Bus service in Red Deer County should improve in the next year, if a grant application to the province is successful.Council will apply for a Green TRIP grant to help pay for a second bus for the county. Green TRIP, an initiative with Alberta Transportation, offers one-time capital funding that will support new and expanded public transit in Alberta. The county needs $670,000 to purchase the bus and could receive as much as $446,666 in grant money. The remainder will come from the community services reserves that currently sit at just under $3.5 million.ìWe want to look at an additional purchase of the conventional transit bus, which is the big bus, as well as two Action Buses,î said community services manager Jo-Ann Symington.Currently, Symington said, the county has one full-sized bus that offers services between the city and Gasoline Alley and the hamlet of Springbrook. The addition of another bus, to be purchased from the City of Red Deer, would supplement that service.ìWe need two to fully operate. We offer it seven days a week so we would need to add the bus just to supplement it,î she said, adding that the two buses would rotate between being on the road and in the garage for service.The Action Bus provides service to the hamlet of Springbrook but with two more the service would expand to reach all areas of the county.The additional Action Buses will increase the $178,416 operating cost to an estimated $359,750, but Symington said there's a need.The transit service has been operational for the last 18 months and Symington said the bus gets 3,500 users per month, or roughly eight passengers per hour. The Action Bus gets about 150 users a month.ìWe're hoping with the additional buses and increased awareness of services that our numbers will go up.î
