
BC Transit buses in downtown Kamloops. (Photo via Victor Kaisar)
The City of Kamloops is poised to make several significant changes to its transit network beginning in September of next year.
Transportation Engineer Spencer Behn says in addition to improvements to the existing network, the three year plan – which is going before council on Tuesday – is proposing some fairly significant new additions.
The plan is proposing to include handyDART service on stat holidays, a new bus route 98 from Valleyview to TRU, a new route 99 in Southwest Kamloops, additional trips on the existing Route 10 North Shore Express bus to TRU, as well as new on-demand service to Kamloops Airport.
“BC Transit as of June has offered us these kinds of sizable expansions because the last few years there has been a little bit of uncertainty in provincial funding and COVID funding and things like that,” Behn told Radio NL.
“Part of it is catch up just to maintain the on-time performance for the systems but also some pretty important milestone routes are being added and potentially another transit exchange in Valleyview [as part of Route 98] for this plan.”
- Proposed Kamloops Transit Expansion 2025-2026. (Photo via City of Kamloops)
- Proposed Kamloops Transit Expansion 2026-2028 (Photo via City of Kamloops)
As part of the proposal, there is also reduction of 3,000 hours of service on Route 2 – Parkcrest by “eliminating routing to Downtown from MacKenzie Avenue and Tranquille Road.” That change is scheduled to take effect in Sept. 2026, the same time the changes to Routes 10, 98, and 99 take effect.
“I would have to talk to the BC Transit planning people about that but I don’t believe there would be significant loss in service,” Behn, who has been filling in as the City’s Transportation Planner, added, when asked about the reduction.
“I think the reduction of hours seem to be more an optimization exercise, but I would have to get back to you on that with more details.”
Behn also noted that the expansions in service are not guaranteed, as while the City is being asked to commit to paying for the upgrades now, it will only go through when the province puts up its share of the money.
“BC Transit prepares a memorandum of understanding this time of year and what that asks the city to do is to commit the budgets for the 2025-26 fiscal year for BC Transit,” Behn said. “Once we commit our budgets, [BC Transit] submits the funding request to the province and typically in early in the next year, so early 2025, we could get confirmation from the province that those funds would be approved.”
“We are providing BC Transit our intentions in our budgets at least for 2025-26 expansion and then next year, we’ll have another memorandum of understanding where we continue to fine tune what is in this year’s MOU.”
Behn says the significant changes are expected to happen in 2026 and 2027, which is when there would be a larger ask of city taxpayers.
“In 2025, we would be looking at a fairly small amount of new money because its really just handyDART expansion happening in September, so that would be about $19,345,” he said. “2026 in terms of new money we’re looking at $1.6 million and approximately $1.6 million in 2027. That is assuming that all years one, two, and three are approved and that would require additional MOUs being signed in 2026 and 2027.
“As we do get closer, BC Transit does provide updated costing. It’s also assuming that the province will be able meet their part of the funding.”
- Projected costs for planned transit expansion in Kamloops broken down by budget years. (Photo via City of Kamloops)
- Planned transit expansion in Kamloops between 2025 and 2028. (Photo via City of Kamloops)