More People Using Public Transit

Thursday, December 07, 2006 03:58 AM

Prince George Transit System is celebrating again this year with increased ridership.

It is expected that when December 31st rolls around, 1.2 million people will have taken the bus. That’s a 10% increase over last year which broke the million mark for the first time in P.G. Transit history.

Transit Manager, Warren Hall says the budget looks good. "We made some changes" says Hall, who says cancellation or reduction in some less popular routes, allowed his department to shift service to other areas. "We added Sunday service, increased service to the University and added the P.G. Pulp Mill service and we will still come in within the existing budget."

P.G. Transit is offering some special services over the holidays.

There is the Seniors Light tour on the 17th, (the seats are all spoken for) which takes some 400 seniors through the City to view Christmas light displays. If you take the bus now, you will notice a green container on board, that is for non parishable food items which will be donated to the Salvation Army. Then in mid January, the Transit System will use the "Red Nose" bus to go to the high schools to pick up all the items that have been collected for the Salvation Army.

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Posted on Thursday, December 07, 2006 03:58 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: bohemian on December 7 2006 8:26 AM

I, and others here, like to complain about how the City wastes money on consultants and reports that seem to do nothing but collect dust, the recent $145,000 downtown "plan" being one of them.

I must say, however, that the City received full value for the public transit study they commissioned a few years back. Those suggestions were implemented immediately and ridership has shot up dramatically. I even use the system myself from time to time, and it is much improved, with a clear plan for improvement as ridership increases.

Well done.

Posted by: Palopu on December 7 2006 7:34 PM

When your City is spread out over a 10 Mile radius (16.1 Kilometres) and with a limited population of 77000 people, most of who drive cars in order to get to and from work, it is a impossibility to get a first class transit service, you will always be subsidized and can only do the best with what you have to work with.

Someone said that there is more than 800 miles of street in the City, so you can get some idea of the logistical problem. In addition as the City continues to grow outwardly, and implode, the situation will only get worse. Aside from the transit problems, we also have a serious snow removal problem, which once the City expands to the Fraser River Bench lands, and Cranbrook Hill, and University Heights, etc; can only get worse.

When the big downturn comes (And come it will) and people lose their incomes etc;, the City will at some point will start to lose tax revenue, and will not be able to sustain all the **Bells and Whistles** it now enjoys.

Prince Rupert a few years ago was a prime example of a City that went into a downturn, and got burned for taxes from a number of business's and in essence almost went broke. They had to go into major down sizing and cost reductions just to stay afloat. They are now facing the possibility of a **boom** but one of their major problems is that they do not have the infrastructure to support a boom, it came on to fast and they do not have the tax base to borrow money for infrastructure, so they have a problem.