5,000 people have used Highway of Tears buses in first year of service
Improved inter-city transit has 'changed our communities for the better'
The British Columbia government has released a snapshot of the results of its transportation upgrades along Highway 16, the route also known as the Highway of Tears.
The update comes on the first anniversary of expanded transit service connecting communities along the highway where RCMP say 18 women have disappeared or been murdered.
A news release from the Ministry of Transportation says approximately 5,000 people have used the expanded transit service over the last year.
That service connects Prince George to Burns Lake, Smithers, the Hazelton area and Terrace, a distance of nearly 600 kilometres.
The ministry says more than 9,000 passengers have also used the new community-vehicle program since the summer.
That includes 7,000 passengers, or 43 people every day who rely on the 18-kilometre shuttle service between Vanderhoof and the Saik'uz community.
"People in northern B.C., in particular, women and teenaged girls, are benefiting from these new transportation services, knowing there is a safe link to get between communities," Transportation Minister Claire Trevena said in the release.
Reg Mueller, Deputy Tribal Chief with the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council, says the community-vehicle program provides valuable access to employment and education opportunities.
Vanderhoof Mayor Gerry Thiessen says it has "changed our communities for the better."
Transit across northern B.C. was a key issue raised repeatedly during last fall's hearings in Smithers by the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women.
Gladys Radek, whose 22-year-old niece Tamara Lynn Chipman disappeared while hitchhiking in Prince Rupert in 2005, told the inquiry she knows people who have to hitchhike just to go to work and called for a free shuttle bus service.
The subsidized Highway 16 transit service has prompted Greyhound Canada to ask for provincial regulatory approval to cancel its route from Prince George to Prince Rupert.
When the application was submitted last summer, Greyhound said the subsidized routes had "literally put us out of business" along the corridor.
The Passenger Transportation Board is due to rule soon on Greyhound's application.