Lethbridge Transit changes set to arrive this summer

By Tim Kalinowski on July 14, 2021.

Herald photo - City council unanimously approved the new cityLINK transit system which will come into effect on Aug. 25 during Tuesday's regular meeting.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDtkalinowski@lethbridgeherald.com

City council gave its unanimous stamp of approval during Tuesday’s regular meeting for Lethbridge Transit to implement its new cityLINK system by Aug. 25.
The sweeping changes to the transit system will include on-demand transit in less utilized areas of the city while providing more rapid service in high frequency use areas.
Lethbridge Transit general manager Tim Sanderson said the move will both help the transit service meet its $350,000 budget cut and improve the efficiency of service for most transit users.
“The mandate we were given wasn’t to go improve transit services,” he acknowledged. “The mandate we were given was to reduce our budget by $350,000, and really through the hard work of the Lethbridge Transit team, and the support of council, we believe we were able to restructure Lethbridge Transit in a way that provides the greatest amount of transit services to the most amount of people within our budget. And we think for a majority of our users among people in the community right now that cityLINK will actually be an improvement to their travel patterns.”
Sanderson did acknowledge these broad changes to the entire transit system will likely cause some chaos in the beginning, and he was expecting a “messy” first couple of weeks after the changes take hold on Aug. 25.
“This change is going to impact everybody who uses Lethbridge Transit in some way or fashion,” he stated. “So it is going to be a wholesale change of the transit network; which means anybody that uses Lethbridge Transit now their trip on Aug. 25 will be different. In most cases, we are hoping we have improved it. That has really been the goal of the whole cityLINK process, but we do understand in some cases it is going to require a change in people’s schedules in order to do that. We didn’t want to undersell it. We wanted to make sure everybody is prepared for this change.”
Sanderson presented council with the results of his department’s public engagement on the changeover during Tuesday’s meeting. After those public consultations four key changes were made based on public feedback.
Instead of changing virtually all of the westside over to on-demand transit as previously planned, Lethbridge Transit will operate a regular “Purple” fixed service route between 6 a.m. and midnight daily which cuts down University Drive between Sunridge and Highlands.
Second, the last Lethbridge College bus will also leave at 9:05 p.m. instead of 7 p.m. as previously planned to allow those attending late classes to have an opportunity to catch the bus. This will only be in effect during the school year, and not summer months.
Third, the City’s 311 Call Centre will help transit users who do not speak English as their first language by providing translation services in over 100 languages through the automated MCIS Language Solutions system.
And lastly, for the first phase implementation fares for on-demand transit will be suspended to encourage riders to use the service and get used to it.
Sanderson said these changes based on public feedback will make the service even better and help decrease some of the strain of the initial rollout for most riders. He also said once the service is up and running riders will be able to go from the university to downtown in 10 minutes, and buses will arrive every 10 minutes between the downtown park n’ ride and the U of L in the so-called 10-10 Zone.
“That’s going to allow access to all the great businesses in downtown Lethridge, hook them up with the university, and it is going to be considerably faster than taking your car,” Sanderson said; “especially when you consider the parking situation (downtown).”
Riders will also be able to travel from the university to Superstore on Mayor Magrath Drive South in just 30 minutes.
Both of these things are unheard of under the current transit model, he said.
“It’s a really exciting day for Lethbridge Transit, and I am really thankful for the support of council in giving us this direction,” stated Sanderson. “And really giving us the autonomy to change the face of transit for Lethbridge.”

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