A BC Transit bus that will connect Hope to the rest of the Lower Mainland will start Tuesday, Sept. 5, according to a press release from BC Transit.
The service will run Mondays to Saturdays with a weekday and Saturday schedule, and will stop in Agassiz, Seabird Island First Nations, Park St. and Third Ave., Kawkawa Lake and Union Bar roads, Flood Hope and School roads, Third Ave. and Wallace St. before heading back to Agassiz.
The service will have four runs. On weekdays, it leaves Agassiz at 6 and 7:38 a.m. and 3:26 and 5:05 p.m. The bus is scheduled to arrive in Hope in half an hour. It will spend 21 minutes stopping in various neighbourhoods of Hope before heading back to Agassiz. On Saturdays, the bus will leave later and return earlier. It leaves Agassiz at 8 and 9:38 a.m., and 2:26 and 4:10 p.m.
“A number of our systems have different schedules on weekends than they do weekdays, so people have different travel habits on the weekend sometimes than they do weekdays and use the service for different reasons,” said communications manager Jonathon Dyck. “We will look at that and based on public feedback, we set the weekday schedule … and the Saturday schedule.”
A single trip costs $2.50 and a DayPASS will cost $5. Passengers can buy 10 tickets at once for $22.50 or a monthly pass for $44 or $35 for adults and students/seniors respectively. Students are defined as people attending high school with valid identification and seniors are defined as people who are 65 and over.
Two new 30-foot BC Transit Vicinity buses were purchased to operate this route, named route 22. The buses can seat 24 people and 20 more can stand with room for two mobility aids.
The bus has two doors and also has active cameras that BC Transit said will improve the safety of their customers and drivers.
There will be no service on public holidays this year. Next year’s holiday schedule is listed as “to be announced.”
In order to get to Chilliwack and beyond, passengers can transfer onto another bus in Agassiz that heads into Chilliwack. Dyck encourages passengers to go to BC Transit’s website and use the Trip Planner tool that can map out a journey using public transit.
The Standard used the Trip Planner tool to estimate travel times to Chilliwack, Abbotsford and Surrey Central.
Assuming a travel time of 30 minutes from Hope to Agassiz and not adding time needed to wait for transfers, it would take a total of about 64 minutes to get to downtown Chilliwack and 76 minutes to Cottonwood Mall. It will take one hour and 42 minutes to get to the University of the Fraser Valley’s (UFV) Chilliwack campus.
Transfer onto the Fraser Valley Express and a passenger can get to Abbotsford. It takes one hour and 44 minutes to get to the McCallum Road exit in Abbotsford, closest to the UFV campus and about two kilometres from the Abbotsford Regional Hospital.