qathet Regional District will be looking into designing a linear on-demand shuttle system in the rural region.
At the July regional board meeting, directors voted to authorize regional district officials to sign a $50,000 agreement to conduct the study, and to allocate a maximum of $15,000 from the paratransit service contingency fund to cover any leveraged funding deficiencies.
Electoral Area A director and board chair Patrick Brabazon said he noted that the regional district is contributing up to $15,000 for the study. He said chief administrative officer Al Radke had written to the municipality regarding a contribution and asked the CAO for an update.
Radke said the matter had been referred by City of Powell River council to staff for a report.
Electoral Area B director Mark Gisborne said at the month’s committee of the whole he expressed concerns about the long-term sustainability of an on-demand system in rural areas.
“Support was expressed from other directors for the system,” said Gisborne. “I took that information to heart, so since the committee of the whole meeting, I have done additional reading to find out more about the variations of on-demand public transportation systems. I’m not going to get into all of the things I found out, however, I still have concerns that are preventing me from supporting the initiative.
“My understanding is that mass public transit has a higher upfront capital cost, but then the transit provider can utilize economies of scale to reduce the individual cost and energy requirements to move people from point A to point B.”
Gisborne said there is a growing trend to have on-demand systems, but there have been unsuccessful on-demand systems. He said what makes such a system unsuccessful is lack of density.
“In a rural area, we don’t have density,” said Gisborne. “If we were considering changing our rural areas to becoming more urban and more densified, through growth, that would be a different story. In the rural areas, we have relatively low density.
“I believe the city is still experimenting with its on-demand bus service. I recall a news article a few months ago that put the estimate for just the one bus at roughly $180,000 a year. That’s a lot of money to run one bus, especially when we don’t have the density to make this viable.”
Gisborne said no matter how this report comes back, the regional district is going to be looking at a very significant cost, and not a lot of benefit to rural residents, who might be shocked to see the size of the bill to pay for such a service.
“That being said, on-demand services are popular,” added Gisborne. “People like them, but yet, at the same time, people complain about high taxes. If you want services, you’ve got to pay for them.”
Electoral Area D director Sandy McCormick said she learned “a whole pile of things” when she served on the regional rural transportation on-demand working group.
“One of the things I learned about was about on-demand transit,” said McCormick. “We, on Texada Island, have on-demand transit right now, operated through someone who has the appropriate credentials, using his own private automobile. If people are not wanting to go, there are no empty seats rattling around the city, the way there is with a regular bus route; there are no empty seats.
“It’s much more energy efficient using smaller vehicles. Vehicles that are licensed in different areas can certainly do the trick.”
McCormick said if someone wants to go off-island, the driver will take them to the ferry, and presumably, they would arrange, through the city’s Zunga Bus, or whatever the appropriate arrangement is on the other side, to be transported.
“They are environmentally friendly and passenger-friendly,” said McCormick. “They go to areas that would never be served by transit. It’s an alternative to using your private automobile, which is what rural residents are really stuck doing if they are going to shop or do anything like that. It’s the right thing to do.”
The motion passed, with Gisborne opposed.
