B.C. Transit plans to end its discount for sheets of bus tickets in Greater Victoria next month.
Starting May 1, a sheet of 10 bus tickets will cost $25 instead of $22.50 in the Victoria Regional Transit System.
The perforated square tickets, which could be used to pay for a single ride or a day pass, will be fully discontinued at some point this year, although any tickets still in circulation will continue to be honoured, B.C. Transit said in a statement Tuesday.
Passengers who buy the 10-ticket sheets get a functional 10 per cent discount per ride, as a single-direction bus ticket normally costs $2.50.
For two tickets — costing a total of $4.50 — they could get a $5 day pass.
Other ways to pay the fare will remain unchanged, including monthly passes, paper day passes and other options through Umo, an electronic-fare system that was launched last year.
Payment through the electronic-fare system is either via an Umo card or by phone through the Umo app.
More than 40,000 people have already signed up with Umo in Greater Victoria, which is being rolled out across the province.
B.C. Transit has said that it’s not planning to offer discounts for people who pay for their rides using the Umo card or app — unlike TransLink’s Compass-card system in the Lower Mainland.
The transit agency previously told the Times Colonist that it decided not to implement a discount as to “to avoid creating inequity between riders using Umo and those who choose to or need to pay with cash.”
Fares have been $2.50 a trip since 2010, but B.C. Transit announced last October that it was considering raising single-trip fares to $2.75 or $3 per trip by 2025 and increasing the general price of transit fares to offset increasing costs.
Provincial funding for transit across B.C. is set to increase by about $12.7 million in the next two fiscal years, a change from a forecast decline from last year's service plan.
For the full list of the 84 retail locations in the capital region where the discount sheets can still be purchased, go to bctransit.com/victoria/fares/where-to-buy.
Note to readers: This story has been updated to include funding figures from the latest B.C.Transit service plan, published in February.
