Whereas public transit is essential for enabling all community members to participate in society and access important services; rural areas have very few alternative transportation options or providers such as taxis, ride share and accessible transportation services, and depend on reliable regional transit systems; And whereas provincial funding to BC Transit for service expansion is not sufficient for local governments to realize their public transit expansion plans; And whereas BC Transits expansion funding evaluation process emphasizes ridership as a key criterion in allocating expansion hours which fails to recognize the needs of smaller, rural or Indigenous communities who rely on transit: Therefore be it resolved that UBCM urge the provincial government to increase funding for transit service expansion in rural communities recognizing how essential the service is to these populations; And be it further resolved that BC Transit revise its transit service expansion allocation scoring criteria to ensure that rural communities also benefit from provincial transit expansion funding.
