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Council votes to expand transit services to include dinner hour

At its regular meeting Tuesday, Feb. 11 city council also voted for an increase in taxi supplements
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Monica Lamb-Yorski photo City council is amending its three-year agreement with BC Transit to include additional trips at the dinner hour, as well as increased funding to its taxi supplements program.

City Council is recommending bus services be expanded to include an additional trip at the end of the day for BC Transit riders in Williams Lake.

During its regular meeting Tuesday, Feb. 12, city council voted on some recommendations that came forward from a commitee of the whole meeting discussion held the week before to amend the three-year annual operating agreement with BC Transit.

Read more: Three new buses for Williams Lake

As a result, services will be expanded to include one additional trip on each route at dinner hour, being the full trip on Route 1, a shortened Route 2 from the Tourism Discovery Centre to Boitanio Park only, and a shortened Route 3 from Prosperity Ridge to Boitanio Park.

In a report, director of development services Leah Hartley noted BC Transit recommended the City increase its funding to taxi supplements up to $9,000 per year, an increase from the 2018 amount of $2,740.

Council voted in favour of the increase as well as to ask BC Transit to apply for transit exchange infrastructure funding toward the installation of additional bus stop shelters without benches.

Hartley also said in her report that a proposed private operated bus route from Prince George to Kamloops via Spences Bridge and Merritt failed to meet its January 2019 time frame to confirm operations.

“Ministry of Transportation is transferring all unmet routes to BC Transit, ” Hartley noted and suggested city council may wish to advocate with provincial and regional district officers for a public supported system similar to the Bus North interregional transit service.

“At present, the Monday service to Kamloops sponsored by Interior Health is taking on extra passengers, space permitting.”

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Monica Lamb-Yorski

About the Author: Monica Lamb-Yorski

A B.C. gal, I was born in Alert Bay, raised in Nelson, graduated from the University of Winnipeg, and wrote my first-ever article for the Prince Rupert Daily News.
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