By Cheryl Jahn

City tweaks buses to accommodate fewer students

Sep 4, 2020 | 3:11 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Transit busses are running and, normally, this would be the time of year the transit planners would be beefing up service to accommodate students heading back to classes next week.

“Our U-PASS ridership makes up about 51 percent of our total ridership. So it’s a fairly significant component of our ridership,” explains Michael Coulson, Transit Planner for the City of Prince George.

While classes resume next week, the majority of students will be doing course work virtually. No trips to campus on a bus. The City picks up 53 percent of the bill for transit while the Province picks up the remaining 47 percent. So the decrease in student ridership is a significant blow to the City’s bottom line.

“In terms of how the pandemic has affected transit here in Prince George, we’re predicting for the year that it’ll be about a $940,000 loss of revenue to the system and a lot of that is from the university and the college students with the U-PASS,” explains Dave Bradshaw, Manager of Transportation for the City.

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They’ve had to tweak the schedule as a result of the changes.

“So we worked with BC Transit to adjust those schedules. We’re doing reduced ridership on the Number 15 [bus] route. It will go down from every 15 minutes to every half hour. And the Number 17/18 bus route which runs from UNBC to Spruceland will not operate for the fall.”