Lakeland municipalities to discuss rural transportation, how more bus rides could come to region

Is there enough service for those with limited options, to take a bus ride to get to major centres like Edmonton or Calgary?

That’s a question that Cold Lake Mayor Craig Copeland is asking other Lakeland area municipalities, after they’ve received requests from the company Cold Shot to help lobby the province, or subsidize rural bus service, to provide more bus rides for those who need them.

A letter was sent from Copeland to Bonnyville town council, gauging whether this topic would be worth discussing more, particularly as regular services like the Greyhound have disappeared.

“Affordable, alternative transportation options in northeast Alberta have been dwindling, and the service that our communities receive is, admittedly, basic at best,” Copeland says in the letter to the Town.

“It remains, however, a crucial option for many people in our communities who do not have access to a vehicle but must access crucial services that cannot be found in a rural setting.”

In the Morning After, Copeland underlined this point.

“We’re just looking to see if there’s others that want to maybe go to the province and see if there’s any way we can provide a helping hand for those that are trying to provide transportation for rural Alberta.” 

With the hopes of setting up a meeting to discuss options, Bonnyville town council was game for a meeting after looking at the letter last Tuesday during their regular council meeting.

Mayor Elisa Brosseau and others at the table thought it could be something that their Northeast Mayors, Reeves and Indigenous Leaders caucus looks at it, as well.

“We also assume that everybody has access to transportation, whether it’s a medical need or not, right? Some people just don’t have access to the vehicle and would use it,” Brosseau said on The Morning After.

“But I do hear often these stories of people who are sent to the hospital and don’t get a ride home. My in-laws, we just had that situation in our family. Flown to Edmonton. Luckily, we had family who were able to go and pick them up. But sometimes there’s people who don’t.”

How formal this meeting is, or what could come out of it is unclear, but the issue of rural transportation is one that the Lakeland, and other sectors of the province and country, are feeling the pinch with.