The City of Grande Prairie’s Transit Manager says the Disabled Transportation Society’s switch from a not-for-profit to a city-run entity is going “relatively smooth.”
“The staff have really moved forward and [have] done an awesome job, basically embracing what he city has and understanding there are some procedures that are different and they are in place for particular reasons, but at the end of the day, we are trying to do the same thing,” says Steve Harvard.
Harvard says the level of service that was being delivered prior to the city taking over operation remains in place, adding they continue to try and absorb more trip requests.
“Ridership has certainly not decreased, the number of requests we are getting is increasing,” he adds.
Harvard says as of the last count, the service, now known simply as accessible transit, has 625 clients within the city and 53 clients covering the entirety of the County of Grande Prairie.
The city began funding the day to day operations for the former DTS back in May of 2019. City council announced in July that they would be taking over full ownership of the operation as of September 1st.