Regional District directors approve Saturday service for Nelson/Castlegar transit riders
By Bruce Fuhr
The people have spoken and, believe it or not, government officials have listened.
West Kootenay transit riders are getting increased service from Nelson to Castlegar, and, if all goes well at the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary board meeting, on to Trail.
(The RDKB meets October 2 to vote on proposed changes for the Trail area.)
The new Saturday service on the West Kootenay corridor, which is scheduled to begin in early January 2015, resulted from public feedback to West Kootenay Transit committee.
“There has been requests from the public for Saturday service,” said Randy Matheson, research analyst for the Regional District of Central Kootenay.
“And at this time Castlegar does not have Saturday service so part of the West Kootenay Transit plan is to standardize service throughout the area.”
“Nelson, Slocan Valley, North Shore, Trail, Fruitvale all have Saturday service so this new route (99 Connector) connects services through the (West Kootenay) corridor,” Matheson added.
Matheson said the Saturday service idea was brought forward to the West Kootenay Transit Committee in the spring.
The committee endorsed the idea before forwarding the plan to the respective levels of government to get additional funding approvals.
The RDCK approved the idea during the recent board meeting.
Currently the 99 Kootenay Connector bus run from Nelson to Castlegar, operated by City of Nelson Transit and Arrow Slocan Lakes Community Service, makes connections at Selkirk College in Castlegar six times a day from Monday through Friday with Trail Transit buses.
The route allows Nelson, Castlegar and Trail riders to access each other’s community through the week.
There are also bus runs to Playmor Junction in the South Slocan and onto Slocan City during the week.
The new Saturday 99 Connector run would add three trips to connect to Castlegar two trips would operate between Nelson and Playmor Junction.
In addition to the new service between Nelson and Castlegar/Trail, this change would mean that Saturday service between Playmor Junction and Nelson would increase from three trips to five.
“BC Transit will now start to work on scheduling of the new runs and hopefully if everything goes well the system will be up and running in January (2015),” Matheson explained.
Currently, Castlegar is the only community in the West Kootenay Transit System without public transit on Saturday.
At the same recent RDCK board meeting the Castlegar part of the equation was also approved and now local service will be provided Saturday to Sunflower City riders on the best-used routes.
“Regardless of the RDKB says, because we’ve had approval from the RDCK and City of Castlegar, the new (99 Connector between Nelson and Castlegar) run will happen,” said Daniel Pizarro, Senior Regional Transit Manager for BC Transit.
“Whether or not we do that final piece (to Trail) is up to RDKB.”
“(However) the best way we can make this work is to make these decisions on a regional basis and have the Trail destination part of the run,” Pizarro added.
The tweaking of the transit system in the West Kootenay comes on the heels of a major structure change that occurred in July 2013.
Routes were changed in Nelson, Castlegar and Trail to create better service for riders.
While some routes were discontinued, in Nelson along the Douglas Road corridor that infuriated seniors living in Granite Manor, others were expanded, including the Connector buses that linked Nelson to Trail.
“The integration since July 2013 has worked very well,” Pizarro said. “Considering there were a lot of changes, we’ve seen increases specifically on the regional connector, which is good.”
“Locally, we need to keep looking at an on-going basis,” Pizarro added.
Other changes included the one-rider’s guide serving the entire West Kootenay Transit System, the addition of new smaller Vicinity buses for Nelson Transit and the streamlining of fares — $2.00 locally and $3.50 ($4.00 for the North Kootenay regions of Kaslo, Meadow Creek and Argenta) for overlapping zones.
Arrow Slocan Lakes Community Service riders have also seen newer buses on routes beginning this year.
Comments