City To Talk To BC Transit About Smaller, More Efficient Buses
Prince George, BC – Although the City's share of operating the local transit system will drop by almost six-percent for 2014-15, councillors are interested in finding 'new routes' in a bid to be more efficient.
In addition to authorizing the City's annual operating agreement at Monday night's meeting, councillors passed a motion asking staff to enter into discussions with BC Transit about the possibility of acquiring the smaller, more efficient Vicinity buses.
The 2014-15 AOA with BC Transit pegs the City's share of providing local bus service at $1.85-million dollars, down $113-thousand dollars from last year. Director of Operations, Bill Gaal, told councillors, "This projected decrease is largely due to optimistic increases in ridership and, therefore, revenue."
With ridership plateauing over the past two years, councillors were interested in finding out more about the smaller, more compact Vicinity bus being used in other BC communities, as a way to cut costs further. Councillor Cameron Stolz said the 23-seat buses cost half the price of conventional buses and operate for one-third of the price.
The City currently has 27 conventional buses. Gaal said BC Transit operates on a 17-year cycle and Prince George is due for three new buses in 2018. Councillor Garth Frizzell pointed out that the Vicinity buses were tested in Prince George for a two-week period back in 2010 and Gaal said they did well during that run.
Both Councillors Frank Everitt and Albert Koehler pointed out that BC Transit officials have seemed dismissive to the idea of using smaller buses in our city, saying they wouldn't provide any cost savings. However, all councillors voted in favour of the motion asking City staff to open up that conversation once again.
Comments
Yes and perhaps more of them so people don’t have to wait an hour between runs.
Some one told me that Lloydminster does not have a transit service. If so I never heard that the sky fell there.
Lloydminster city hall has a “call to order and prayer” to begin their council meetings. Cool, eh? I didn’t know that.
they should use handy dart busses
My discussions with the transit folks have indicated that the smaller buses don’t provide much of a cost savings. They still have the same amount of salary cost to operate, and the large Nova buses are actually quite fuel efficient. More over, the smaller buses cannot be easily swapped with the other buses in the system in case of breakdown, schedule changes, etc. I suppose it’s worth asking, but I think it’s a red herring. If you want to make the transit system more efficient, scrap the beaverly/blackburn and add more runs to the city centre.
BC Transit, much like BC Hydro, has little or no concern about spending tax payers dollars.
Any fool with half a brain and a butt, knows that the transit buses in Prince George and far from being fully utilized, and that they are one of the biggest polluters in the City. A huge bus to transport 6 people is not exactly efficient.
Your sky may not fall without transit Harbinger. But I would be stuck in my home with my children. Well, I suppose we could on some nice neighbourhood walks. But there would not be a lot of shopping or medical appointments.
I know they use smaller community busses in many areas of Vancouver and I always thought those would be good for some of the lesser known routes. But I have no idea about fuel usage and that’s a good point about swap outs for break downs. I’m sure it works for translink because they already have such a large fleet.
Could give all our buses to the Lower Mainland and for sure never get them back again and maybe pick up a couple of used shuttle buses in Las Vegas. Better a small empty bus than a large empty bus? You choose.
I say it again and again until the facts get stuck,: the transit system is not empty:
“In 2012/2013, the Prince George transit system provided approximately 2 million rides with 16 bus routes and served over 450 bus stops. In 2012/13, transit service was operated with 64,793 hours and 27 buses at an average cost of $3.25 per ride. Overall, service levels increased 40% between 1998/99 and 2012/13 while ridership has increased 263% over the same period. Passenger productibity is 31 ride per hour ”
Moreover, transit serves some of the most vunerable people in our community:
– “Commuters with employment income below $20,000 were much more likely to use transit, making up 78 per cent of transit users”
– “The transit mode share was higher for female commuters and younger
commuters”
– “Downtown Prince George and UNBC are the top two origins and destinations for the transit system”
– “The most productive routes in the system, as measured by rides per revenue hour of service, are the routes targeting services to schools”
-“Older seniors (aged 80 & over) has a high rate of transit use. While older seniors donât make as many trips overall compared with other age groups, they tend to be very dependent on transit”
So let’s see here…we have women, youth, students, senoirs and people living poverty making up the highest users groups of the transit system. If our local government is going to kick in some investment to make our community a better place for all, I think transit is a great place to start.
Read for yourself at: http://princegeorge.ca/cityhall/mayorcouncil/councilagendasminutes/agendas/2014/2014_01_20/documents/Rpt_Transit_Plan.pdf
jillianmerrick,
Its about time someone set these people straight. You are totally right. Now lets hope people see the numbers and realize public transit is not only the main mode of transportation for many, but is also the transportation of the future.
jillian – I couldn’t find your $3.25 cost per ride – is that the fare amount? Page 45 of the document has the cost per ride at $14.05. So if the rare is $3.25 then the taxpayer kicks in about $11.00 for each ride. But, we’re actually one of the lower costs per ride of cities are size according to the chart – and let’s face it, you can’t have a university and no way for students to get around. If a PAC is necessary to make this a decent place to live, surely bus service might rank up there somewhere. Also, we’re seeing a larger proportion of seniors – who, if you make them housebound, may very well pick up their pension income and move to another community if ours becomes unlivable for them.
Jillian. What we need to know is the number of days worked, the number of hours per day per bus, and the number or riders per bus for that period of time.
I suspect that if you do that with 27 buses over 16 hours per day more or less, you will come up with an average if 6 riders per bus per hour per day.
In any event transit is necessary. The real question is, is a 48 seat capacity bus necessary for all routes, all day.??
How is the Nissan Leaf experiment going? Maybe they could us those for transit!
Thank you jillianmerrick, for providing acutal numbers to support what we know to be true: transit is not only essential for many of us, but it is being used in this community. I rarely get on a bus to see fewer than the oft quoted 6 per bus and generally it’s way more than that. One day iI was on for quite a while and there were no more than 6 at a time but during the course of my ride I counted close to 30 people getting on and off.
Transit is part of a vibrant community and it benefits all of us in some way because al of us will at some point be in a position to use it.
That said, I am open to discussions to make the system more eficient and cost effetive but not at the expense of service (which is already not as good as it needs to be to pull people out of their cars).
It may be essential but these new buses we do not need at this time! Let’s look at the situation in 2018 when BC transit can dish out the new buses and by that time there may be a new model. Why rush it?!
The City of Prince George often talks of transit service in the city but somehow fails to adequately promote transit use..
The Transit system will be providing shuttle service to and from Fort George Park on Canada Day for a fare of $1.00 each way. Is anyone aware that this service is available? Is it being promoted and advertised? Read the customer alert on the transit website to see if you can figure out when and where to catch a bus to the park. What routes does the bus travel?
http://www.bctransit.com/regions/prg/
Hi ski50, the $3.25 cost per ride is on page 34. This is for the conventional transit servuce. The $14.05 cost per ride you are looking at on page 45 is for the custom service – the Handy Dart
The fare for the bus is $2.50 (less if you have a bus pass), so the taxpayer is subsidizing transit to teh tune of $1-2 a ride, split between the province and the municipality.
Palapu, One bus for one hour = one service hour. 27 buses bus for one hour = 27 service hours. 2 million rides over 64,793 service hours equals 31 rides per service hour. Plain fact. It’s math.
I think due to the size of pg we need a transit system, but I also notice the buses with only a few customers most of the time. I think a revisit to how transit is handled here is a good idea.. To bad it wasn’t part of the wasted $350,000 audit or the wasted $100,000 mayor salary
do people on this website understand the problem with anecdotal evidence? “well, i’ve seen a bus with only a few people on it, ergo, every bus in Prince George must also be empty”. transit use is increasing in PG year over year. I agree that some of the far flung routes should either be cut or modified to use smaller buses, but this is a very important resource for students and seniors.
Declaration:
I am in favour of public transportation, but I did some math.
31 rides per service hour. Lets examine that.
You have 7 people on a bus, they ride for 15 minutes, get off. 8 more people get on the bus, ride for 15 minutes, get off.
Repeat the above paragraph to equal 1 hour.
In 1 hour, 30 rides per service hour.
This is why Palopu thinks there is only ever 6 people on a bus.
The average bus most likely has only 7 or 8 people on it at any given time.
Does it matter, though, how long people are on the bus, as they as they are on it? It’s getting used, which is what matters.
Any good transportation system will have some routes that are very well used (like the 15, both up and down) and some that don’t get as much traffic but act as feeder routes for the others. Therefore, we have to look at the system as a whole and again, the numbers are clear that it IS being used and ridership is up.
If we can ever convince the city to include more frequent service, I have no doubt that ridership will go up again as it becomes more convenient to ride the bus.
I am super excited about the proposed rapid transit network in the recently approved Transit Future Plan, and its implementation will be one of the main focuses of my bid for City Council
Like the article says, maybe smaller buses should be used. Most of the comments are not saying get rid of it, just that they too support smaller buses. Keep the big polluting buses for the more heavily traveled route(s), and look at smaller more efficient buses for the lesser traveled route(s).
If you take that average of 7-8 riders for each bus at any given time, and average it with the 30 or so users on a heavily used bus, that leaves you with some pretty darn empty buses.
The reality is that the transit system here is not used as much as it could be, and looking at a way to make it more efficient can’t be a bad thing.
Comments for this article are closed.