Thompson’s mayor and council are forming a committee to look into options to keep public transit running in Thompson after Greyhound’s service agreement ends Oct. 31.
The bus company, which announced in early July that Halloween would also be the last day for all but one of its routes in Western Canada, informed the city in a July 18 letter that it was terminating its service contract. Under the terms of that contract, which was on a month-to-month basis since a previous five-year agreement expired at the end of 2015, Greyhound provided bus drivers, storage facilities and maintenance on the two city-owned buses for a monthly fee, and provided replacement buses when the city’s were not usable at a cost of $800 per bus per day.
In 2017, the city paid Greyhound $424,192.12 for its services and collected $95,842.20 in bus fares from roughly 53,000 riders, mostly during the school year. That means the cost to the city of operating the transit system was approximately $328,000, more than during the five-year agreement from 2011 through 2015, when the average annual cost was about $273,000.
The committee studying transit service options includes councillors Duncan Wong, Ron Matechuk, Penny Byer, Judy Kolada and Blake Ellis, as well as city administration staff and community representatives from the infrastructure/public works and finance/administration committees. It meets for the first time to appoint a chair next week and its findings will be presented to council by early October, less than a month before Greyhound pulls out.
“Public transit is an important part of city life, especially during Thompson’s long and cold winters,” said Thompson Mayor Dennis Fenske in a press release. “We hope the committee will find a solution that allows us to continue providing this service following Greyhound’s withdrawal on Oct. 31.”
At the time that Greyhound announced it was discontinuing its Western Canadian routes in early July, the mayor said that while the city had looked at operating the transit service itself in the past, it had always been more cost-effective to contract it out
“We will have to again examine our options that would fall between the extremes of no service to continuing to run what we currently have at the cost of the operation,” Fenske said at that time.
When the city sought operators for the bus service in 2011, Greyhound was the only company to submit a bid in response to the request for proposals.
Jimmy Pelk, one of the principals of Thompson Bus, which intends to begin operating inter-city buses between Thompson and Winnipeg, Gillam and Cross Lake in September as Greyhound prepares to withdraw in just over two months, says he has asked the city more than once to be a part of the solution.
“We would love to come to the table,” he said, pointing out that the city's decision not only affects transit users but the jobs and lives of four to six people and their families.
Pelk said at this point he feels like maybe the city has another possible operator in mind to contract transit operations to or that consideration is being given to running it themselves, which he says is not a good idea.
“They’re not a bus company,” he said. “They’re not in the transportation industry.”
Thompson Bus received its certificate of operations from Manitoba Infrastructure Aug. 23, Pelk said.
