City wants your ideas on improving bus stops
Get your smartphones out, Saskatoon bus riders.
Saskatoon Transit wants residents to participate in a social media campaign called Bus Stop Blues to identify stops and shelters in the city that need improvement.
Over the next three weeks, participants can use the hashtag #busstopbluesyxe on Facebook or Twitter to post a photo and the location of a bus stop they think needs improvement.
Saskatoon Transit director Jim McDonald held a news conference to announce the campaign Wednesday at a bus stop on the northeast corner of the 14th Street and Cumberland Avenue.
“We recognize that some of the bus shelters and bus stops are not great,” he told reporters. “They’re not friendly for people that are using strollers, in particular. They’re not friendly for people that are in wheelchairs or scooters or anyone who’s challenged mobility-wise.”
Saskatoon Transit expects to add about 20 shelters where the greatest need is identified, McDonald said. The initiative is funded by a $300,000 portion of $1.5 million the federal government had provided to pay for transit shelter upgrades and to improve accessibility.
The Cumberland bus stop where McDonald held his news conference is located on an unpaved stretch of land with ruts carved around it where cyclists have created a narrow path.
Saskatoon has 1,688 bus stops. As part of preparations to establish a bus rapid transit system, Saskatoon Transit plans to conduct a comprehensive review of all city bus stops in 2019, McDonald said.
A year ago, former mayor Don Atchison expressed surprise when McDonald told council such a comprehensive review of city bus stops had never been conducted.