Fewer buses will crawl the streets of St. Albert, with St. Albert Transit reducing its services by about 100 hours per week.
The move is a temporary response to declining ridership due to COVID-19, which has gone down nearly 90 per cent compared to pre-pandemic levels.
City council opted Tuesday during a special meeting to switch weekday transit services to the type of service offered on weekends as of April 27, which is estimated to save about $45,000 per week. It will reduce service hours by about 33 per cent.
“It’s our intention to basically convert the service to what would normally be considered a weekend service,” said St. Albert director of public works and transit Anthony Lake.
Rather than buses passing stops every 15 minutes during peak hours, they will come every 30 minutes. During midday periods, buses will run once every hour, and local routes will be longer and “more circuitous."'
In an email to the Gazette, city communications adviser Marci Ng wrote that since direct peak-hour local routes will not be running, riders will need to use longer local routes, which will increase their travel time.
“With some co-operation from our riders, in terms of pre-planning their trips ... they should be able to achieve the same travel patterns as they have in previous schedules,” Lake said. Accommodation could be made for people who have challenges, by contacting St. Albert Transit customer service.
Evening service to NAIT and Kingsway through route 202 will be cancelled, though Ng said riders can still access location such as the Royal Alex Hospital by taking route 201 in the evenings. Saturday and Sunday service across the network will remain the same.
Express routes to Edmonton will be suspended except for the downtown Edmonton express (route 208). Non-express destinations in downtown and west Edmonton are being maintained.
Lake said the revised service would look the same as how transit is run during holidays such as Christmas and Easter.
Representing the amalgamated transit union for bus drivers, Darlene Malayko told council drivers feel it is “important to keep the service level at or above modified weekday.”
“Many St. Albert citizens rely on public transit to get them to their daily needed services, like grocery shopping, medication and appointments. And the people of St. Albert rely on transit to take them to work,” she said.
According to council’s agenda package, there is some legal risk to reducing service hours, since the city contracts Diversified Transportation to run its transit services and reducing hours would result in less work for employees.
Lake said he is not sure how many bus drivers would be laid off, because the contractor deploys personnel as it sees fit.
Last month, St. Albert began limiting capacity on buses to 50 per cent, an effort to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Lake said buses would still be able to achieve the 50 per cent mandate, in spite of expectations of seeing more people on each bus.
No end date for the service reductions was set by city council. Staff will monitor ridership levels on a regular basis and when it is appropriate based on provincial direction bring the issue back to council.
