Q&A: City of Yellowknife explains new bus routes

The City of Yellowknife announced earlier this week that new bus routes, schedules and fares will launch on October 1.

That prompted plenty of questions and comments from Cabin Radio readers including why no routes travel to the airport and the reason behind changes to bus service in Northlands.

We spoke with Wendy Newton, the manager of engineering with the city’s division of public works, who broke down the changes.

Newton said the first few days after the new routes take effect, city staff will be on the ground and a survey will be available for people to provide comments on the changes.

“We really do want feedback on what’s working and what’s not so that if we do need to make some changes, we can do that.”

This interview was recorded on September 20, 2024. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Emily Blake: How were the new bus routes decided?

Wendy Newton: The city started doing a review of the transit system back in 2019. The consulting group took a look at the city as a whole and our transit system as a whole and provided us with a number of recommendations to essentially improve the system. So what we’ve done is we’ve taken a number of their recommendations and we are looking to implement those starting October 1.

This includes increasing the service area. So we will now be providing service to the Kam Lake area and to Taylor Road. It also includes better service during the morning and afternoon peak periods. Essentially we’re providing better interlined routes so that we can provide better service than we have now for a lower cost, because there’ll be less buses on the road during peak periods.

Was consultation with residents a part of that review?

Yes, so there was consultation done twice. Once during the review period itself before any of the new changes were were chosen. And then again once the routes were chosen back in January or February of 2022, our consultant did come up and we had two or three days of engagement with the public and stakeholder groups on what the new routes would look like. So we did do some tweaking of the routes and things based on feedback that we got from both those sessions.

One thing people have said is that they were hoping to see a route to the airport. Why was that not included in the changes?

Airport ridership is very sporadic. So when we looked at the ridership that we would get from providing transit to Kam Lake versus the airport, it was thought that the Kam Lake area would give us a higher ridership than the airport. At one point in Yellowknife’s past, transit did go to the airport, and we found that there weren’t many people using it.

The other thing to note is that our transit buses are not really equipped to deal with luggage. So that would cause another concern on the buses, if we do have an overabundance of people with large suitcases that would be using the service.

Another topic people have raised is it looks like there will be less service to Northlands. Why was that decided?

When they looked at the routes, they looked at essentially what they could do with the limited amount of time and still provide approximately the same level of service.

So Northlands had been getting sort of a greater level of service than any other area of Yellowknife. Essentially twice every 40 minutes they had buses going through that area with six different stops in that section. So when our consultants looked at it they determined that, while yes those stops are used and we do know that we do have ridership from Northlands, moving stops to Franklin Avenue and Old Airport Road, moving them outside of Northlands, would allow us to provide better timing for the routes and still provide approximately the same distance for people in Northlands to get to a stop as other areas of the city.

So we are adding a stop on Franklin by Norseman Drive. Basically across from where the bus pullout at Norseman on the other side is near William McDonald School and the fire hall, we are adding a stop there. So there will be stops on either side of Franklin at Norseman and either side of Old Airport road at Norseman. It’s just that people in Northlands will now need to walk to either major intersection to grab the bus.

Are there any other changes that people should be aware of that you haven’t mentioned?

I think the only other major change is we are no longer going along 52nd Avenue. So there are two stops on 52nd avenue that are also being removed. They were stops with very minimal ridership as well, and that just allowed us to bring people who are on the Taylor Road and Forrest Drive-Con Road route, bring them back to Franklin Avenue to drop them off at some of the major commercial stops on Franklin Avenue.

Can you explain the process behind deciding the different fares and different type of ticket packages that are going to be offered?

So once again, Watt Consulting. They took a look at our fare structure to determine things that we could do to improve our fares, make them a little more easy to understand, because they are quite a little bit complicated right now. So based on their recommendations, we then went to council and provided a recommendation for simplifying the fare structure while still providing discounts for those who are buying fare products. So council did approve the current fare structure.

And then, with our new transit fleet, we have the electronic fare boxes. And with the electronic fare boxes, we have new passes that will get scanned on the buses whenever people ride. So introducing the new fare media and the new fare prices went hand-in-hand.

Will people be able to tap cards like in some other cities or will they have to purchase tickets?

No, they will have to purchase tickets. It was determined that that type of smart technology was not recommended for a community of our size, simply due to the cost of a system like that. So people will still be able to buy tickets at the vendors that currently sell them. The thing that is improving is, instead of having a monthly ticket, so a pass that only works for the month of September, it’s now a 31 day pass, so it will be 31 days from the date it’s activated on the bus. So it is nice that you don’t have to worry about buying a specific monthly pass. It’s now 31 days and it’s 31 days from the activation.

Where can people buy passes?

You can always purchase passes at City Hall, but you can also purchase them at the fieldhouse and the Ruth Inch Memorial Pool city facilities. Then the Co-op, the downtown Reddi Mart, the village Reddi Mart and Sutherland’s Drugs also sell passes. And we do have signs that they do post to say that they sell passes and what the cost for those passes are.

When can people expect the new Passio GO! app to be active?

We are working very hard. We actually have people in training on the system today. We are extremely hopeful that it will be ready for October 1, but we don’t have a definitive date on that yet.

Is there an anticipated date for when YATS (Yellowknife Accessible Transit System) will rebrand to YKFlex?

The new YATS buses arrived in Yellowknife yesterday, which was great. So it’ll be a couple of weeks before they’re ready to be put into service. So we’re expecting probably mid to late October, that YATS will be rebranded to YKFlex.