The number of people in Kamloops that are taking advantage of the transit system is continuing to increase.
The city’s Engineering Manager Deven Matkowski says it was another record year for ridership in 2019, surpassing the 2018 numbers of about 3.6 million rides. “So our transit ridership actually crested four million rides a year this past year. So if you look at the people beside you, four million rides in a city of about 100 thousand that equals about 40 rides per person. So the system is getting used. There are some that don’t use it at all and there are some that use it a lot.”
The numbers reflect a possible need to increase the number of hours that the city’s transit system operates. Council will consider an additional 4,500 hours of annual service as part of the 2020 budget. “Forty-five hundred hours is definitely a good number, it’s not insignificant. We have over 100,000 hours of service on the road right now. So, it is a single percentage increase in our hours.”
BC Transit has offered the expansion which includes a $106,000 expansion to the custom budget. These service expansions would be
implemented in September. Matkowski says the majority of transit expenses are paid for through means other than the tax base. “Transit throughout the province of BC is cost shared between the local government partner and the province. So between the HandyDart service and the conventional service, the ratios are slightly different, but it is roughly 50/50 cost share between the province and the local government. But, we also get to off-set our share by whatever is collected in fares. So we usually recover over half of that. So of the 4,500 additional hours being proposed, taxpayers would be picking up less than a quarter.”
Matkowski says the last expansion to service was implemented in September 2019, when 3,000 annual hours of conventional service were added. “The last big expansion our system underwent saw it begin servicing Sun Rivers and band land, so that was kind of a big expansion in area. This 4,500 hours won’t do that. This 4,500 hours will be used more for increasing frequency of service. We have some busy routes for Pacific Way, #9 going to Eagles. So we need to increase frequency there it keep up with demand.”
“Something that we do get feedback on is can we increase the span of service, which is essentially the hours of service. So, can we increase our hours of business by going a little longer in the day, or starting a little earlier or providing a little more service on weekend.”
City Council is considering the 4,500 hour expansion in the 2020 municipal budget. The city will be hosting a public budget consultation session on Thursday, February 20th at Sandman Centre. The budget is set to be finalized on Tuesday, February 25th.
