High River Town Council will need to decide if they are going to continue to support the operation of the South Regional Transit Service otherwise know as ON-IT at its meeting on January 8th.

With the recent creation of the Calgary Metropolitan Region Board (CMRB) it is proposed that the Calgary Regional Partnership (CRP) will cease business operations on March 31 before the end of the two year transit pilot project.

With the potential windup of the CRP before the end of the two year transit pilot project, a decision must be made whether to continue the ON-IT transit service past March 31, 2018 and determine who will operate the service past this date.

The project costs $740,000 a year to operate and on average only four to six passengers are using it from High River.

With the CRP funding of $500,000 ending High Rivers portion could be $165,000 a year instead of $20,000.

The Town of Okotoks has indicated they could keep operating the service until the end of the pilot project in October.

In order for the service to continue past March 31, 2018, the transit system assets and CRP funding subsidy would need to be transferred to the four subregional municipalities including High River, Okotoks, Turner Valley and Black Diamond by unanimous decision of the CRP Board of Directors.

The motion before High River Council recommends the Calgary Regional Partnership to cease the operations of On-it on March 31 or as soon as contractually possible.

 

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