The transit system in the Cowichan Valley could receive up to $5.1 million in federal funding over the next 10 years, and it’s expected the funding would be used mostly to help acquire buses.
Jim Wakeham, the Cowichan Valley Regional District’s senior manager of facilities and transit management, told the district’s committee of the whole at its meeting on April 23 that the Ministry of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities sent a letter to the CVRD stating that the Cowichan Valley Regional Transit System is being considered for the funding from the Canada Public Transit Fund, which would commence in April, 2026, if approved.
He said BC Transit is still in the process of securing the final funding and there are a number of stages to go through, including providing housing statistics for the region to help with the decision making.
“The funding is meant only for capital [expenditures] so it can’t be used for operations unless it’s for service expansions that require buses, if and when we get service expansions,” Wakeham said.
“BC Transit anticipates that the funding will mostly be applied to the capital-lease fees associated with bus replacements. It’s still too early to determine if any funding can be used toward other capital items, such as washrooms, exchange upgrades or feasibility studies.”
Wakeham said one possible use of some of the funding would be to replace the eight heavy-duty buses that were bought by the province in 2008 for the Cowichan-Victoria Express (CVX) and Shawnigan-Victoria Express (SVX) interregional services which will soon be due for replacement.
“There is more to come on this topic over the summer months,” he said.
A number of CVRD directors asked Wakeham if BC Transit is considering any service expansions within the district’s transit systems in the near future.
He said the district did receive a letter from BC Transit stating that the district will be provided with supportive-expansion funding for interregional services, including the commuter bus services to Victoria and the Regional District of Nanaimo.
But, unfortunately, Wakeham said there was no success with efforts to receive funding to expand bus services within the CVRD at this time.
“So, again, we were unsuccessful for another year in which we’ve asked for significant hours and dollars and buses for the south end, Crofton and Lake Cowichan bus routes,” he said
“Where we’re scoring low is on ridership on routes that are quite rural and their ridership is low, and when BC Transit goes through its evaluation process, they don’t see them as being successfully expanded. We’re not successful for 2025 and up to 2026, but we’ll continue to look at ways to potentially shift hours around [the bus routes]."
