Parks Canada and the Calgary Regional Partnership are working to pilot mass, public, bus transit service between Calgary and Banff starting in June in an effort to reduce the number of personal vehicles travelling between the two communities.

The service would operate during the peak summer tourist months on weekends and holidays to help address potential issues related to parking and vehicle congestion in Banff National Park, problems which are feared to increase dramatically this year with the advent of free park admission.

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“We thought it would be a great idea to provide some kind of regional service linking Calgary and surrounding municipalities and getting those residents out to the Banff area, especially the day trippers where we know that on any given day in the summer you can have thousands upon thousands of cars just doing a one-day trip, especially on the weekends,” said Ettore Iannacito, CRP regional transit program manager.

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The project is still in its initial stages with the fares, schedule and route to be determined, according to Iannacito. Most of the trips will originate from the Crowfoot LRT station in northwest Calgary and end in Banff with stops in Cochrane and Canmore.

The buses would be stored in Okotoks, so the CRP is exploring having the first pick-up and last drop-off of the day take place in that community so residents of surrounding municipalities can park their cars and take the bus all the way from Okotoks to Banff.

Obtaining seats on the buses would likely be determined by a first-come, first-served basis.

Photo by Ted Rhodes Ted Rhodes / Calgary Herald

The one-season trial program would run 10-12 weeks beginning in mid-June through Labour Day using up to five of the CRP’s On-It Regional Transit 55-seat coach buses.

Iannacito says the goal of the project is to take as many cars off the road as possible and establish a regional transit corridor.

“We’ve got the buses on the weekends and they’re sitting idle, we’ve got the contracts [with a private sector service provider], and we just thought that this would be a great idea, a great way to utilize those buses, provide a great service for our regional residents, and would be a great way to establish a truly regional transit corridor between Calgary and Banff, and see where it goes in the future,” said Iannacito.

Passengers from Banff or Canmore would also be able to ride the bus into Calgary for the day should they wish.

Discussions for implementing public transit between Calgary and the Bow Valley have been ongoing for several years at the CRP, an organization of 14 municipalities within the Calgary area. Both Canmore and Banff withdrew from the CRP in November.

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Canmore Mayor John Borrowman expressed support for the project, though the initiative has not yet been discussed in council.

“The bottom line is the service would be great even if it’s only on the weekend to give us a sense of how it may benefit our community,” he said. “It’s good for the environment, it certainly will help, in a small way at least, address the growing congestion in our community, particularly on nice weekends when city residents like to come out and visit Canmore and the Bow Valley.”

Parks Canada is starting a number of new initiatives in Banff National Park this year to get visitors riding public transit.

In February, the agency and Roam Transit announced a two-year trial of bus service from the Banff townsite around the Lake Minnewanka loop during the summer months, and they are commencing free shuttle service from the Lake Louise overflow parking lot on the Trans-Canada Highway to Upper Lake Louise seven days a week.

Greg Danchuk, visitor experience manager with Banff National Park, noted that day users account for a “large chunk” of Banff National Park’s visitation, based on sales for day passes increasing at a higher rate than the increase in visitation for 2015 and 2016.

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“Day use has to be generally two hours each way so you can still have a full visit … while Calgary being the biggest centre of all that for sure,” he said. “That’s most of the draw, the day user from the Calgary area. So in thinking about 2017, if there’s an even bigger increase in awareness of the national park and people’s desire to visit, if we can get more of those people on public transit of some sort, mass transit, that will really help with reducing some of the congestion and improving people’s visitor experience.”

Additionally, Parks Canada currently has requested for proposals out for private operators to run free shuttles around the Minnewanka loop in conjunction with the Roam service, as well as free shuttles between Banff and the Samson Mall in Lake Louise this summer, with the service possibly being available by May long weekend.

“If this stuff comes together, you can get from Calgary to Banff and then onto Lake Louise, then back to Banff, around Banff and Minnewanka and then back to Calgary, all on public transit,” said Danchuk.

Meetings between partners to determine routing and service levels are ongoing.

“We’re very excited that Parks Canada and the Calgary Regional Partnership are engaged in this conversation,” said Banff Mayor Karen Sorensen in a statement. “We’re exploring partnering with them to deliver this service.”

Banff is also conducting a feasibility study to look at whether mass rail transit between the Bow Valley and Calgary is possible.