A more equitable sharing of costs and revenues has been signed off on between the City of Vernon and Regional District of North Okanagan.
Amanda Watson, transportation manager for the City of Vernon, said the revised shared aspects of the transit service underwent a joint internal analysis to develop a 鈥渕ore holistic鈥� approach.
The changes were based on recommendations made in the Transit Fare Review, which examined the Vernon Regional Transit System鈥檚 current fare structure, discusses historic revenue and ridership trends.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a positive step forward, long overdue. We鈥檝e gotten into the nitty gritty of the mechanics of how the system operates and discovered a few things, that some aspects were in the wrong slots and we鈥檝e redirected some things to create greater fairness among the transit service jurisdictions,鈥� Watson said.
That re-assessment was reflected in a resolution adopted by Vernon council on Monday for the city to allot $176,352 in transit revenue to RDNO, while the regional district in turn will deposit $92,363 from its share of outstanding revenue to the city earmarked for transit reserves.
Related: Transit fares will increased in 2018
Watson said the service funding and revenue changes won鈥檛 be noticeable to transit users.
What they will notice, she said, is an increase in transit fares previously adopted to take effect April 1. There will be a one cash fare of $2.50 for all transit services. For adult service users, this means an increase of 50 cents, based on the current one zone fare. For students and seniors this will be a total increase of 75 cents. HandyDart users will see fares increase form $1.75 to $2.50 in April.
Under the new fare structure, Watson noted existing single zone and multi zone fares will be unified as one, an 鈥渁cross the board鈥� one-time fee, with the lone exception being the $5 fee for route #90 between 麻豆精选 and Vernon.
鈥淥ur transit system is maturing, growing up a bit. The review process has enabled us to work out how to operate and allocate fare revenues among the jurisdictions fairly,鈥� she added.
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