Nearly 10,000 hours of transit service coming to Kamloops; not all requests were approved

KAMLOOPS – There will be another increase to transit service in Kamloops that will begin to take effect later this year, though its not everything that the City was hoping for.

Transportation Engineer Nii Noi Akeutteh says the City will be getting three new buses to help it restore service levels by adding 8,000 hours to Routes 1, 3 and 7 by January.

Speaking during Tuesday’s (May 27) council meeting, Akuetteh said there will also be increased handyDART service, which will take effect in September.

“We’ve also been approved for 1,300 service hours to extend handyDART weekend service to align with conventional weekend service as well as introduce handyDART service on stat holidays,” he said.

“What was not approved was the 5,800 hours which was supposed to go towards frequency and span improvements on routes 5, 16, and 17.”

These planned improvements were the first in a series of significant transit improvements over three years that Kamloops Council voted in favour of last August.

The 2025/2026 Operating Agreement between the City of Kamloops and BC Transit that will solidify these approved service expansions and funding allocations is set to be signed by June 14.

“We are currently working with BC Transit and the local operating company to determine the specific assignment of these hours that were approved,” Akuetteh told CFJC Today.

“For the 5,800 hours that were not approved this year, we are looking at putting it forward again for next year. We are also looking to put forward a lot of transit expansion hours next year, which would not be less than 23,000 hours because we are looking to implement our Transit Future Action Plan.”

Speaking Tuesday, Councillor Nancy Bepple said she was “concerned” that Kamloops didn’t get everything it was asking for, and that smaller systems like Whistler got almost the same number of hours as Kamloops.

Daynika White, a Government Relations Manager at BC Transit, said when expansion requests exceed available funding and resources, BC Transit is forced to prioritize how and where it allocates resources.

“We do have an evaluation matrix to evaluate all of the different expansion requests and it does favour initiatives with high ridership potential and critical operational improvements,” White said. “That could be for example a route that tends to be overcapacity at peak times and its leaving people behind. Those initiatives do tend to take priority.”

White also said that Kamloops “is faring pretty well” when compared to other BC Transit systems in the province when it comes to expansion requests that have made. She added that the inability to procure new buses is also hampering expansion requests.

“Of the 118 requests for new vehicles, we were only able to procure 55,” White added.

“We are trying as many expansions as we can whether its through hours or through buses, and as a big urban Tier 1 system, Kamloops is getting a pretty good chunk of those resources and there are others out there that aren’t getting anything.”

Planned improvements to transit in Kamloops next year include two new bus routes – the first phase of Route 98 from Valleyview to Thompson Rivers University and the first phase of Route 99 serving Lower and Upper Sahali, Aberdeen, Mount Dufferin, Southgate, and TRU.

Other future initiatives in years two and three include additional weekday trips on Route 10 (North Shore TRU Express), a new Route 8 (Battle), 2,000 hours of added weekend service, a reallocation of 3,000 hours on Route 2 (Parkcrest), new on-demand service to Kamloops Airport, as well as another increase to handyDART service.

“Year two and three will need to be relooked at to see how best we can get the expansions we ask for,” Akuetteh told CFJC Today. “The desire is to introduce Route 98 and add some frequency improvements to Route 10 in year two and consider optimizing Route 2 at later years.”

“Expansion planning for the next three years are in preliminary stages at this time and nothing is set in stone.”

While Council tentatively approved all of the expansions last year, it came with a caveat that it will only be required to fund its share of the costs if the province does so as well.

White also told council that BC Transit will continue to make these expansion requests to the Province.

“The one that you’ll get next to approve will be a bigger ask as it does include the request that didn’t get funded last year,” White said. “But we will make another request and we will keep working away at improving the local transit system.”

– With files from Curtis Goodrum