CANMORE – Free fares, half-priced tickets and changed routes – those are some of the changes rolling out over the next couple of months for Roam Transit.
The changes were revealed last month at Canmore council’s Committee of the Whole meeting when Roam CAO Martin Bean presented the local transportation update.
“Our intent is to encourage life long transit riders ... we want to make it easier for local residents to use transit service than to drive,” Bean said.
Currently, children six years and younger can ride for free, but with the changes the free fare will expand to include children under the age of 12 after the May long weekend. Students from 12 to 18 will also be able to hop the bus for half-priced fares as a way to encourage younger ridership.
“Looking at a price point, paying for mom and dad and three kids [used to be] cost prohibited – now this provides another level of affordability,” Councillor Joanna McCallum said at the meeting.
A route change and new bus stops will also open up transit to residents living along Kananaskis Way.
“We will now go through Cougar Creek and Elk Run onto Bow Trail and into downtown – it’s a big gap we’ve had in the past,” Bean said.
There will also be a new stop at the RCMP station which will help increase ridership in Bow Meadows with “no additional service hours or cost,” as the local transit company is removing the Nordic Centre stop.
“It is the biggest time commitment and [we] think it reduces user-ship,” Bean said.
The local transit system received $5.7 million provincial GreenTrip funds earlier this year utilizing $2.1 million to build new transit infrastructure in Canmore, $1.35 million to purchase two electric buses, $180,000 for ticket vending machines and $100,000 for driver training.
Through trial and error, Bean explained the company is constantly figuring out how to serve the community better, such as offering paperless transit through the Token Transit app where 1,200 people bought more than 4,228 passes used more than 17,000 times since being introduced last August.
“We’ve come a long way since the number of presentations when I was here in 2015 and 2016,” Bean said.
