Residents who use BC Transit’s HandyDart bus could have it available for longer each weekday beginning next year.
That follows City of Terrace council’s decision to increase its budget by $11,973 so that the specialized service would end at 5:30 p.m. instead of the current 4:10 p.m. Mondays to Fridays.
And because the service extends past Terrace and into the Kitimat-Stikine regional district, the regional district would pay 30 per cent of the $11,973. The total cost is $37,867 with BC Transit covering the difference.
Extending the service would increase annual revenues by an estimated $974.
The expansion is not yet a done deal as BC Transit must now get its share from the provincial governmet.
Council’s decision is based on a survey of registered HandyDart users, 76 per cent of whom said they were very satisfied or satisfied with the current level of service but who chose later service on weekdays as a high priority if an expansion was possible.
The survey was sent to 208 HandyDart registered users and 54 responses were received. Nineteen per cent of respondents were neutral and four per cent were listed as very dissatisfied or dissatisfied.
Council looked at other service options which included running the service on weekdays until 7 p.m. at a combined city/regional district cost of $24,801, running the service until 7 p.m. just one weekday at a combined city/regional district cost of $5,131, running the service until 7 p.m. on Saturdays at a combined cost of $5,131, adding a Sunday HandyDart service and a Sunday service for the conventional bus service at.combined cost of $141,235 and adding a second HandyDart bus to run seven days a week until 7 p.m. at a city/regionaldistrict cost of $189,440.
These latter two expansions would require additional buses, something BC Transit has already told the city might be difficult to receive when wanted because of increased demand.
Council members discussed the various options at their July 24 meeting with most comments zeroing in on an extending ridership to 5:30 pm on weekdays. There was no contemplation of bringing in a second HandyDart bus.
The council consensus was to commit to extending service to 5:30 pm for one year and then seeing what effect that has on ridership.
Councillor Sarah Zimmerman did note that a service until 5:30 pm does not permit people to venture out during the evening.
“For the most part people are happy,” said Mayor Sean Bujtas. “A lot of people are happy based on the survey results.”
Bujtas also reminded council of the city’s upcoming budget discussions for 2024.
“We have a lot of tricky decisions to make when it comes to budget and putting money on the table. There’s no question some of these costs are low but 76 per cent approval rating is a pretty good approval rating,” he said of the results of the ridership survey.
The decision to conduct a ridership survey came after presentations earlier this year by advocates for seniors and for people with mobility disabilities who said a second HandyDart bus was needed as were extended service hours to meet user needs.