In early November Chestermere’s city council approved a motion exploring a regional trans-city transit idea and Mayor Chalmers sent a letter to the City of Calgary.
On Thursday December 10th, Calgary city council’s intergovernmental affairs committee approved a plan to have city officials open discussions with the City of Chestermere on a regional transit service arrangement.
The plan is to extend the existing Calgary Max Purple bus rapid transit service here to Chestermere. The cost of implementing the service is estimated at $170,000 a year.
The acting head of transit planning for Calgary, Misty Sklar, told Calgary council that Chestermere had hired a consultant to work on a feasibility analysis for regional transit and Calgary collaborated with that effort.
Initially the plan is to have two buses running during both the morning and evening rush hours with several pickup/drop-off stops in Chestermere.
Mayor Chalmers stated, “Chestermere is committed to working collaboratively with the City of Calgary and believes this project will benefit the residents and businesses of both our municipalities.”
Calgary Mayor Nenshi said “That besides Giving Chestermere residents better access to east Calgary and downtown, he said there would be other benefits to offering this transit services. It Removes cars from different cities coming to the city, wear and tear on the roads. It has got a benefit to greenhouse gas emissions. It helps Calgary Transit improve its ridership.
Negotiations should begin next week, with the anticipation that reaching an agreement would clear the way for the bus service to start later in 2021.
