Kamloops city council has hit the brakes on a proposal for free transit for seniors.

A motion from former councillor Donovan Cavers asked for council to allow free transit for people aged 65 and older on non-peak times during the day.

Council debated it but defeated the motion for now.

“We’ve just entered into a contract with BC Transit, so I think if we said we’re going to zig and now we’re going to zag, that would send a really poor message in terms of professionalism. We want to honour what we’ve just signed off on. And so let’s not lose this idea of how can we encourage people to take transit. But again, we have approved the ARCH program and I think that’s going to help a lot with people who are lower income,” councillor Kathy Sinclair says.

The ARCH program, when it begins in September, will see the city offer yearly bus passes for $80 dollars to up to 1,000 low-income residents.

City staff pointed out bringing in free transit for seniors now would have budget implications for this current fiscal year.

“My hesitation with this, is that we just went through the whole process of approving our budget annually, and the (license of agreement) with BC Transit for this year. So the timing of this doesn’t really make sense, and we don’t have a lot of the data that’s required in order to make an informed decision,” councillor Sadie Hunter says.

Councillor Dieter Dudy also questioned exactly how the process would be rolled out. “In principal I have no issue with this. But the problem that I have is, how do we control something like this? Somebody may look old but may not necessarily be old. Is it a question of having to show your ID to the bus driver each time, to determine whether you are over the age of 65? Are there special passes that need to be put out there, so that an individual flashes that each time they go onto a bus?”

Council will discuss the possibility of free transit for seniors during a committee of the whole meeting at a later date.