New bus routes for North Hill take effect next month

Two new Brandon Transit bus routes are scheduled to come into effect Oct. 5, replacing the two current North Hill loops.

One of the two new routes will stay on the North Hill, initiating the city’s five-year plan to move away from the current “hub and spoke” model in which all loops meet downtown, Greg Brown, the city’s acting director of transportation, said on Friday.

“It’s a big deal,” Brown told the Sun.

The other route will also continue to serve the North Hill, but will travel south to make connections at the downtown terminal.

Brandon city council approved the changes at its Sept. 8 meeting.

The current Route 5 will become Route 3, while Route 4 will turn into Route 7, though the layout of the routes will change, including additional stops on Braecrest Drive. Names for the routes will also be added later on, Brown said.

“What we’re doing is trying to increase how fast service can be delivered,” Brown said about the city’s plan to reconfigure all transit routes, aside from the Industrial line, which services the Canada Packers pork plant.

“We’re hoping we can get to faster service, but it’s not going to happen overnight,” he said.

Brown said there will be an “adjustment phase” for riders.

“We recognize that for some people that this may cause some discomfort, but we know that long term it’s going to be a better service,” he said.

The three additional stops on Braecrest Drive are important to service the neighbourhood’s growth, he said.

The two routes represented about 90,000 rides through about the first half of the year, Brown said.

The five-year transit changes will shift from only the downtown hub on Eighth Street to three hubs, one remaining downtown and additional hubs at the Corral Centre and Shoppers Mall.

Brandon Mayor Jeff Fawcett said he’s “glad” that the updates are coming into effect next month.

“Anybody that has seen the development on Braecrest (sees that) we need a bus going down there,” Fawcett, who used to represent the North Hill’s Assiniboine ward, said after the meeting.

“The population has increased so significantly up there. And when you have a lot of high-density builds that we have, there are a lot of people who don’t have as many vehicles. So you want to make as efficient of a transit system as you can, so it is a viable option for people to get to and from places,” he said.

“I think it’s a step in the right direction.”

The next phase of the transit change will be implemented next year, Brown said. That phase will see 30-minute intervals for buses at each stop extended until 9 p.m. and expand operating hours on Sundays until 10 p.m. Currently, 30-minute intervals are scheduled only until 6 p.m.

A full change to seven reconfigured routes, including an express route along 18th Street, will take place in the next five years, Brown said.

During the meeting, Brown also said that the city has delivered 9,000 smart cards to the Brandon School Division, so that youth and adult BSD students can access free transit.

The program is part of the provincial government’s free transit for youth program that the NDP announced earlier this year. The program took effect in Brandon last week.

» alambert@brandonsun.com