Scheduling will be key in how effective a proposed B.C. Transit expansion from Penticton to Kelowna will be for bus riders in the Similkameen.
B.C. Transit is proposing to create a twice daily route from Penticton to Kelwona starting as early as fall 2019, directors of the Regional District Okanagan-Similkameen heard last week. The bus would travel between Penticton and Kelowna during peak times with a bus in the morning and a bus in the evening.
Several Similkameen directors raised questions on whether the bus that runs three days a week starting in Coalmont and heading through the Similkameen Valley would be able to connect to the Penticton service so residents would be able to get all the way to Kelowna in one day.
Doug Pateman, a councillor for Princeton sitting in for Mayor Frank Armitage, noted that currently residents need to get on Greyhound bus at 1 a.m. to get through the Similkameen and into Penticton and beyond.
“I am assuming and hoping that we are not going to see that kind of timelines for our B.C. transit bus, so if we have to have say for example, someone from Princeton getting into Penticton or through into West Kelowna we’ll have reasonable and realistic timelines,” he said to a delegation from B.C. Transit.
Public transportation in the Similkameen has been a huge talking point since Greyhound announced it was going to re-route its bus service to go through Kelowna instead of the Similkameen Valley. That change will take effect June 1.
Matthew Boyd, manager of planning, for B.C. Transit said as the project moves forward discussions about how to connect existing services to the Penticton to Kelowna route would need to take place.
“I think that the integration of the existing services is going to be a challenge in a positive way, with regards to how do people use the service today and how are people going to use the service with this new potential expansion, and the potential of how we can redesign some of the schedules to accommodate as many connections as possible.”
Boyd told the Keremeos Review after the meeting a third mid-day bus from Penticton to Kelowna might be one of the ways to make the service more accommodating for people in the Similkameen Valley.
Elef Christensen, director for Area G, said the bus now travelling from Princeton to Penticton was mainly for people with disabilities and he knows there are times that the smaller bus is too full to accommodate the demand.
“It’s for handicap people that are going to medical appointments or something not for the people that want to go shopping or something like that,” he said.
Pateman said that the bus is administered through Princeton’s community services department and that if the need was there a larger bus would be used.
“If we’re finding that we’re looking at standing room only then we’ll look at a increased size of bus, of course increased size equals increased cost,” he said.
George Bush, director for Area B (Cawston), questioned if the B.C. Transit service was leading to the demise of private bus service like Greyhound.
No one from B.C. Transit would comment on the issue.
Bill Newell, CAO for the RDOS, said without Greyhound services in some of the communities that working to connecting existing public transportation systems was important.
“One of the things we need to look at is how do we get all these feeder systems feed into this?”
Keremeos Mayor Manfred Bauer along with Karla Kozakevich, chair of the RDOS, plan to meet with the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Claire Trevena in the next week to talk about several issues including the Greyhound cuts and options moving forward for rural communities that need access to public transportation.
The RDOS and B.C. Transit has a lot of work ahead before a Penticton to Kelowna system can get rolling including what communities will pay towards this structure, if the bus stops in Summerland, Peachland or other communities, and fares.
The issue will come before the RDOS board again on April 5.