The Sea to Sky region is set to receive a funding boost from the federal government to help maintain transit services.
On Friday, West Vancouver–Sunshine Coast–Sea to Sky Country MP Patrick Weiler announced almost $8 million in funding will be dispersed between Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton over 10 years.
“Through the new Canada Public Transit Fund’s Baseline Funding stream, BC Transit will receive an annual funding allocation amounting to more than $189 million over ten years,” reads a press release from Weiler.
“Funding will upgrade, replace, or modernize public transit infrastructure for 33 transit systems serviced by BC Transit, and maintain them in a state of good repair.”
At a press conference in downtown Squamish on March 21, Weiler said the funds would be used for “ongoing maintenance of existing services.”
“It creates funding that allows municipalities to plan for expansions of service.”
However, it is not being used to implement regional transit along the Sea to Sky.
Over the 10-year period, Squamish will receive $1.68 million, Whistler a total of $5.45 million and $750,000 for Pemberton.
The funding will begin in 2026 and be dispersed yearly over a decade.
For the announcement. Weiler was joined by West Vancouver-Sea to Sky MLA and interim leader of the BC Greens, Jeremy Valeriote, Resort Municipality of Whistler Mayor Jack Crompton, District of Squamish Mayor Armand Hurford and Town of Gibsons Mayor Silas White.
“As an extremely fast-growing community, it's become an expectation that people can move around without needing to rely on a private vehicle. So I think this funding is a key part of us being able to rise to that expectation of our community as we continue to grow and have transit being a core part of our planning,” Hurford said.
The funding will see Squamish’s fleet of transit vehicles upgraded and replaced “as needed” over the next 10 years.
But exactly how has not been determined yet.
“I believe that [the funding] can also be used for things like bus stops and that type of thing. So now that the funding has been secured, we can go into that detailed planning around exactly how we're going to implement it inside the envelope of allowable expenses,” Hurford said.
“So, it'll feed into our transit capital planning and that can be, my understanding, everything from bus stop infrastructure to buses themselves.”
Crompton said the funding was an “exciting decision” made by the federal government.
“I'm grateful that we will see this decision add to our big moves in Whistler and really move us substantively forward, as we try to get cars off the road and more buses on the road,” he said.
On regional transit
While the new funding helps to maintain existing transit services, regional transit is still in limbo but Valeriote has his sights set on the end of this year.
“I'm very happy to be in a situation where the BC Green caucus agreement with the current provincial government is to implement regional transit in the Sea to Sky in 2025,” he said at the press conference.
“We signed that agreement in December and finalized it last week. There is a fair bit of work to do to iron out the details of what that looks like, but that is the commitment that we're working with.
“It's very much a work in progress, but I hope that work in progress to be concluded by the end of this year.”
Hurford said the new funding helps municipalities focus on transit expansions without the worry of current maintenance costs.
“Any investment in transit by the other orders of government allows us to drive those expansion pieces and not have what funds could be used for expansion, to be used for the types of things that are covered by this program,” he said.
“Any help above and beyond that really facilitates us being able to direct our resources towards those expansion efforts, rather than purely the upkeep of what we have today.
“Examples of this are our transit futures plan here in Squamish, we've been planning for an aggressive expansion of our service hours, and unfortunately, we haven't had the province come through with their portion of that so we're behind in our transit plans.
“Hopefully this is an example that we can see the province follow through with their transit expansion funding so we can continue to advance service and not just maintain the service that we have.”
Crompton echoed similar sentiments and highlighted that regional transit is still a burning need for locals.
“Whistler has been able to move forward a number of important expansions to our service over the last couple of years. We intend to do more. We need a lot more internal transit in our community, and certainly, we'll continue to push for this regional service to be realized,” he said.
For more information on current transit services, visit the BC Transit website.
