounced higher to 4,256 in May and 4,863 in June.

Paratransit use took a major drop from 4833 in the second quarter of 2019 to only 517 in the same quarter in 2020.