Village seeks transit changes

By Richard Rolke - Vernon Morning Star - May 09, 2008

Lumby is threatening to put the brakes on regional transit. The village is warning the North Okanagan Regional District that it could withdraw from the function if transit schedules aren’t changed to meet the community’s needs. “It’s no good to us if people can’t use it (system) to go to work or college,” said Mayor Eric Foster. “If we can’t use it, we won’t pay for it.” Foster says village council and residents have demanded changes to the schedule for more than a year, but NORD has been unwilling to respond to those wishes. Currently, the bus leaves Lumby at 7:15 a.m. weekdays and the last bus returning from Vernon departs at 4 p.m., making it difficult, says Foster, for people to commute to jobs in Vernon. “We have to make the schedule work so people can use it,” he said. “We have to get people back and forth to work and school.”Foster suggests that a better return time leaving Vernon would be 5:20 p.m. when most people are done work for the day.

And he insists more commuters would use the bus if the schedule was convenient.“If you look at the highway between Lumby and Vernon, there is a tremendous amount of vehicle traffic so we need to get them off the road,” he said, adding that fewer cars on the road would also be good for the environment. Foster also believes it makes financial sense for the regional district to amend the schedule to accommodate riders. “If we get them on the bus, the user (fee) portion goes up and the tax requisition goes down,” he said.The village’s contribution to regional transit has increased from $1,600 to $6,000 a year.