B.C. Transit and the Regional District of Nanaimo is conducting a transit-fare review for the first time in six years.
A transit-fare survey asks respondents how they would react to increasing the $2.50 single-ride fare by 10 or 25 cents.
There are also proposals to increase or decrease the cost of a 30-day pass, now $65 for an adult pass.
The survey also floats the idea of a fare decrease to the Nanaimo-Cowichan intercity route to $5 per trip from the current $7.50 price.
Regional District of Nanaimo transit committee chair Stuart MacLean said Nanaimo’s transit system was one of the first to rebound to full ridership levels, and local transit ridership has now surpassed pre-pandemic levels.
The regional district board is committed to “aggressive expansion” in line with its transit redevelopment strategy, said MacLean.
It hasn’t committed to fare increases, however, he said, adding results of the survey will help inform the board’s next step. “There’s no predetermined outcome,” MacLean said. “We’re just balancing the factors of operating service [costs] versus encouraging ridership.”
The 99 Deep Bay bus route will be extended by eight kilometres to Fanny Bay later this year, MacLean said, connecting the Nanaimo transit system with the Comox Valley Regional District system.
That expansion will create an unbroken public-transit connection from Campbell River to Victoria, MacLean said.
Currently, there is about an eight-kilometre transit gap between Fanny Bay and Deep Bay.
MacLean said the board will also be expanding services within Nanaimo’s urban core, the source of the vast majority of its ridership.
In the future, the district is hoping to add a rapid transit line, he said.
The last time a fare review was conducted for the Nanaimo transit system was in 2018, when one option floated was to raise single-trip cash fares to $3 so monthly and day-pass rates could be slightly reduced.
Unlike many other transit systems in the province, Nanaimo’s system is directly operated by its regional district instead of contracted out to third parties. (Another exception is the capital region, where B.C. Transit directly handles operations.)
Fares currently cover about 30 per cent of the operating costs of the transit system in the Nanaimo region, with the rest coming from provincial funding and property taxes, according to the survey.
The transit fare survey can be filled out at engage.bctransit.com/nanaimo-fare-review until May 31.
