Quesnel City Council has given the green light for what’s called a taxi supplement program.
Director of Community Services Jeff Norburn says it is designed to be an enhancement to the HandiDART program…
“A taxi supplement program would reduce the number of unmet trips and can be used for service requests when HandyDART isn’t available but conventional transit is such as Saturdays and early mornings and evenings during the week.”
Norburn says when the HandyDART isn’t available then a taxi could be used to address that person.
The cost to the city would be up to $16,200, although Norburn says the Cariboo Regional District may chip in to reduce that amount…
“The agreement that we have with the Cariboo Regional District is a five year agreement when there was a referendum to increase funding from the CRD towards HandyDART service. That agreement expires at the end of this year. We will be negotiating that again, so it will be open for discussion to the CRD.”
Councillor Mitch Vik is a big fan of this potential program.
He says it helps on a number of fronts…
“I really think for the contribution that the city would have to pay, and assumably the CRD would help us, I think this will, not withstanding BC Transit improving their statistics on unmet rides, I think this is an excellent way to capture more resident’s ability to get into town and do their business, specifically from an age friendly initiative, this also meets that objective, so i am in favour of this.”
With Council’s approval, BC Transit can now attempt to secure provincial funding for this expansion of service.
If all goes well it could be up and running by April 1st, 2020.