Strait Area Transit applies for Victoria County route expansion

Strait Area Transit is seeing a major turnaround in its operations and now has concerns about having too many passengers.

General manager Dwayne MacDonald says the bus service has applied to expand its routes into Victoria County.

MacDonald says Wagmatcook First Nations wants the bus service to take students to its Nova Scotia Community College learning centre.

"One of our main goals is to get students to where they are going and NSCC Wagmatcook is catering to students, not only from our native communities but even from the Port Hawkesbury area," he said.

"We've had calls people wanting to go to NSCC Wagmatcook. So Victoria County have been looking at the feasibility of transit for a long time."

Application for 2 new routes

It's a much different situation from two years ago, when Strait Area Transit was forced to close temporarily.

"We have gone from, about ten months ago, worrying if we had enough bums to put in the seats to worrying about whether we are going to have enough seats for all the people that are going to travel with us," MacDonald said.

MacDonald says increased funding and more senior and student passengers have made a difference.

"We really, really had a big buy in from the senior community but we've also had just a big buy in from just the community at large. It's taking off well beyond our expectations," he said.

The service has applied to the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board to expand its routes into Victoria County. MacDonald says if the application is approved, two new routes will be added.

One new route will go from Whycocomagh to Baddeck and the other will travel Route 19.