Public transit program opposed by High Prairie Greyhound agent

Chris Clegg
South Peace News

The High Prairie agent for Greyhound Canada Transportation Corporation is vigorously opposing the M.D. of Big Lakes’ plan to commence a public transit system.

Warren R. Wilson says he opposes council’s plans on both a professional and personal level.

In a letter to council that will be accepted at their June 28 meeting, Wilson writes that any such service would compete against Greyhound, a company that already provides the same service.

“Any such service would negatively affect the income and possibly the viability of my agency,” writes Wilson. “I do not understand why the M.D. would consider this. In a day that government is privatizing and farming out everything from road maintenance to human resources, why would the M.D. want to burden the taxpayers of the entire M.D. with a service that will benefit only those who live along this narrow corridor, that is already serviced?”

The M.D.’ s proposal is to access a federal and provincial grant for $333,333 each, then provide a similar amount of money to kickstart the system. No plan on where the system would operate is written in stone, but the proposal has three 25-seat buses running up and down Lesser Slave Lake to and from High Prairie to Slave Lake and up to Grouard.

Wilson says he is also opposed on a personal basis as a municipal ratepayer.

“If there truly was a market for an additional transportation form in this area, private operators would quickly move to fill that need,” writes Wilson. “If the desire of council is to simply grab another government grant, then you are doing the taxpayers of all the levels of government a disservice.”

The High Prairie and District Chamber of Commerce has written the M.D. council asking them to attend a meeting to address their concerns. They oppose any plan that would potentially take shoppers to Slave Lake. Council’s original plan was to bus residents in the M.D. only to High Prairie before Kinuso Councilor Ken Killeen expressed interest that his residents may want the service to include Slave Lake.

Sucker Creek and Swan River First Nations have already written the M.D. supporting the endeavor.

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