City hall made changes to public transit in the spring to handle the pandemic’s effects, but a more normal bus schedule could return in the fall to deal with returning students.
City administration presented a report during the recent city council meeting about all second-quarter activities at city hall and within its departments. The state of public transit was part of the report for the public works and utilities department.
Transit
City hall collected no fares during the second quarter of 2020 as part of its pandemic relief measures to help residents.
The number of passengers who used transit in April declined to 3,287 compared to 5,366 in 2019. However, that number rebounded in May by 20.4 per cent and climbed to 4,256 passengers. More passengers used transit in June, with 4,863 users taking the bus.
Overall, though, during the second quarter, 12,406 people used public transit, compared to 13,293 users in 2019. This represented a decline of 6.7 per cent.
Special needs transit saw the biggest plunge, as the number of users declined to 517 in Q2 compared to 9,833 users during the same time last year. This was a drop of 94.7 per cent.
City hall will start running early morning bus routes in September once school returns, city manager Jim Puffalt said. Municipal officials have tracked numbers and the data shows the bus routes are full when students are in class. It’s the late-day routes that have fewer passengers.
It’s good that a regular bus schedule might return in the fall since many people will be returning to work, said Coun. Crystal Froese. Some people have struggled to get to work since there has not been an early bus route. However, she has received good feedback about the Dial-A-Bus program.
“Some feedback I have received on Dial-A-Bus is it’s full, (especially) first thing in the morning,” she added, while wondering if it could be expanded for the remainder of summer.
“Dial-A-Bus has been in effect since we revised the service. (There) has not been a big uptake on that,” Puffalt replied.
City administration will determine if that program is more efficient on Saturdays in September than running regular transit since it’s a long wait for buses that day, he continued. Dial-A-Bus is a good option in most areas, but statistics show running additional buses on a route is the answer when school happens.
Puffalt added that transit users need to call a day in advance to book a Dial-A-Bus and city hall would do its best to accommodate.
The next regular council meeting is Monday, Aug. 24.
