Photo by Tanner Smith

By Curtis Galbraith

City Hall

Transit user brings list of concerns with new system to city council

Oct 5, 2022 | 6:00 AM

A Grande Prairie transit user outlined a long list of problems she has been having since the redesign at Monday’s city council meeting.

Alison Steele works in schools and has her own counselling business and uses transit nearly every day.

She says the old system had issues too but was predictable, adding that is not the case with the new setup.

“Now I have to get on the app and I have to start negotiating what time is that bus going to be available – assuming there is a bus available because oftentimes there isn’t and I get an error message saying no bus available, no bus available.”

“I can get that for 15 minutes. That is usually when I call dispatch and make sure the buses are running.”

Steele says there are different apps for on-demand and fixed route service but the two do not communicate to each other.

“On the on-demand app, you go in and you set your location where you’re starting from and then your destination. You are given a time and it texts you like Uber would text you to say your ride is 15 minutes away, then five minutes away.”

“It’s important to check that because I didn’t check the text I got back last week and it was going to the wrong spot and my bus never came.”

She told council one app uses the Eastlink Centre while another uses Community Knowledge Campus and newcomers to Grande Prairie may not know it is the same location.

Steele thinks sometimes buses don’t have their GPS on so they can’t be tracked on the fixed route app.

She adds there was one instance where it took her more than an hour-and-a-half to get from Crystal Park School to Countryside South and another where it took the same amount of time to go to Countryside South from Isabel Campbell Public School.

“I feel that many transit users aren’t able to articulate and aren’t able to advocate and so I feel like I need to speak up about the concerns and make others aware,” Steele says.

“There is a lot of money spent on transit and any vital, thriving city has good transit.”

Council voted to receive Steele’s presentation for information.

Mayor Jackie Clayton thanked Steele for bringing specific issues to council and invites other people to communicate their concerns to the City.

Councillor Dylan Bressey says he has talked to people at transit have been talking with app companies about issues with the new transit system.