Aimee Bellerose remembers the night she dodged peace officers and wound up stranded at Clareview station without bus fare.

She asked the driver if she could ride for free and was turned away. So she walked two and a half hours back to downtown.

In an effort to stop making criminals out young people like her, the city now plans to offer free bus passes to kids who can't pay their fares.

"It would have meant a lot," Bellerose said. "It would have meant that I would have been warm. It would have meant that I would have been safe."

Bellerose, 22, managed to rack up more than $2,000 in fare evasion tickets before the city finally caught up with her. She eventually paid them off with community service.

Now a mentor at iHuman Youth Services, she said ticketing young people who can't afford bus fare doesn't make sense.

Aimee Bellerose, 22, said she knows exactly how valuable a bus pass can be to a youth in need. She said she has found herself in dangerous situations and unable to afford bus fare, racking up more than $2,000 in ticket fines. (CBC) "You can't even afford the bus fare, how are you going to afford the ticket?" she asked.

"These are children. They're not adults that have chosen this for their life. These are children."

Mayor Don Iveson said the system has been punishing young people who already face difficulties.

"We discovered that we were effectively criminalizing a lot of marginalized youth," Iveson said.

"They fall behind, they become in contempt of court, and ultimately in some cases wound up in the remand centre."

To prevent that from happening, city administration plans to give 100 free adult passes each month to organizations such as iHuman and Youth Empowerment and Support Service.

The organizations will be stocked with passes from October 2015 to March 2016 to hand out as they see fit to people under 23 years of age.

iHuman facility manager Geoff Clarke said while every little bit helps, the demand far exceeds the number of free passes available.

"If I had an unlimited supply I could probably hand out a couple of hundred right now," he said.

"This could just be the start of something bigger moving forward."

The organizations have also been asked to gather feedback from the young people, to see if the free passes make a difference in their lives.

For those who aren't lucky enough to get a free pass, bylaw officers are being trained to use discretion when it comes to ticketing youth on the bus.

"We want to empower, to have a choice to say, 'This is a person in a difficult circumstance here, and we want to work with this person,' " Iveson said.

The initiative will not cost the city, according to administration, because the passes will be given to people who cannot afford to pay for themselves.

The city also plans to hire a consultant, at an estimated cost of $11,000, to analyze the effectiveness of the free passes. Administration have applied for funding from the Police Foundation

City councillors say if the passes make a difference, they would like to see more offered to meet the demand.