An international day pitching people to get out of their cars made a positive impact for Red Deer Transit on Sept. 22.
The transit service saw nearly a 10 per cent rise in bus ridership as a result of World Car Free Day. Transit offered free fare for the entire day.
Transit planner Gerry Gummo described the results as “exciting.” They compared World Car Free Day with ridership a week earlier, on Wednesday, Sept. 15. A manual count was done.
“We carried just under 1,300 more passengers or boardings,” Gummo said on Thursday.
The total boardings came in at 14,376 for World Car Free Day, compared with 13,108 on Sept. 15. That amounts to a 9.7 per cent increase.
“We were able to manage the additional volume with our existing service,” Gummo said. “But next year, if we start earlier with promoting Car Free Day, we may be able to have a bigger impact. But we were pretty pleased with the result we got here.”