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EDMONTON
Wednesday, August 24, 2011 www.metronews.ca News worth sharing.
Layton.
A condolence book for Jack Layton is seen yesterday at MP Libby Davies’ Vancouver constituency office.
24-hour bus idea gets a lift Councillor asks for inquiry into 24-hour transit on key bus routes Transportation boss eyes Toronto system as good model HEATHER MCINTYRE
@METRONEWS.CA
DARRYL DYCK/THE CANADIAN PRESS
Farewell messages for Jack
The wheels on the bus go round, and one city councillor wants to keep some going round the clock. Coun. Ben Henderson made a formal inquiry at yesterday’s transportation and public works committee meeting to look at providing 24-hour bus service on key routes. “We’ve always said that this is not a question of if we’re going to have to provide 24-hour transit, but a matter of when,” Henderson said. Henderson’s proposal isn’t to have routes city-wide running all night, but for there to be specific, designated routes. His inquiry comes after the city delayed a Responsible Hospitality Edmonton project to pilot a late night bus service on Whyte Avenue that would pick
up late-night patrons and take them along a route to the Southgate Transit Centre. Residents in the Southgate area opposed the route, so it has been delayed to allow for public consultation. Henderson said the service has to reach further than Whyte Avenue, and transportation general manager Bob Boutilier agreed there are others who could benefit. “Certainly with the growth in hospitality ... and the push more and more for the people who are on shift work for that safe, reliable service, we have to ask are we there yet? What level are we able to go to?” he said. Boutilier said the Blue Night system in Toronto, a 24-hour bus network that operates mainly between transit centres after the subway shuts down, is something to look at. A report is expected by mid-
Late-night transit Currently, Edmonton Transit buses stop running around 1:30 a.m. and start again at 5:30 a.m. City council first talked about 24hour transit three years ago, at which time operating about onethird of the routes through the night was estimated to cost $13 million. According to Bob Boutilier, general manager of transportation, Responsible Hospitality Edmonton will likely announce within the next month when the pilot project on Whyte Avenue will go forward. It was originally scheduled to run from Sept. 2 until Nov. 26.
November, and it will be up to council to determine what is feasible to phase in, Boutilier said.