By Thia James

A tale of transit in two cities

Jan 27, 2014 | 5:22 AM

Prince Albert’s city council set to make a decision on a list of proposed changes to the transit system on Monday – and another municipality of a similar size is also considering its own amendments.

Moose Jaw, a city with a population that’s about 2,000 people smaller than Prince Albert’s, is also looking at a 25-cent fare increase of its own. Its transit manager, Mark Sture, prepared an internal transit review, dated Oct. 22, and is recommending that weekday service be extended to 9:45 p.m. The service hours extension would go hand-in-hand with a 50 per cent reduction of midday service.

Moose Jaw city council is also considering the adoption of an automatic vehicle location system, which allows users to track buses in real time from their smartphones.

“There was a desire to have evening service, but also a recognition that the financial resources were limited,” Sture said. “At this point it’s still just a recommendation to council. We’re still waiting for their final agreement or not on the proposal.”

In order to provide evening service, they needed to make cuts somewhere, Sture said. “So, we [were] looking at the travel numbers [and] we felt, or I felt, we could reduce midday service a little bit and still be able to provide that evening service on a Monday to Friday basis.”

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At the same time, Moose Jaw is looking to increase its fares for the first time since 2011. The 25-cent hike would affect adult fares, Sture said. “And the other fares will be adjusted in the same sort of ratio.”

Moose Jaw Transit also has a newer fleet of buses, purchased new in 2008. It has four bus routes that cover most of the city. Buses run from 7:15 a.m. to 6:45 p.m., Monday to Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. On Thursdays, there’s late evening service, with transit service running until 9:45 p.m. Late evening service has been in place for many years in Moose Jaw.

But in Prince Albert, where transit has been under the microscope as of late, the city’s transportation manager, Keri Sexsmith put forward recommendations to extend service hours to 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., with wait times of 30 minutes until 7 p.m., and hourly service until 11 p.m. Her report also recommends that transit service start at 7 a.m. and ends at 11 p.m., with service boosted to 30-minute wait times for buses until 5 p.m. After 5 p.m., buses would run hourly until 11 p.m.

Cutting costs is definitely something administration could look at, Sexsmith said on Thursday, but it’s not something they had been looking at at this time. As well, reducing service at non-peak times during the day also wasn’t in the cards.

Sexsmith said the routes are based on a 30-minute route right now, and existing service is a half hour between buses arriving at each stop.

“So, in order to get a shorter time limit, we’d have to put an extra bus on during peak times if we want to go 15 minutes or something like that. So, that would be an entirely new fleet again during peak hours. We haven’t really looked at cutting service in the middle of the day around when they’re off peak. Just because … that’s what the standard has been so far.”

It would require employees to work a lot more split shifts, she added. “So, it’s not something we looked at yet, but I understand Moose Jaw is looking at doing that, and it may be something we have to look at in order to get those extended hours that people want.”

For 2014, the total cost is expected to be $60,450, since the service changes would be implemented in September, but taxpayers would only subsidize $36,270 of that cost, according to Sexsmith’s report. Annually, the change would add an expected $196,000, but only $117,600 would come from the subsidy. The difference would be covered by revenues from fares, if ridership rates are maintained.

Over the last five years, Prince Albert Transit (PAT) ridership has steadily increased. Numbers provided by the City of Prince Albert show that in 2013, a total of 335,485 riders used the transit system. That’s 78,157 more riders than PAT served in 2009, then a total of 257,328 people.

Ridership is measured by each new paid fare – those boarding with transfers are not counted because they have already paid.

The number of average daily riders has also increased over the past five years. In 2013, 1,129 riders used PAT on average each day. During the summer months, average daily ridership generally falls by a couple hundred people. The 2013 daily average is 281 more people per day than PAT carried in 2009, at 848.

Increasing ridership would lower the transit subsidy needed. “Every time we add a new rider, we add more revenue, and that decreases our subsidy from the city,” Sexsmith said. She pointed out PAT has been increasing its ridership every year since 2009, and each year, the subsidy has decreased.

In her proposal, she included a number of ideas that could help boost PAT ridership. Those include free night rides for students with ID, participating in a stuff a bus food drive campaign, as well as discount promotions. 

They’re looking at things like the food drive campaign to help put a positive spin on transit, Sexsmith said.

“A lot of the reason why people aren’t riding it [transit] is because there has been a negative spin on it for so long. It’s something we’re always looking at, and we have a bit of budget for it, so we’re going to continue to keep trying to do things as they come up.”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames