Wheels in motion for Transit 10- Year Strategic routing plan
Plan to ease pressure on southside, prepare for more UPass riders
The City of Lethbridge is moving ahead with its Lethbridge Transit 10-Year Strategic Routing Plan by implementing cost-neutral portions first.
During their regular meeting on Monday, city council was presented with portions of the plan designed to ease pressure on the southside and prepare the westside for an influx of University of Lethbridge UPass riders.
The plan involves redistribution of resources away from lower-use areas to high-stress areas.
Transit manager Kevin Ponech told council every effort was made to ensure there would be no disruptions of service in communities where changes were taking place.
“We’re not pulling routes out of neighbourhoods and leaving them holding the bag to try and find their own transportation,” he said.
The proposed change to south route would involve re-allocating the 2018 N-19 Black Wolf expansion initiative to address pressure in the south side of Lethbridge.
The changes to those routes would still meet current service standards and allow the 22S to be shortened in order to provide more reliable timing. The plan also allows for projected growth in the South Brook Gate neighbourhood.
“Mainly what we’re seeing right now is significant pressure on the south end of town,” said Ponech. “The traffic has gotten heavy back there. Our buses are among the traffic, and we’re starting to get behind schedule and arriving at our transfer points late.”
Routing changes have also been made to accommodate the U of L’s mandatory UPass program which will see transit passes issued to nearly all its students.
The U of L Students’ Union held a referendum and voted in favour of the passes in March.
“We anticipate the ride patterns and the busloads are going to change significantly,” Ponech said. “We have to be ready for that change.
“It’s a huge increase for us, and a win-win situation for both Lethbridge Transit and the university students. It helps them out because they get a reduced fare to ride the bus, and it is projected to increase our ridership greatly on the westside.”
During discussion, Coun. Mark Campbell asked Ponech what a “worst-case scenario” regarding the changes might look like.
“I think the big fear is that all 5,000 people ride the bus at once and then our transit system can’t handle what we have,” he said.
He noted there have been user spikes in other communities where the passes were put into use.
“It hasn’t been to the point where the present system wasn’t able to control or have the ability to move around still,” he said.
There will be a small revenue increase of about $50,000 to the City for the UPass increase.
Ponech said it is hoped university students will form good transit habits.
“Maybe when they’re done university, they’ll continue to use transit rather than get an automobile,” Ponech said. “Maybe they’ll be used to it.”
“It’s exciting we’re making changes to transit,” Mayor Chris Spearman told council. “It’s great to hear we’re moving ahead with the cost-neutral ones ASAP, and to more citizens using transit in the future.”
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