Roam Transit Route Five – local transit for the Town of Canmore – is already seeing success after more than a month of operations.
Martin Bean, chief administrative officer for the Bow Valley Regional Transit Commission, said while ridership in the first month includes people trying out the local route for the first time, numbers reached 9,000.
“The local service is going well, we had close to 9,000 riders in the first month of service,” Bean said. “We hope to get 9,000 a month regularly.”
The first two months of Route 5 local Canmore transit are being offered at a free fare to encourage residents to try transit to get around the community.
“That was the intent of the introduction on a free basis for the first couple of months,” Bean said, “to let people know where it goes and how convenient the service is.”
He said feedback on the service is being collected and passes will go on sale for the service, which will begin collecting fares on Jan. 1. Prices for local transit in Canmore passes range from $105 for six months or $17.50 for a month.
Passes are, of course, available on the website, at the Town of Canmore Civic Centre, Rusticana, Shoppers Drug Mart, Fergie’s, Market Bistro and Trail Sports at the Canmore Nordic Centre.
A survey is also online at www.roamtransit.com and is available over the next several months to allow locals to provide feedback on the service.
“We are looking for feedback, whether around scheduling, frequency, routing or where the stops are – anything we can get feedback on will help us change the service to improve it to go forward,” Bean said. “We are interested in gathering as much public feedback as we can, because we are here to provide the best service for residents and visitors.”
Transit represents a significant effort by Canmore council to address the issue of affordability in the community, according to Councillor Sean Krausert.
The local transit service represents 1.8 per cent of the overall 4.5 per cent increase in municipal property taxes in 2017. Krausert said many focus on housing as it relates to affordability, but launching local transit also makes a difference to how much it costs to live in Canmore.
“We focus on housing, but transit is also part of that,” he said. “By funding transit, by that increased cost (operationally), we are actually able to move the needle for the living wage and increase affordability.”
Council accepted a report earlier this year that examined what a living wage would be for Canmore residents – singles, a family with two kids and a single parent household. The analysis broke down the components of living in the community, including the cost of transportation.
With local transit coming online at the beginning of November, the cost of living in the community for some is lowered.
The work on transit in 2018 includes supporting the transit commission by municipal staff taking on the responsibility of snow clearing at bus stops, servicing waste and recycling bins, selling bus passes, marketing and supporting a fee assistance program.
The municipality also plans on investigating what it would cost to offer transit as a free service for the community.
The cost for transit in the 2017 budget is $789,981 – which includes the addition of a part-time position in streets and roads for addressing the maintenance of bus stops ($38,000) and the requisition for BVRTC at $751,981. That amount represents the estimated cost of providing local transit for the year and the operating requisition Canmore is required to provide the commission.
Transit in the Bow Valley has been supported by the provincial government’s GreenTrip funding program, with the most recent announcement dedicating $14 million for transit projects from Lake Louise to Canmore.
Bean said the province supports the regional model used to deliver Roam with more than one municipality partner on the project and that can be seen through the funding delivered.
“There will be more incentives for municipalities to work together,” he said.
