Five parking stalls will be removed from Peachland’s Beach Avenue, just north of 4th Avenue, in exchange for a bus stop for the Route 70 bus.
The new service will start in January 2021 with two northbound and two southbound trips on Monday and one northbound and southbound trip from Tuesday through Friday.
Peachland councillors made the decision during the Tuesday, Dec. 8, council meeting.
District CAO Joe Mitchell said BC Transit would like to meet with the district in March to look at increasing the route service if needed.
“They haven’t made many changes to the schedule from last year but they are looking to make some changes early in this year (2021),” he said.
“The cost (will be) $16,000 for the District of Peachland for the entire year.”
Mitchell said staff looked at getting two stops for the 70 installed in Peachland, however, only one area has the capacity for accessible pickup.
“If we wanted a second bus drop off in the downtown area, we’ve looked at a bunch of areas. Unfortunately, it will require some parking stalls to be eradicated and turned into a bus stop.”
Mitchell did remind council that ridership numbers may not reflect actual demand for the bus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but council agreed to take a wait-and-see approach.
The agreement with BC Transit will last for one year. After that, BC Transit and the district will see whether they will continue the route service in the area or not.
Route 70 will connect Keremeos to Penticton, Peachland and Kelowna.
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