Fare hikes, service cuts possible options to meet rising operating costs of bus system
NEWS/ CITY HALL — The cost of bus service has more than doubled in the last decade and the solution might be another increase in fares or cuts in service, says a report to City council.
Photo from City of Kamloops report.
Development and engineering services director Marvin Kwiatkowski says in the report — which will be discussed at a council workshop Tuesday — that fuel and insurance costs are among the culprits. Operating expenses for the conventional transit system have gone up 86 per cent from $6.85 million in 2004-05 to $12.75 million in 2013-2014 while the custom service went from $1.06 million to $2.27 million, a hike of 115 per cent.
Tires and fuel went up 190 per cent while insurance costs increased 220 per cent.
One option to meet the soaring costs is to eliminate fare discounts for seniors and high-school students. However, the report estimates such a move would raise revenues by two per cent but reduce ridership by 30,200.
A second option is to raise the regular fare to $2.50 from $2.25 and the discount fare to $2.25, which would bring in 7.7 per cent more revenue but cut ridership by 137,100.
Still another option is a reduction in hours of service.
Kwiatkowski notes in the report that a 10 per cent fare increase in April 2011 temporarily reversed the trend of increasing ridership.
The report also points out that the Sustainable Kamloops Plan, adopted in 2011, was designed to reduce automobile usage and increase transit ridership by 50 per cent by 2020.
It makes no recommendations on the options.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
well if we can put in 8.2 million dollar roads behind the tru we should have the money to fund the bus system, if not use the money the federal govt.gas tax gives back to kamloops each
year. we need to quit promoting cars and pretending this is 1960’s, quit building any more
roads as we can’t afford to maintain the current ones, stop building subdivisions that are made
for cars which seems to be the case in the continual destruction of the grasslands (ironically the main road is called grasslands) , the annilhilation of the grasslands in juniper ridge and the total travesty of the annexation of the best land in kenna cartright
park, leaving the crappy land for the park.
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Raising fares, or cutting service all have the same effect, fewer people using the bus service. Time to think outside the box and find other ways to pay for the costs.
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