Keremeos seniors lament lack of Greyhound replacement, no bus service to coast

On Wednesday, the last Greyhound bus pulled out of the Penticton terminal ending 88 years of Greyhound passenger transportation in the Okanagan.

There is no alternative in place for several small B.C. communities, including Keremeos, where 44 per cent of the population is over 65.

The Passenger Transportation Board issued a request of interest from the private sector to pick up the route along Highway 3, from Hope to Princeton and through the Similkameen Valley. But in its absence, rural seniors are worried.

“There’s numerous people that use public transportation because of health and visiting friends and neighbours,” said Keremos senior Paul Herchak.

“It’s going to be really hard for us to get by because a lot of people have appointments in Vancouver with their doctors, specialists, and we’ve got no way of getting there anymore,” Doreen Herchak added.

Businesses are being forced to switch to more expensive couriers due to Greyhound cutbacks.

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“It’s a big impact on small towns like Keremeos,” said Growers Supply manager Jim Bartlett.

“We use to use Greyhound quite a bit in the past. We used Greyhound to get live chickens from Alberta. Greyhound’s basically been cutting the services in our valley for 10 years.”

Keremeos mayor Manfred Bauer said given the smaller, rural population in the Similkameen, a private operator may not find the route feasible. If not, then the government needs to step in.

“We need to have some kind of government subsidy, whether that’s a provincial-federal subsidy, or just a provincial subsidy but I think you cannot just leave these corridors without any public transportation,” he said.

B.C. transportation minister Claire Trevena is hopeful private operators will step up.

“We’re not talking subsidies at the moment. All these private operators have come in; they’re not being subsidized, they’re doing it on a commercial basis and I’m hoping that we have other operators come in on a commercial basis because people need transportation,” she said.

Bauer said it is time to get the wheels in motion.

“We’re feeling a little bit left behind.”