Full bus service can’t be restored in Red Deer until ridership increases, says the city’s transit manager.
Red Deer is part of a cross-Canada campaign led by the Amalgamated Transit Union to restore pre-pandemic evening bus service across the country.
The trouble is, local transit ridership remains well below pre-COVID days, said the City of Red Deer’s transit manager George Penny.
Penny noted ridership in Red Deer has been gradually built up this year since plunging to 20 per cent of normal after the pandemic was declared in 2020.
But it’s still just at 47 per cent of what it was in 2019, he added.
Before the pandemic, a dozen city transit buses would be driving around in the evenings. But now less than 12 people per hour throughout Red Deer are using transit buses after 8 p.m., said Penny. The city has, therefore, stopped running a lot of large buses during these hours. Instead, shuttle bus service is operated from Sorensen Station.
Anyone leaving a mall in the evening, for example, would take a regular bus to the station. After 8 p.m. they would transfer to a small shuttle bus to be taken home.
Penny said transit staff is smaller as a result, but there’s a need to economize. Even before the spread of the COVID-19 virus led to more people staying home, some city councillors had complained at budget time about mostly empty buses driving around at night.
He isn’t sure why it’s taking so long for transit ridership to rebound in Red Deer. Penny surmises many people could still be working from home, or are biking, walking, or finding other ways to get to around.
Among the recent changes, the City of Red Deer reduced bus sizes to 30 feet in length from a former 40 feet.
While fewer full-time bus drivers are employed, the city is seeking more part-time ones as the transit department prepares for this fall when schools re-start. Penny said the city is in the process of hiring some part-time bus drivers now.
“We are looking at our ridership on a weekly basis,” he added, and assessing what kind of service is financially practical but meets the public’s needs.
lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
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