WAWA — Wawa will experiment with free bus rides next month.
At the request of the Wawa’s Age-Friendly Committee during the Council’s regular meeting on Tuesday, Maury O’Neill, Wawa’s Clerk, asked that Council consider waiving the transit service fees during the March break to help promote citizens to ride the bus.
O’Neill explains that the Age-Friendly Committee feels that transit services are under-utilized and a necessary service for seniors to travel around town.
“They have some recommendations on how the municipality could improve ridership and make a little revenue and one of the ideas was to find a week and wave the fees and encourage the community to take a ride on the bus for free,” said O’Neill.
According to O’Neill, March Break would be a good time to waive those fees as youthsand parents with young children would be able to take advantage of the service during the daylight hours to participate in various activities around town.
O’Neill also points out that the cost to the town would be very minimal. Through various promotions for the event, with radio advertisements included, the cost to the municipality would be roughly $500.
The Wawa bus service runs at minimal hours during the day beginning at 8:45 a.m. and ending at 2:45 p.m. Monday to Friday.
However, O’Neill also presents the case that the Age-Friendly Committee would like the council to consider at a later date that those hours be extended by, at least, a half hour because most senior activities do not end until after the transit serviceable hours.
O’Neill said the transit service is contracted to a third-party service that acknowledges the need for longer serviceable hours, but they do not have enough drivers with the required grade of licence to operate a transit bus.
“Right now, we are restricted to the drivers that are driving the school buses. They drive the school bus and then they come and they work on the transits and then they have to go back to the schools at quarter to three to drive the school buses,” said O’Neill.
O’Neill hopes that in a future council meeting, staff will be able to present an option to the council that involves buying a handicap-accessible van for the town as a possible solution.
Council’s decision was unanimously in favour of waiving the transit fees for the March break.