At their meeting on Monday, Sept. 9 Council approved the expansion plan for the Kimberley Transit System.
"This is the same expansion previously considered and approved by Council last year but wasn’t funded by the provincial budgeting process, so that expansion did not proceed," said Troy Pollock, manager of Planning Services. "This allows the City to take another run at it if Council approves and hopefully will be funded by the province this time."
It was previously indicated in a report that the expansion of Route 22 KC, the Kimberley-Cranbrook Commuter Service, would require three additional vehicles, but after some back and forth between City staff and BC Transit, it was determined two would suffice, reducing the total cost of the expansion.
Council approved the proposed one-year expansion of Route 22 KC, which includes 850 service hours and two additional fleet vehicles, resulting in an annual net municipal cost share estimated at $58,610, as outlined in the three-year expansion plan MOU.
"This is a really big deal," said Mayor Don McCormick. He spoke about the permanent counter that was installed on the highway between Kimberley and Cranbrook. The City just got first-quarter results back from the period of January through the end of March, 2024, and it showed an average of 6800 daily trips between Kimberley and Cranbrook.
"Our opportunity I think especially for folks living in Kimberley and working in Cranbrook, if we have proper routing, timing and whatnot around that, we have an opportunity to take a lot of those cars off the road," McCormick said.
"And it’s not just about carbon, it’s also about safety. I’m sure everybody sitting around the table has seen, on trips to Cranbrook, when you get down to Elk Flats, there’s always somebody pushing the envelope and passing when people are coming the other way, dekeing in and out.
"It’s absolutely incredible the risks that people are taking and the higher the traffic, the more risks that come with that. So long-term this is just a really, really important program."
Council also voted to revise the expansion plan to shift the proposed expansion of the on-request Route 24 service from year one to be considered in year two.
"We’re recommending we bump that to year two, just to help to spread out the cost on the off chance that both would be approved anyway, but we also think it’s unlikely that both would be approved and based on previous discussions with Council, we had identified Route 22 as being the more priority expansion opportunity."
Council voted to authorize the manager of planning and sustainability to sign the revised three-year expansion plan MOU, given the changes just approved.
It is now just a matter of executing on the cost-sharing agreement with BC Transit. The expanded service could begin as early January, 2026.
