Peachland bus schedule updated on website

Update (March 26). . . The bus schedule for Peachland has now been changed on the Transit BC website and it does in fact include a number of trips that did not appear previously.

The new schedule can be found here.

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Update (12:45 p.m.). . . PeachlandNews.com and transit riders may have been taken in by the equivalent of an April Fool’s Joke concerning the Peachland bus schedule.

A new schedule posted on the Transit BC website shows the number of weekday trips through Peachland dropping from 16 to five as of March 25. However, PeachlandNews.com has learned it may all be a big mistake on the transit website.

A bus driver parked at the IGA bus stop said she is not aware of any major changes to the Peachland schedule. She called in to her dispatcher, who said there are a few minor changes planned for times at certain stops, but there are no major changes coming up.

The driver told PeachlandNews.com that no one should trust the schedule on the website and that only the Rider’s Guide should be trusted. The driver then said, although there are changes going into effect March 25, she had not received new Rider’s Guides to hand out to the public.

PeachlandNews.com will continue to try and get an accurate picture of the changes to the bus schedule for Peachland and post the correct information as soon as we can talk to an authority who knows what is going on.

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by Dave Preston

There’s something very screwy with a new bus schedule for Peachland and it has more than one person scratching their heads or voicing outrage.

PeachlandNews.com was notified of significant changes about to take place to transit in Peachland through its Facebook page.

“I was just looking at the new schedule effective (Sunday, March 25),” wrote Brad.” It looks like they are basically cutting the bus out of Peachland or at least 10 runs during the morning and day.”

A look at the Transit BC website shows there is a new schedule set to begin March 25 and it appears that the majority of bus runs through Peachland will be gone.

The existing schedule for Route 22 (Peachland) has a total of 16 runs through town on weekdays: six runs in the morning, six runs in the afternoon and four runs in the evening.

The new schedule posted on the Transit BC website shows only five runs in total for weekdays. Route 22′s new schedule shows the only bus in the morning arriving at Beach Avenue and Hwy. 97 at 6:21 a.m. The next bus at the same location isn’t scheduled to arrive until 8:21 p.m. — 14 hours later.

In addition, while IGA (located in Peachland Centre Mall) is listed on the old schedule as a regular bus stop, the new schedule does not list IGA at all for weekdays.

“My son saw the schedule changes and works in Kelowna,” Pam said on Facebook. “He will have to come to work with me three and a half hours early every morning instead of two hours early, which he has been doing because the schedule was already so bad.”

No one is answering the phones at Kelowna Regional Transit today and a look through local publications shows there has been no announcement by that organization or BC Transit about upcoming changes to Route 22 in Peachland.

“They can’t just do this,” Mayor Keith Fielding said in an interview Saturday morning.

Eleven months ago, a representative from Kelowna Transit met with council to discuss possible changes to the transit system in Peachland that were categorized as improvements. One idea expressed at the meeting was to cut down on the number of trips from mid-morning to mid-afternoon in order to provide more frequent service during peak hours.

Fielding said Saturday that a transit representative was in Peachland to discuss different scenarios for improved bus service just a few weeks ago. The mayor said the scenarios centered on how much better the Peachland transit system could be if the municipality kicked in more money to the service.

The mayor said transit was to take a look at different scenarios and come back to Peachland to discuss them.

Curiously, the changes that are apparently to go into effect to Route 22 as of Sunday, March 25 are listed on the Transit BC website as being in effect only until April 29, 2012.

Fielding said he would attempt to contact someone at Kelowna Transit to find out what is going on.