Victoria youth are getting bus passes, but two other CRD municipalities don't seem to be in support of funding their own versions of the project.
Colwood's Mayor Rob Martin says providing youth passes is not as easy as just handing them out. Victoria is funding the passes through paid-parking, but Colwood doesn't have paid-parking that they could use to subsidize passes, so property taxes would have to be increased.
Martin says the average household in Colwood pays $104 dollars to BC Transit, and they would have to increase that by about $30 to fund youth passes. Martin says doesn't sound like a lot, but puts it in perspective.
"Our entire tax lift for this last fiscal year, for the City of Colwood, our average increase was $56. So the entire city we increased it by 56, and we'd have to increase it by an additional 30, in order to provide it to youth."
Martin says he's trying to bring more business into his community, which would bring more tax revenue, but there are other projects to tackle, like building sidewalks, that take priority over bus passes.
In Oak Bay, the Mayor is sceptical of the feasibility of funding passes.
Kevin Murdoch says funding passes for all Oak Bay residents would be upwards of $45 million, but does see the benefits of putting passes in the hands of youths.
"The ages typically between 12 and 18, they may not have driver's licenses yet, it gives them some freedom to move around, and it does build a comfort with public transit that will probably last their lifetime. And I think we found that people who use transit early and often have a comfort with that, and will continue using it in their life. It may not be the only mode of transportation, but they sort of got that baseline built."
He says the convenience of driving will likely still outweigh the benefits of a free bus, and more needs to be done to improve the system, to help draw people onto the bus in the first place. He says students from Mt Doug High School did a survey of students who didn't take a bus, and asked them why that was?
"15%, which was the lowest category of all the categories, said it was price. The biggest one was waiting time, then it was walking distance, then it was confusing to use. And those were all more than almost twice, well the lowest next one, was actually twice more of an issue for people than the price was."
He says those issues need to be addressed to make riding the bus more appealing and accessible to youth, before going off and spending money on a pass that may never be used.
He adds that if a free transit plan would be established, he'd want it to be set up by School District 61, and use a similar model to the U-Pass program that sells discounted passes to UVic students through their tuition. He says the School District, which is provincially funded, should be spearheading any free transit programs.