[Surrealplaces]

Record number of visitors using transit to get to, travel around Banff

A record-breaking number of visitors to Banff National Park opted to use regional transit to get to the mountain community this summer.

calgary.ctvnews.ca

Roam Transit route 1 was up 18% compared to pre-pandemic levels. It doesn't mention exact numbers from On-it, but sounds like they were busy.

As someone who went up to Banff recently and spent roughly $30.00 on gas, $21.00 for the group park pass, and $35.00 for parking.......I get it. Free parking in the town of Banff is mostly gone now, though there is some around with time limits. To be honest I'm glad they are going away from free parking, as this encourages using transit to Banff. The more transit use increases, the more likely we are to see a rail system to Banff.

 

[CBBarnett]

Record number of visitors using transit to get to, travel around Banff

A record-breaking number of visitors to Banff National Park opted to use regional transit to get to the mountain community this summer.

calgary.ctvnews.ca

Roam Transit route 1 was up 18% compared to pre-pandemic levels. It doesn't mention exact numbers from On-it, but sounds like they were busy.

As someone who went up to Banff recently and spent roughly $30.00 on gas, $21.00 for the group park pass, and $35.00 for parking.......I get it. Free parking in the town of Banff is mostly gone now, though there is some around with time limits. To be honest I'm glad they are going away from free parking, as this encourages using transit to Banff. The more transit use increases, the more likely we are to see a rail system to Banff.

Here's the Roam Transit board report for September, so a month or two out of date but interesting if you are a data nerd:
https://roamtransit.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/BVRTSC-Board-Package-September-2022.pdf

The report is full of useful info and statistics that normal transit agencies never publish, let alone monthly in a report. To be honest, I don't even know if they know they have this page publicly accessible - you have to google to get here, I don't know if you can get to this document from their own site.

Super conveniently in a deep-web data hunt miracle, they also happen to publish On-It's ridership for some reason. As far as I know this is not available publicly anywhere else. From page 14:

So On-It appears up about 12.5% for the season from pre-pandemic (with September only partially counted in this report, so actual ridership is even higher). As a pretty small service (5 or 6 buses a day each way, weekends only) you could probably calculate how much seat capacity On-It actually has each month and figure out utilization. Anecdotally, I have heard that most buses on most July/August weekends are sold out. If true, On-It may be capacity constrained for further ridership growth without expansion already. Hope that signals further investment and service daily and year round rather than weekend only in peak months.

Another few random things I noticed about Roam's routes:

• Route 1: Gondola/Inns of Banff. Has grown into a pretty substantial route, even for far larger cities. 100,000+ riders in July 2022 (~3,225/day). I would be curious to know how this compares to some Calgary Transit routes for comparison. CT should publish some route numbers!
• Route 3: Canmore to Banff. continues to build, was above pre-pandemic ridership most of the summer. 22,000+ in July 2022 (~710/day).
• Route 8X: Lake Louise Express. This service was just getting going before the pandemic, now is fully embraced. Huge growth in ridership, 28,000+ for July 2022 (~900/day). This also driven but just how impossible parking and driving is at peak times for Lake Louise.

 

[Chinook Arch]

This is the way of the future, whether by rail or bus. It's too bad they couldn't up the park passes to $40.00/vehicle and use the extra $19.00/vehicle towards building a rail system.