Increased service hours are part of another expansion coming in September for the Chilliwack Transit System.
There will be 1,222 extra service hours added to conventional transit and another 1,000 hours for handyDART custom service.
This comes on the heels of Chilliwack’s largest transit expansion ever in 2013 when ridership spiked from 333,500 in 2012 to 398,400 in 2013, an increase of 19 per cent.
“It was a tremendous expansion and the ridership followed,” said transportation manager Rod Sanderson in his report to council on the 2014 expansion.
Ridership grew primarily because of the most popular Vedder route, which Sanderson described as “carrying the lion’s share” of the increase.
The bulk of the increase can be attributed to the extra riders on routes 1, 2 and 4, which are the Vedder, Evans and Promontory bus routes.
They’ve already logged solid ridership numbers for the first quarter of the year as well, he added.
For the upcoming transit expansion there’s also “a bit of a milestone” for City of Chilliwack with the last bus heading downtown from UFV leaving as late as 11:10 p.m. from the bus stop in front of the main campus.
The conventional expansion will see some early morning and late night runs added to Chilliwack’s highest volume bus routes.
jfeinberg@theprogress.com
Twitter.com/chwkjourno
