If you live in a rural area such as Clearwater or Ashcroft, you or a family member, neighbour, or friends have most likely taken advantage of the local transit service operated by Yellowhead Community Services (YCS).
Recently, however, the mayors of Ashcroft and Clearwater have voiced their concerns about plans to regionalize the service, which is operated by BC Transit. The move would see the bus services in Clearwater, Ashcroft-Cache Creek-Clinton, and Merritt amalgamated with the much larger Kamloops transit system, something both mayors feel would be a huge disadvantage to their municipalities.
The service operated in Clearwater and Ashcroft by YCS has become a familiar, reliable service that many local residents count on to take them to appointments in Kamloops, or for essential rides to shop and get around town.
Clearwater’s mayor Merlin Blackwell isn’t happy with the proposed plan to regionalize service by B.C. Transit.
“I can’t see how eliminating a local service provider, with local drivers, is going to provide better or even comparable service. Yellowhead Community Services has done a great job as far as the District of Clearwater is concerned. Their drivers know all the riders and treat them as family."
The mayor of Ashcroft, Barbara Roden, agrees with Blackwell. "I'm worried that a regional transit system would cost Ashcroft more in the long run. Our small communities already pay a disproportionate amount of the cost of operating the service compared with BC Transit's share, and we have been told categorically that the operating cost will increase with regionalization."
She adds that under the proposed plan, YCS will not be able to bid on becoming the regional operator. "Yellowhead knows our communities intimately, and does so much for them. It's a huge blow to be told that they cannot be part of this plan."
She is also worried that being grouped with Kamloops will mean that city getting all the "oxygen in the room" when it comes to decisions going forward.
"The transit systems in our small communities are very different to what Kamloops has, and I'm not sure that BC Transit fully understands the differences, and the concerns that we have."
During a Committee of the Whole meeting on July 18, the board of directors of the Thompson-Nicola regional District heard from BC Transit on the question of regionalizing transit services. Electoral Area "A" director Usoff Tsao said he had already been made aware of the issue by Blackwell.
“The issue began when apparently there was a BC Transit initiative to centralize rural transit services such as Handy Dart and all rural transit services offered by Yellowhead Community Services," Tsao said. "As many of us living in the valley know, YCS is a core foundational community social services provider. One of the many reasons my family moved to the area was the availability of a speech therapist offered by YCS for my youngest son. In this way I can say my family wouldn’t be here without YCS.”
He added that during the meeting with BC Transit, the board heard that costs would likely increase for transit services in the areas affected by such a move, something he says “boggles the mind.”
“We have business and policy knowledge and awareness in rural communities just like urban centres. We have never had safety issues in the services YCS provide. We have not had tax issues. We have been able to service the fleet with many local skilled mechanics and businesses. And someone elsewhere who has not visited Area 'A' decides they want to increase costs for us that we have no choice but to accept? It doesn’t make sense.”
Blackwell is suspicious of the proposal. “I suspect the burden on Clearwater and Electoral Area ‘A’ taxpayers will increase significantly once the new contract with a new company is signed.”
Elected officials and staff from Clearwater, Ashcroft, and Merritt had a meeting with Transportation Minister Rob Fleming to discuss their concerns, which resulted in the minister agreeing to "hit the reset button" on the regionalization plan, which had been scheduled to go into effect in 2025. It will now be delayed by a year to allow for more consultation.
The TNRD board has also written to BC Transit, inviting officials to visit the smaller communities that will be affected by the plan, to see them — and their transit systems — for themselves in order to gain more understanding of what's involved.
Tsao believes that the delay in the roll-out of the plan, and the meeting with the TNRD board, was a result of the mayors’ advocacy on behalf of constituents in the North Thompson and Ashcroft. He is also not impressed with the lack of local consultation.
"Someone elsewhere who has not visited Area 'A' decides they want to increase costs for us that we have no choice but to accept? The drive to centralize services by the provincial order of government is not new. It has made its impact in everything from forestry to health care. The impacts of similar decisions have never been positive for rural communities, which always seem to lose out in terms of both services and local economic opportunities.
"I struggle to understand the lack of outreach to rural communities for consultations.”
