Council requests report on changes to transit

By Al Beeber on November 16, 2021.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

Lethbridge city council in its first meeting of a new term approved five official business motions put forward by councillor Ryan Parker Monday.
Those motions included one that council request the City Manager to provide a report to city council on the impact of the most recent changes to the transit system.
The meeting was conducted on Monday instead of the usual Tuesday sitting because council is travelling today to the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association Conference in Edmonton.
Parker addressed the meaning of OBMs with new members of council before addressing his motion on transit.
Council was told by the acting city manager that on Dec. 14 council will be provided with a schedule about when reports can be expected on the motions Parker brought forward.
In late August, the new CityLINK network was launched that saw widespread changes to transit service in the city. When it launched on Aug. 25, city bus service began consisting of fixed routes and an on-demand service available by calling 311 or by using the “Rides on Demand” app.
Every bus route changed to some degree with the new system. Under CityLINK, some areas were scheduled to get a different type of service or less frequent service.
Parker said at the meeting “this is an issue we heard the past council and members of administration heard leading up to the election. And during the election, we heard the issue of transit and the changes that happened to the LINK, both positive and negative, because there were some positive changes. And most often, you always hear about the all negatives that happen when you have change because most people do not like change.
“It doesn’t matter if they’re a student all the way up to someone being a hundred years old. People do not like change,” said Parker.
“I think it was incumbent that I brought this resolution forward on behalf of the community because I think it’s important that we have a lot of the answers to these questions. And I thought I didn’t want to tie our administration’s hands in saying in two weeks because if we’re going to do something, we should do it right.”
“Transit was the biggest issue I heard not only during the election time but probably the months leading up to the election and the changes we made to it there was a lot of pushback, a lot of concern. And I think it’s important that we as a council address that right off the bat because it’s probably the most pressing issue in regards to services the community expect in our community,” Parker told reporters after the meeting.
On Dec. 14, administration will be coming back to council “and they’re going to explain when they’re going to come back with a detailed report and how we’re going to go about finding some solutions to this. I think it’s important that not only council be informed but the community be informed on the reasoning of why we did it. And also the consequences. I do believe our administration is also going to be coming back with some solutions as well which I’m very encouraged.
“I know our administration is working very hard to address a lot of the issues they heard, not only what council has heard, but what they have heard as well because they are really on the front lines,” Parker said.

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