City of Regina unveils 'Transit Master Plan'

The City of Regina unveiled its Transit Master Plan on Tuesday, which lays out the city’s aspirations for its public transit system for the next 25 years.

“The Transit Master Plan will create better, more attractive ways to get around and help achieve our growth rate of 300,000 residents,” said Brad Bells, director of transit and fleet with the City of Regina.

“Having an accessible, affordable, easy to use transit system will ensure Regina residents want to use our service.”

Development of the ‘master plan’ began in 2020.

Now, after two years of public engagement and development, the plan outlines 45 actions for implementation to refine and expand Regina’s public transit system.

The various improvements listed in the plan include:

• More frequency in bus availability, which would cut down on wait times.
• On demand transit, which would allow people to request service to come pick them up,
• As well as mobile ticketing, the ability to plan your trip, and contactless payments.

The plan also includes the implementation of no fares for transit users 12-years-old and under.

“It’s really about developing those habits,” said Thomas Pacy, of Dillon Consulting.

“So, you're traveling with your family and as a younger person and you’re traveling to school as well. You develop those kinds of kind of habits. It's also transit literacy, knowing how to use transit that makes you much more likely to keep using it or use it more often as you grow older.”

The master plan also outlines the public transit’s role in making Regina a renewable city by 2050.

“Regina transit is an important service in achieving our sustainability goals,” said Bells.

“As we move forward, energy and sustainability are very important parts of council's goals to achieve by 2050,” said Kim Onrait, executive director of citizen services.

“Transit plays a big role and getting there, that is getting more cars off the street.”

The city plans to begin switching over its fleet of buses to electric, beginning in 2024.

“Moving forward, 2040 is the target on the getting the fleet changed over to electric and we feel confident we'll be able to do that,” said Onrait.

Another ambitious goal set out by the master plan is to increase public transit’s “mode share,” that is the percentage residents that use transit to travel around the city, to 25 per cent by 2025.

Public transit’s current mode share is around five per cent.

“With the increased frequency and increased hours of operations, we will increase our mode share because more people will use transit,” said Bells.

The Master Plan will be voted on in Executive Council on April 27. If passed it will be up for the council’s consideration on May 4.

The projected overall cost for the plan is $60 million.