A Penticton senior isn’t expecting any immediate changes, but he is hoping to get city council thinking about adding an extra bus stop in the Wiltse Heights area.
On Feb. 29, John Mueck delivered a 109-signature petition to the city requesting an additional bus stop near the intersection of Wiltse Boulevard and Stocks Crescent. The Okanagan Lake/Wiltse route currently has a bus stop at Dartmouth Drive, which Mueck said is outside of a five-minute walking distance for many residents of the steeply sloped residential area, including himself.
“I checked that out, it is 12 minutes walking briskly; I am still pretty good walking. On the way up, it would probably take me 50 minutes,” said Mueck. At 80 years old, with weakening eyesight, he fears that he and his wife may not be able to continue to drive much longer.
“If we lose our driver’s licences, we are pretty well stuck up there. It would mean we have to sell the house and move to another area,” said Mueck. That is his reason for wanting a bus stop closer to the centre of the residential area, but he adds that the other signers of the petition all have their own reasons.
“I have looked at the population and I figure there are about 1,500 to 1,600 people living there,” said Mueck. “The majority of people aren’t using the bus, cannot use it. It is not a good area for bicycles, it is not a good area for battery-powered scooters.”
Mueck also pointed out that other areas of the city, like Carmi and Uplands, have similar terrain, but there is better bus service. The map of the Okanagan/Wiltse route does show a loop into the area, but Mueck said that only operates once a day, and is intended to pick up high school students.
Mitch Moroziuk, the city’s director of operations, said making a change like that is not as simple as it might seem and would need to involve co-ordination with B.C. Transit as well as local planning. It also isn’t one of the priorities identified in the overall transit plan, which was developed through more than a year of consultations to determine priority needs of the city’s transit users.
”There was a recommendation based on public consultation, and that is what we have been following,” said Moroziuk, adding that Mueck’s petition has yet to go before council.
The next three items identified in the transit master plan, he said, are creating a Sunday service mirroring the Main Street route, increasing the frequency of the regular Main Street route and extending the No. 15 night route.
“Those are the three big ones,” said Moroziuk, who said the idea has been talked about before, in terms of a loop up Wiltse Boulevard and down Balsam, but the connection between the two streets is yet to be made.
“There is a little piece that needs to be added in,” said Moroziuk. “The discussion around that was that you really need to have that connection built before you do that.”
Moroziuk said this isn’t the first time city hall has been approached about expanding bus service into Wiltse, or other areas of the city, like Sendero Canyon.
“In addition to that, you also have the issue of regional transit,” said Moroziuk. “Do you put your resources into one, the other, or both? There are a lot of discussions around how to we get people from as far south as Osoyoos all the way to West Kelowna.”