Following a meeting between the City of Grande Prairie and representatives from the Disabled Transportation Society, the two sides have vowed to work together to overcome issues with the service.
“In the interest of the riders, we agreed to work together to come up with a transition plan. The city agreed to provide at minimum, funding to provide service until August 1st,” says Mayor Bill Given.
This, just a week after, DTS put out a statement saying it would be scaling back services because of a lack of funding and support from the city. It stated that multiple requests for adequate funding to effectively run the service were met with “with resistance and hostility.”
Given says the next, and most important step, is the working on a joint request for proposal to help the two sides find a suitable and efficient future service model.
“I really see the DTS as providing that critical lens for riders, because obviously they’re very passionate about that and they know that best,” he says.
“The city’s job will be to figure out how to ensure those most important principles are provided for in any service that ends up being delivered in our community, and the city will work on the technical aspects of how to do that.”
The two sides are expected to meet again within the next week and have both agreed to update the public following any further discussions.