Wheels on late-night bus go ’round without a hitch

It’s the first weekend for late night bus service from Whyte Avenue to the University and then on to Southgate Transit Centre. University of Albert students standing from left Marcus Ang, 18, Nelson Lau, 18 and Tom Jeffery 19 were the first and only passengers on the first bus to leave Whyte Avenue early Saturday. The last bus of the run leaves Whyte Avenue at 3:18 a.m.

EDMONTON - For bar patrons who got on the bus early Saturday during the first night of extended hours of operation on Whyte Avenue, Night Ride was the perfect ending to a great evening out.

When the three-month pilot project launched at 1:30 a.m. Saturday, friends Tom Jeffery, 19, Nelson Lau, 18, and Marcus Ang, 18 were the first passengers, boarding at Whyte Avenue and 103rd Street and heading toward Southgate, near where they live.

Normally the University of Alberta students would try to catch the last bus that usually leaves Whyte at 1:25 a.m. If they stayed out later, they’d share a $21 cab ride or ask someone they know to come and give them a ride. Being able to take the bus later with their monthly bus passes “saves a lot of money (on cabs) and saves a lot of walking,” Jeffery said.

“It’s an awesome thing.”

The three were surprised that they were the only riders on the inaugural 25-minute Night Ride trip to Southgate shopping centre.

The total number of people who took Night Ride early Saturday and early Sunday will be released Sunday afternoon, but on average each bus that headed west from Whyte Avenue to the university and Southgate shopping centre, every 12 minutes, carried no more than about six passengers. Three ETS buses made a total of 10 trips early Saturday.

Transit driver Fred Alliston said the low first-night ridership can be explained because people don’t yet know about the service.

“People have been asking for late-night bus service for a long, long time, especially the U of A kids,” Alliston said. “It will take a while for people to find out about and to get used to it being there and then I think ridership will go up.”

Angela Turner, manager of Responsible Hospitality Edmonton, which oversees and supports the management of bars, licensed venues and hospitality zones in the city, said her group is glad the pilot is 12 weeks long.

“That gives people time to catch onto to it and build it into their routines and their plans,” Turner said.

The first weekend was expected to be quiet because university classes don’t resume until Monday and a lot of students are still away on holiday, Turner added.

Chris Oqab, 21, and his friend Omar Momo, 19, university students celebrating another friend’s birthday, stumbled on Night Ride around 2:30 a.m. when they saw an ETS bus idling at the curb near 103rd Street. Usually their night ends with a $16 cab ride or a long walk home if they can’t flag one down.

“This is the best idea,” Oqab said, smiling and showing his bus pass. That you can catch a bus after 3 a.m. — “That’s amazing!”

A jovial Devin Hemmes, Grady Gibson, Milan Raval and Brendan Cooke, all 21, and friends since junior high, boarded the same bus after “having a good time and having a few drinks and singing a few songs,” Gibson said.

The quartet then broke into a loud and lively chorus of the children’s song The Wheels on The Bus.

Being able to ride the bus with their monthly student passes will reduce the $25 to $30 they usually have to pay for a cab from Whyte Avenue to the west end, Raval said.

The first night of Night Ride was uneventful despite worries expressed Friday by Stu Litwinowich, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union local 560, about extended bus hours putting drivers at risk of being assaulted by intoxicated passengers.

“There is potential,” agreed Night Ride driver Fred Alliston. But he noted that when ETS driver Tom Bregg was attacked and severely injured two years ago, that happened during a Thursday morning commuter run.

“There is a public perception that anybody out past 1 or 2:30 can’t control themselves, but most people, most of the time, are just out late having a good time,” observed rider Tom Jeffery.

czdeb@edmontonjournal.com

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The Night Ride transportation pilot project is a late-night weekend bus and taxi plan intended to help patrons and workers in the late-night entertainment zone on Whyte Avenue to get home more easily and safely at the end of the night. Bus service that normally ends at 1:25 a.m. will be extended Friday and Saturday nights to 3:30 a.m.

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The $40,000 pilot will run until April 14. City council will then evaluate the success of the late-night service. The need for late-night transportation to alleviate the impacts of congestion after the bars close (there are 10,000 bar seats between 103rd and 108th Street) has been an issue for several years. Most recently, 77 per cent of Whyte Avenue patrons and workers surveyed by the city last spring, said they support or strongly support late night transit. The decision to run the service from Whyte Avenue to Southgate shopping centre was made because the survey found most people live in that area.

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The results coincide with a 2009 report of the Jasper Avenue Entertainment Working Group which identified late-night transportation as a citywide priority.