Kiwanis begins free bus service in Elmira
Six-month pilot project will connect riders with community hubs and GRT transit
ELMIRA — Getting around Elmira without a car should be a bit easier over the next six months as Kiwanis Transit prepares to roll out a pilot project offering free rides in the community.
The service, which will run from Sept. 4 to March 2, 2019, will be available to everyone and will loop around town to connect riders with 24 stops, including Foodland, the Woolwich Township office, and Grand River Transit Route 21 stop No. 3818.
It’s a joint partnership between Kiwanis Transit and the Township of Woolwich and will come with a price tag of about $54,000, with Kiwanis picking up the majority of the cost.
“The township has been wanting this for a long time, and it’s really just another choice for people to get around Elmira,” said Cheryl Fisher, general manager of Kiwanis Transit. “It covers some of the main hub areas and really reaches the outer areas as well.”
Kiwanis will pay $45,000 for the pilot, with the township kicking in the remaining $9,000 and an additional $4,000 for signage and promotion costs.
The circular bus route will operate Mondays to Saturdays during peak hours of the day, starting at 7:40 a.m. during the week and 8:05 a.m. on Saturday, but will not run during statutory holidays. The 30-minute route will start at the corner of Maple and Church streets and end at William and Maple streets.
“We’re been looking at options for improving transit around town for quite some time,” said Woolwich Mayor Sandy Shantz. “Route 21 basically runs down the centre of town and for a lot of people the walk is more than they can manage.”
Fisher said the agency has purchased a used bus for the pilot, with a total of 14 seats and two wheelchair positions, and it’s fully accessible for walkers and grocery carts. Kiwanis Transit already offers a bus service in the townships for those 65 or older, or who have a physical or mental disability, but that service requires users to call at least 48 hours ahead to book space.
Fares for that service range from $3.25 for a one-way trip to $86 for a monthly adult pass (or $73 for seniors 65 or older).
The pilot project will be a more “spontaneous service people can use without booking,” said Fisher, and will be available to everyone. Riders are encouraged to arrive at the bus stop five to 10 minutes early.
The regional government has exclusive authority to handle transit operations, but in June politicians granted the township and Kiwanis Transit permission to run the pilot, with conditions that it wouldn’t cost the region any money and that all ridership data will be shared with the region at the end of the pilot to assess the possibility of making it permanent.
Route 21 already connects Elmira and St. Jacobs to the Conestoga Mall transit terminal in Waterloo. Ridership on that route is about 400 passengers per day, the region says, and was up 12 per cent in 2017 compared to 2016.
Shantz — who also sits on regional council — said the hope is the pilot will be a success and the region will extend it to the end of 2019 to provide even more robust ridership data to help make a more informed decision on its fate. One way the region could help pay for the service is to apply a special tax levy in Elmira, the mayor noted.
The pilot was initially pitched as a three-month project that would have begun in July, but was extended to a six-month pilot to provide better overall data, Fisher said.
They’ll be tracking not only total ridership, but the demographics of those riders and overall opinions of the service.
Fisher couldn’t say how many riders they might expect during the pilot, but said they should have at least 50,000 riders on their existing transit service this year.
For more information, including a schedule and stop locations for the new service, visit www.k-transit.com.