Fredericton could get Sunday bus service going next year

Fredericton transit users could have bus service on Sundays by the middle of next year if councillors go ahead with a proposal to spend more money and increase fares to help pay for it.

Staff at a council-in-committee open budget meeting on Monday proposed allocating $638,294 in next year's budget to introduce Sunday bus service between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Sundays.

Charlene Sharpe, Fredericton's manager of transit and parking services, described the proposal as "low-hanging fruit" in terms of service improvements the city could make to its transit service.

"It's something that we know everybody is has been asking for," Sharpe said after the meeting.

"It's something that we can implement fairly quickly because it's it's brand new, we have the buses. What we have to work on is getting the operators to support it, so it's it's more of an HR issue at this point."

Councillors didn't have time to vote on a resolution to adopt the proposed spending, as lengthy deliberations on other budget items pushed the meeting to nearly10 p.m.

Councillors will return on Nov. 20 to vote on the proposal, as well as other budget items presented last night, which include:

• Increases in the tax rate by five cents for residents paying the outside tax rate, and those living in newly amalgamated parts of the city.
• Decrease in the tax rate by 1 cent for residents paying the inside tax rate.
• $898,302 for six new front-line police constables, two school resource officers paid for partly by Anglophone School District West, and two additional constables dedicated to Sitansisk First Nation under an agreement between the city, Sitansisk, and the federal and provincial governments.
• $338,481 to hire four new firefighters
• $500,000 next year and the next three years to purchase land to be used for affordable housing developments.
• $100,000 annually for 10 years to assist the University of New Brunswick in its plan to renovate the justice building on Queen Street to house its law school, plus $1.65 million to be spent in 2026 to refurbish the exterior facade.
• $250,000 annually to keep UNB's Sir Max Aitken Pool operating.

Added costs for Sunday service

Frederictonians have for years called on the city to run buses on Sundays, which is a service already enjoyed by residents in Saint John and Moncton.

The plan by staff to finally offer it, however, will come at an added cost to users.

The proposal would see individual fares go from $2.75 to $3, and adult monthly passes from $80 to $85.

With those fare increases, combined with anticipated fare revenue collected from passengers on Sundays, staff expect the additional service to cost a net $292,962.

"We negotiated a contract this summer that made Sunday service more affordable from a planning perspective, had a lot of public engagement with respect to surveys and feedback," Sharpe said.

"The number one message is Sunday, so we've taken that all into consideration and being able to provide a costing for consideration."

Details still to be worked out

Sharpe said to offer Sunday bus service, the city will need to hire six more drivers, a dispatcher, a service worker and a service technician.

What routes they'll be driving, however, remain to be worked out, Sharpe said.

"We're still putting together a lot of the data that we've been able to gather," Sharpe said.

"We want to make sure that whatever service we do bring forward to mobility is designed properly to support the businesses and the citizens in the city."

Coun. Bruce Grandy, chair of the city's mobility committee, said if councillors ultimately approve the proposal, discussions about Sunday routes will happen in January.

Grandy said a big factor in the need to provide Sunday service is about providing transportation for people who largely work in the retail sector.

"So how do we get workers who are making minimum wage and you know have to go to retail shops, how do we get them to [work]? Because right now, they have to pay for taxi service or other ways to get there, so, you know, making this available, we have to look at the routing that makes the most sense."

Grandy said if councillors approve the proposal, the hope is to have the service available by the middle of next year, if not earlier.