Commuter transit service linking four Foothills communities to Calgary’s south LRT line will start Oct. 11.
The first buses for the Calgary Regional Partnership’s two-year On-It regional transit pilot project will depart Okotoks, Black Diamond, Turner Valley and High River that morning around 6 a.m.
The weekday service will see four trips in the morning taking passengers to the Somerset station and four return trips in the afternoon. Two routes departing Black Diamond and Turner Valley will follow a route through Okotoks and provide local transit service within the community in the morning and afternoon. The High River routes will make stops at park and ride locations in Okotoks at the Pason Centennial Arena and the Okotoks Recreation Centre.
Okotoks mayor Bill Robertson said it’s great news for the entire region.
“I’m looking forward to testing it out because the ultimate goal is to be able to get anywhere in the region on public transit,” he said.
Turner Valley Mayor Kelly Tuck said the service will give people more options to get in to Calgary and back.
“I think it’ll hopefully encourage more people to use the system keeping the vehicles off the road, especially during the winter months when we see some pretty nasty weather,” she said.
Tuck said she doesn’t know what level of ridership to expect from Turner Valley, but this is what they hope to learn from the pilot project.
“It is about seeing if it’s going to be viable,” she said.
Exact timetables are still being finalized, but the first bus will depart High River at 5:48 a.m. and Turner Valley at 6:04 a.m. with all four routes passing through Okotoks between 6:30 a.m. and 8 a.m. Afternoon return trips will arrive back in each community between 4:30 p.m. and 6:01 p.m.
A one-way ticket from Okotoks to Calgary will be $6 and the price for a monthly pass is $155. A one-way trip from Turner Valley and Black Diamond to Okotoks will cost an additional two dollars. One-way trips from High River will cost eight dollars.
These prices do not include fares for Calgary Transit.
The On-It service will use coach-style buses with seating for 55 and on-board washrooms. Southland Transportation will operate the bus service, provide the buses, run a call centre, cover maintenance and cleaning and the buses will be stored at a Southland facility in Okotoks.
The pilot project is expected to cost $1 million over two years. The CRP is providing up to $500,000 per year in funding to the service, which will come from grant funds provided by the provincial government. The four participating municipalities will pay an additional $106,000 combined to cover any extra costs above the half-million per year mark.
Ettore Iannacito, CRP regional transportation program manager, said they will evaluate the service and could make changes depending on the level of demand.
“We have the opportunity to make adjustments to the schedule, so we’re hoping that it’s going to be on the positive side where we might have to add more service and that’s totally fine,” he said. “The first six months we’ll be collecting data.”
Iannacito said they looked at having the buses go all the way into downtown Calgary, but said they chose to start by taking passengers to the south LRT for now. He said it could’ve been a long trip on the bus to downtown for some riders and could’ve resulted in a lower level of service.
“We looked at the timing of how quickly we could get back to our starting point, it would mean, instead of providing for example half-hour service out of Okotoks, it may end up very well being hourly service,” said Iannacito. “We didn’t think that would be doing anybody a big favour because people want more frequent service.”
He said service to downtown could be considered if there is enough demand.
Iannacito acknowledged the service won’t serve everyone’s needs at this point in time, but added it’s a building block to eventually expanding transit throughout the region.
“We had to put together a service plan that met the funding that we had in place and we’re totally aware it’s not going to be convenient or usable, if I could use that term, for everyone,” he said.
The buses are rolling, but it could be a long time yet before they are replaced by a train.
Commuter rail service for Okotoks and Foothills communities will be studied, said Iannacito, but is likely a long way out in the future yet.
He said the CRP is planning to do a study on commuter rail services at some point, but the pilot project is the first step to build a demand for transit services. Iannacito said the partnership would also have to look at freight traffic and how commuter services can fit within existing rail capacity.
“It is on the horizon, but we want to build up the corridor first so you can start justifying a rail line,” he said.
For more information as it becomes available visit onitregionaltransit.ca
