There has been some proposed changes to the local On-It South Sub-Regional Transit Service in the coming months, after a six month review was presented to Okotoks Town Council Monday, July 17.

The On-It system currently runs four routes within the community;

-Route 500 provides service from Turner Valley with express stops through
Okotoks to Calgary and return
-Route 501 is the same route as 500 but with the inclusion of local stops in
Okotoks
-Route 502 provides service from High River with express stops through Okotoks
to Calgary and return
-Route 503 provides limited local service in Okotoks only.

Under the On-It Transit Service Agreement with the Calgary Regional Partnership, the service is to be reviewed bi-annually based on performance to determine if changes to the service are needed.

After review, the On-It advisory committee has recommended the removal of Route 503 and parts of the 502 return service from Calgary to Okotoks, Colin Gainer, Senior Planner for the Town of Okotoks, says the move is due to low ridership of these routes.

"The ridership is very, very low, there's been very few people at all that have taken that local route, and we're not completely sure why that's the case. It might be to do with timing, and the bus type but there's only been a handful of people who have rode the trip, so it's not functioning at all. The reason we are taking out these specific routes is because they haven't grown, haven't got any new people, and are running mostly empty, so they're not really serving anyone, it doesn't make sense to continue to operate those specific routes under the system."

Gainer says On-It system was designed as a two year pilot test case for regional transit, adding the possible removal of non-functioning routes was to be expected.

"It was always acknowledged when the municipality signed on to the agreement that there may need to be some changes to service hours, and routing as the service evolved, based on how it was doing, and how it was responding to resident's needs."

The proposed changes are still being drafted by the CRP.

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