ON THE BUSES. Fae Collins Mooney exchanges a few words with driver Dan Hawke as she boards the Keith #3 bus for a trip up town. Collins is full of praise for Hawke and his co-workers.

Declining ridership forces cutback

USE IT or lose it.

Faced with a rapid decline in ridership, the local conventional bus system will undergo major

surgery this fall. And if that Fails to reverse cur- rent problems, B.C. Transit

(BCT) warns service cuts will follow.

BCT’s latest service review paints a bleak picture of transit trends here.

Following a markeling push and -survey, ridership jumped 20 per cent over the last half of 1993.

However, that boost was short- lived. As of May 31 this year, the review says, revenves were Tun- ning 23 per cent below budget. And originally projected to in- crease to 98,000, annual ridership is now expected to be less than 76,000.

That has prompted BCT to in- lroduce route changes on a make- or-break basis.

The new plan will be given one full school year to hit targets of 95,000 riders in 1995 and a 24 per cent cost recovery.

But, the report warns, if by July i it is clear these targets will not be achieved, ‘the system will be redesigned with reduced service hours to reflect the actual levels of ridership. ”

The review deals only with the conventional bus system and notes the. HandyDART system continues to improve each year.

Under the plan, the following Toute changes will come into ef- fect Oct. 1:

* Soucie #1 — extended to take in the west bench area by ad-

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Local bus service just like old days

By FAE COLLINS MOONEY

PVE NEVER seen it happen in downtown Vancouver. Maybe it docs, but I’m doubtful. It happens here in Tetrace, though. And I suspect it happens often.

When I was a little girl growing upon. Vancouver’s North Shore, in the good old days before The City got too big, I had a favourite bus driver. His name was Pepper, at least that’s what everyone called him. To six-year-old little me he seemed old enough to be my grandpa. His hair was more salt than pepper, but he was my friend. He was everyone’s friend.

That was more years ago than I care fo count, back in the days when you were more likely to take the bus than own a second car. The bus was seldom packed full of people, which made it easy tosocialize.

You knew the bus driver by name. He knew your name, too. You chatted about important things like wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day, and you didn’t have to worry about missing your stop. He knew where you got off.

ding a Lanfear Hill-McConnell- Mountain Vista loop.

Within the horseshoe, the bus will continue to serve Soucie, Tuck and Munroe but Straume, Thomas and Walsh between Munroe and Eby will be eliminated.

The outbound run will continue to serve the Co-op and arena/pool. The return trip is a reversal of the outbound except for those places,

At the moment the Soucic serves only the horseshos area and, apart from an afternoon peak, is hardly used.

BCT concluded that’s because the area covered was too small and within easy walking distance of downtown.

It anticipates the new route will

It was still fun, though, when [ was six years old, to pull the cord and hear the buzzer announce our impending departure. And if Mom was laden with parcels, Pepper helped her off the bus.

Yours later, still living in the Lower . Mainland, and not. rich enough to own a car, I took the bus. Maple Ridge was a’ quiet community of commulers, but my job was just a couple of miles down the road at the iocal news- paper..The bus was seldom full, and sometimes I'd take the ‘grand tour,’ catching it heading out of town and enjoying the rural route it took back to the town’s centre where I worked.

I knew the bus drivers by name, and we still talked about_impor- tant things, like the weather, and there was sill no need to pull the cord, I didn’t have to worry about missing. my stop, Dan and John knew: where I got off. And if I was laden with packages, well, they courteously helped me off the bus.

Small towns are great. But small towns located next to big |

bring extra passengers with stu- dents living on the bench using it to get to Skeena and Caledonia schools.

* Halliwell #2 — dramatically shortened with west bench being switched to #1 route.

ft. will now run Eby-Walsh- Lanfear and once. on the bench follow Thomas-Twedle-Munroe- Hatliwell. to Skeenaview Drive. At the bottom of Skeenaview, it then takes Soucie-Tuck-Eby back to the Skeena Mall. ;

The buses will no longer pull into Terraceview Lodge. Resi- dents unable to walk to the bus stop will have to call up the HandyDART vehicle.

* Keith #3 — the name and numbers change, but the route Slays almost the same.

A

Name too, and we discuss impor-

‘vice.

board have approved { the changes.

The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, August 24, 1994 - AS

News

In Brief

cities in time get swallowed by them. That’s when we moved to Terrace.

I still take the bus, even though I’m close enough to downtown to walk. (Still not rich enough to owna vehicle.)

-Llike the bus. ‘Taking the bus in a small town is like chatting over the garden fence,

And, as in times past, it’s seldom crowded (although I don’t know if thal is a good thing these days; I’d hate for Terrace to lose its public transit system.).

I know the bus drivers here by

tant things like how many years we've lived in Terrace and why we've stayed, and, although ] know I don’t have to, I pull the cord as my stop approaches and the buzzer ‘dings’, even though the driver knows where I get off. And, if laden with parcels...

Small towns are great. That’s why I live here — I’m here by choice.

Freelance writer Fae Collins Mooney lives on a bus route in Terrace.

Dropped are the Kalum- Graham-Pear loop and the run up Tetrault, New is two-way service on the route.

The Kalum #3 will swing left off the overpass and follow Keith to Kalum, Jt then takes Haugland- Motitor-Agar-Kenney-Medeek- Braut-Keith back to the overpass. The Braun #4. simply reverses ihat route.

* Thornhill #5 — Only change here is the addition of a Hawthorn-Cypress-Juniper- Balsam detour to take in new de- velopment in that area.

. Paratransit areas on this run will revert back to conventional ser-

Both. city council and the Kitimat-Stikine regional district

Wheels

needed

A REGIONAL campaign to open a detox and treatment referral centre needs wheels to make its point.

Jim Pushie, a local social services workers, wants to start a rolling campaign from the Queen Charlotte Islands, east toward Prince George and then south. .

The plan is to gather support via petitions and letters at each stop along the way.

“A bus, RV, anything on wheels would be a help,’’ sald Gerry King of the Terrace Anti Poverty Group Society which is supporting Pushie’s quest. The society’s phone number is 635-4631,

Pushie has already formed a working committee of north- west politicians and others. Lately, he’s been in Van- couver promoting the need for a detox centre.

Of Princes and ex-PMs

There were some intriguing Tumours floating around the city for a brief period last Wednesday about Prince Philip. That was the day he flew up to the Khutzeymateen Valley north of Prince Rupert to declare the area a provin- cial park and sanctuary. for grizzly bears.

Bul the weather that mom- ing at the Prince Rupert air- port was foggy and there were suggestions the Prince’s plane would be diveried to Terrace before boarding another. air- craft bound for the Khut- zeymateen, Alas, the weather cleared and things went off as planned.

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