The City of Kimberley is looking at expanding the community’s bus routes.
A lengthy discussion was held at Monday’s city council meeting, talking about an expansion of the Route 23 winter shuttle, the Route 24 local on-demand transit service and the Route 22 KC Commuter to Cranbrook.
The decision on expanding the route was deferred to council’s next meeting, which Mayor Don McCormick says will allow staff to firm up details on how the city will cover expenses for the change.
“We don’t have anything in front of us on that right now. Its not going to take that long in order to get that put together in a form that will allow council to take a look at exactly what our expenditures are going to be for what we are going to get,” McCormick says. “I feel a lot more comfortable if we had that in front of us first.”
The proposed expansion is in response to a yearly increase in overall ridership, which saw a 5% boost from 2018 to 2019 alone.
The winter shuttle service has been very successful since switching to a free fare service in the 2014-15 season, resulting in a significant and sustained increase in ridership.
The KC commuter service to Cranbrook has also been very popular since its launch in 2017, expanding to four trips daily in 2019.
City staff say increasing the hours available for the bus routes offered will allow greater flexibility in service schedules to maximize opportunities to increase ridership.
– Pictured: Details shared by BC Transit about current bus route operations in Kimberley, BC.
– Kimberley Mayor Don McCormick
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