Free Transit During Games
Prince George, B.C. –A UNBC student led initiative has ensured free public transit during the upcoming Winter Games.
“The students have achieved absolute success with the “Pave the Way” initiative,” said Emily Harrison, UNBC sustainability manager, and overseer of the project.
UNBC student Eryn Beddoes – photo 250News
“They have fundraised all the cost of the ticket sales (over $37,000) to be able to provide free public transit during all 18 days of the games for every single person.”
The students collected donations from nearly 40 separate organizations to turn their goal into a reality.
“We went to local businesses and community members asking for support and also with our bottle drive we went to different establishments asking them to donate and also the general public to donate when they went to bottle depots,” said Eryn Beddoes, UNBC student and member of the UNBC sustainability committee.
She added the free transit will benefit the community in many ways.
“Environmentally speaking, you’re getting vehicles off the road, reducing emissions associated with that and there’s a huge social aspect to it as well. It’s super inclusive, everyone can go and participate in all the activities of the games. There’s also an economic side to it as we get people in the downtown core spending money.”
Mayor Lyn Hall was also on hand to lend his support.
“The fact of the matter is that people don’t take public transit for whatever reason. And it may be a cost factor so here’s an opportunity now for them to get out of their homes and get moving around the community and take in the 2015 Games.”
Comments
Good work on the part of the students. Now lets see if we get a big jump in usage.
Great idea, just one problem, we still pay for the fares in our taxes. There’s no such thing as a “free ride”.
Who is in receipt of the $37,000.00 PG Transit?
Professional, they collected the money to cover the fares/tickets.
Sorry, stepped out for a quart of milk, I am back now. Thanks for the wake up P Val….. lol (really wish we could delete our own oopses)
How far back in time did you go to get a “quart” of milk. You must be old like me!!
The $37000.00 will offset some of the operating costs. Works out to be about $2055.00 per day. Perhaps the $2055.00 is the amount of revenue they take in on an average day.?? Who knows??
@ Professional
Thanks for confirming what I have often suspected… people posting comments with out having read the article or possible putting thought into what they state.
I liked the reducing emissions part, the money maker.
While I think this is a great idea I just wonder now how much money BC Transit could be making during the games. I get not all visitors would take transit and many more will now that it’s free.
just my opinion: He just wait you too will step into it one day, it’s just a matter of time….
It still takes double the time to ride the bus from here to there!! The bus routes are totally useless if you live in the Hart or College Heights. Takes 2 hrs to ride the bus, when it takes a half hr, to hop in the car and drive downtown and back.
Well done, kids! :-)
would rather see this money going towards better bus service for the people who live here pay taxes here, not for free service for visitors. they get enough stuff already.
Revenue taken in and operating costs are two different things. If it only cost $2055/day to operate then they should be selling monthly passes for approx. $5.50, currently they charge %57.50 a month for an adult. So according to BCTransit fare rates that $37,000.00 will pay for 45 riders (adult) per day for the entire 18 days. I think the taxpayers are really the ones who will be paying for this and the $37,000.00 is just a token payment to make for a good PR stunt.
Simple math tells you this is just a PR stunt. $37,000 for 2 weeks would mean that Transit in PG only cost $962,000 annually.
And actually, one of the points of the Winter Games was to bring visitors who would spend money in our city. Now, you took money that was already in our city, so that visitors to our city, wouldn’t have to leave money in our city. Frankly, the idea of the Winter Games is to also generate revenue for the city/taxpayers, and by giving them a free ride, funded by donations of city businesses/taxpayers, that’s essentially $37,000 plus gone. But, it’s a feel good story, even if in reality it has had a negative impact on the city.
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