The Crown corporation that provides bus service for Kamloops and most other regions of B.C. is receiving $86 million over the next two years as COVID-19 relief funds.

That money is from the provincial and federal governments.

Transportation Minister Rob Fleming explains it’s part of $1.04 billion for BC Transit, Translink and BC Ferries, being funded through the “Safe Restart Agreement.”

“And this funding is intended to get us past the health crisis, into the vaccination period, into a period of ridership recovery in 2021 and 2022, and our government will continue to invest in essential services like public transportation, in which people rely on.”

BC Transit says this will cover lost revenues from fare boxes, lost gas tax revenues, and will help pay for improvements to bus service over the next two years.

Based on the changing state of transit use during the pandemic, BC Transit has provided a “fee lease holiday” to the City of Kamloops, meaning it has relieved the city of paying part of its lease to BC Transit. That amounts to $1.05 million in savings for the municipality, and will be reflected in next year’s budget.

Kamloops was planning to expand BC Transit service by 4,500 hours in September, which would’ve cost taxpayers $282,000 in the next two years, but that plan was deferred in light of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.