Update: Squamish transit expansion in limbo after letter

BC Transit says in a recent surprise letter that expansion commitments—past and present—are under review due to the 'current fiscal environment.'

—Update: July 12— Mayor Armand Hurford said that when the email from BC Transit arrived in his inbox, he had to take a walk around the block to calm down. The email the mayor was speaking about at the July 7 council meeting was from Chris Fudge, director of government relations with BC Transit, and outlined that the provincial Crown corporation is reviewing its expansion plans and commitments due to the “current fiscal environment.” The June 29 letter was attached to the agenda of the July 7 meeting.

Hurford, who pulled the letter for discussion, said it is a “huge setback” for Squamish. “It says essentially that BC Transit, as part of this exercise, ’we're reviewing the existing expansion priorities that have been identified in previous years, but not yet implemented,’” Hurford noted, adding he isn’t vilifying BC Transit as it operates with the funding it receives from the provincial government. “But, essentially, the conversations we've had with community, the decisions that we fed into our budgeting process for expansions that have not yet been implemented, which is what five-year, 10-year now for us financial planning processes are, this is a huge setback and introduces uncertainty for our community that the transit expansion that we've all discussed in here and committed to and baked into our financial planning to deliver our part now, even has more questions around it.”

Coun. Andrew Hamilton said he was equally disappointed. “I understand as BC Transit is the intermediary from provincial budgets and they're doing what they can with provincial budgets, but the province needs to understand that it's difficult for us to do our planning when their numbers and their budgets are constantly changing and particularly when they reduce from what we had planned,” he said.

Coun. Chris Pettingill said this issue should be raised when the province is pushing its housing targets on Squamish. “I just hope we keep this letter front and centre when we're having conversations with the province about housing targets and where we are because this is a key component on doing that,” he said.

“As a community, we have been doing everything plus-plus in terms of doing what the province has asked of us and I don't feel like they're meeting us halfway. Something like that fuel tax is not money out of their pocket, for example, and we could use that to address some of these things. There are solutions there

and so I think we have to be ready to push back on other files where we are doing our part and they're not coming to the table.” Hurford agreed and said he will continue advocating on behalf of council and Squamish. “It'll feed into all those other discussions around how we're working towards our frequent transit network and better serving our community and how this is not getting us there,” he said.

Ultimately, council unanimously supported receipt of the letter, which was the task at hand. To authorize—or not—the operating agreement Also on the agenda on July 7 was for council to approve the annual operating agreement with BC Transit it endorsed on June 23, at the committee of the whole meeting. “This includes some expansions that we ... haven't yet implemented,” Hurford said.

“It feels like doing this now seems pointless with ... this letter we received from BC Transit.” Given the BC Transit letter, Hurford proposed referring the recommendation to a future council meeting in two weeks to give District staff time to find out what it means given the news that funding may not be available for the expansions committed to in the agreement.

His motion failed, however, with Couns. Stoner, Pettingill, Eric Andersen, and Lauren Greenlaw opposed. “This has happened in the past and it's a result of an offset between (BC Transit) budgeting cycle and ours.

And I think it's important that we continue even if there may not be 100% certainty that we're going to get the matching fund needed, that we are still really clear that we are committed that this money is in our budget as the various representatives across the region for BC Transit are advocating within their organization for where those limited dollars are going to go. So I don't want to be pulling back at this time,” Stoner said. Council then voted unanimously to authorize the mayor and the corporate officer to execute the annual operating agreement for 2026-27 between BC Transit and the District of Squamish.

Words missing in article? Your ad blocker might be preventing hyperlinked text from appearing. —Original story: June 26— You can get around town by bus more easily than previously, and the service is only set to improve in the coming years.

That is the takeaway from a presentation by a BC Transit representative, who was before council’s committee of the whole on June 23, to present on the 2026-27 BC Transit Annual Operating Agreement between the Crown corporation and the District of Squamish. As a reminder, bus service in Squamish is provided by BC Transit, the District, and Keolis, the local service provider. Each year, the District signs an agreement with BC Transit that outlines the transit service area, service specifications, annual budget, payment schedule, and fares.

The last agreement was signed June 24, 2025. For 2027, (April 1, 2026, to March 31, 2027) the net local government budget for the services is $2.8 million.

This includes 28,000 conventional—meaning regular fixed route service—and OnDemand service hours and 5,200 custom service, or HandyDART hours. By comparison, the net local government cost in the 2025-26 AOA was $2.3 million and the agreement provided 23,600 conventional service hours and 5,200 custom service hours. The OnDemand service, with buses that seat 18 to 24 people, was only started in the spring of 2026, so was not included last year.

BC Transit pays for 46.69% of regular and OnDemand bus service and 66.69% of custom transit, leaving the District to pay 53.31% and 33.31%, respectively. Ultimately, council voted unanimously to authorize the mayor and the corporate officer to execute the Annual Operating Agreement for 2026-27 between BC Transit and the District of Squamish. By the numbers Rob Ringma, senior manager of government relations for BC Transit, said ridership has increased since COVID-19.

“Around 388,000 rides in 2023, up to 417,000 rides in 2024. We did have some small expansions in that period,” he said. “And then a slight drop, about a 3.5% to 3.9% drop in 2025, with no expansions provided in 2025.

We saw a bit of a flattening out of the current ridership.” In terms of the custom service, this fiscal year, April 2024 to March 2025, there were 4,300, then from 2025 to 2026 there were 1,000 more rides, topping 5,505. “That is most likely due to the fact that council approved a custom HandyDART expansion where we added an additional bus and capacity in the system because we were having some ‘unmet trips,’” Ringma said.

He noted that 30 to 35% of HandyDART rides are people who use wheelchairs, while 12% are attendants who support people with higher needs during their rides. The balance is what Ringma called ambulatory rides. “People who are fairly mobile, but maybe have some other challenges that prevent them from being able to take conventional transit,” he said.

OnDemand needs more demand Ringma also shared that the new OnDemand service, which launched in March, is seeing about 100 trips a month. The service includes two new light duty buses. “What we're seeing is the most popular trips are non-downtown, say, South Squamish area to somewhere just outside of the downtown core,” he said.

“And then second and third most popular are trips to and from downtown.” However, he said they need more people using the service. “Functionally, it's working very well,” he said.

“We're seeing great data on our end. We just want to make sure that people are aware the service is there for them to use, whether they need to get a trip into town or whether they need to get a trip onto the conventional system and move somewhere else within the community.” He said there is a possibility of expanding the areas the service goes to.

“We obviously launched it with fairly tight criteria, but with some capacity in the system, we can also expand the zone. So we're just in discussions with staff right now about opportunities to maybe expand to South Park, Loggers East, Valleycliffe and the Hospital Hill region,” he said. Regular bus expansion Overall, the regular bus service in Squamish has seen expansions of service.

Last September, there was an increase in off-peak bus trips on routes 1, 2, 3 and 9. “So this was increasing frequency on those routes in those off-peak times,” Ringma said. This added 2,000 hours without adding a new bus.

There were another 2,000 hours and a two-bus expansion in January, increasing the number of peak trips during weekdays on Routes 1 and 2. He noted that in March, fares went up. “We had not increased fares since 2017,” he said.

Later this spring, tap-to-pay was launched. “(Riders) could use their debit or credit card to actually tap to pay a single adult fare on the bus,” Ringma said. Finances Ringma explained that costs have gone up leading to the municipality’s share going up by a net increase of 24%.

“In terms of (increased) operating costs and lease fees, those are all tied to the expansions,” he said. Lease fees for buses have gone up 33%. Ringma said BC Transit “had to adjust our standardized lease fees on vehicles slightly up just due to inflationary costs and a little bit of a changing or restructuring in some of the funding.”

He later added the amount of federal funding it gets has gone down. Future transit facility As announced in January of 2025, BC Transit bought a piece of land at 1130 Resolution Way to build a future transit facility. Ringma said since that time, there’s been extensive stakeholder engagement.

“To make sure everybody's aware of what the project is, get some feedback from them in terms of what they would like to see in terms of transit facility, transit services. And that helps us develop those site layouts and potential future concepts,” he said. Currently, there are five building options for BC Transit senior leadership to vet.

“We'll review those with stakeholders, and then we will be coming back to council probably in the next four to six months to give probably a specific presentation just on the facility and make sure you're up to date on where we're at there.” Funding, he said, is the “big gatekeeper” on the project. “We're obviously looking and pushing right now to secure provincial and federal funding to help support that.

And once we have a better update of what that timing looks like, then we'll have a good opportunity to start to put together an implementation plan for actually building the facility,” he said. Sample council comments Among other things, Coun. Chris Pettingill asked if the cost of electric buses is getting to the point they would be the best option.

In short, Ringma said no. “Battery-electric buses, although the technology continues to get better and the efficiency continues to get better, a standard battery-electric bus is still about 80% more than its diesel counterpart,” he said, adding that this is offset by lower maintenance costs, and the fuel to electricity cost ratio. “So operating cost-wise, battery-electric buses are more efficient to operate, but they do come with higher upfront cost(s).”

There’s also an infrastructure cost with battery-electric buses in terms of the chargers themselves. Currently, BC Transit uses in-depot charging. “Technically, over the long-term, what we would need to get to is in-depot charging as well as on-route charging.

That's the exchanges, et cetera, where we could do some inline charging as well,” he said. There is still a backlog in getting electric buses too, he said. “Based on our original low-carbon fleet plan, we've had to adjust that a little bit due to ... the (lack of) availability of battery-electric buses.

“We just don't feel we'll be able to get as many battery-electric buses as fast as we want them to. So, we're actually exploring potentially some hybrid buses as well—some battery-electric-diesel hybrid buses to help us in the short term to lower our GHG emissions in total while still moving that target forward.” He added BC Transit is implementing 16 battery-electric buses in Whistler.

“And obviously one of the key considerations with the new Squamish facility is ... analyzing battery-electric bus options.” Coun. Eric Andersen asked about possible OnDemand expansion to the Cheekye area, “where we not only have residents of Lewis Drive and Moody Drive, but a substantial employment hub year-round for the sawmill and seasonally for a couple of other businesses, notably Sunwolf (Riverside Resort).”

Ringma said OnDemand could go pretty much anywhere, but the organization would work closely with District staff to determine suitability. District transportation planner, Dora Gunn, added that it may fit with some future planning. “So we do have, in the three-year expansion process ... potential OnDemand for Cheakamus.

And so that might be the opportunity to expand to the areas you're speaking of. The current OnDemand serves more the South Squamish area, and so the time it would take for this vehicle to go travelling up to the northern end of town would be significant. Whereas with that future northern service, it would be a better fit,” she said.

Several on council spoke to the improvements to transit locally over the years. “Some of the topics that get a lot of talk time in our community include densification of our downtown, parking issues. And there are some folks in our community who rightfully point out that those two issues go hand in hand with our transit service,” Coun.

John French said. “And I often hear that our service is insufficient. Some days I agree with that.

And then when I look into the crystal ball and see what we are planning to do in the future and carry on the expansion that has been happening over the last couple of years, I'm very optimistic that we're very close to an important tipping point where our transit system really puts our community where our community wants it to be.” Words missing in article? Your ad blocker might be preventing hyperlinked text from appearing.