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30-day WAVE passes available this week

Squamish commuter extended into May

The Whistler and Valley Express (WAVE) started to run out of 30-day WAVE passes in the first week of April, but a new shipment arrived on Tuesday and all retailers should have new cards by Thursday, April 23 at the latest.

Emma DalSanto, traffic demand coordinator for the Resort Municipality of Whistler, said they sold more of the passes over the winter than in past years, and several months ago made a request to B.C. Transit to print more passes. Because WAVE is the only transit system in the province using the 30-day cards there were some delays getting those passes printed and delivered.

Some passes were still available through the end of last week at a few retailers, but the RMOW front desk ran out on April 9. To compensate, they began to use their card printer to make 31-day cards that would usually be used to print six-month and one-year transit passes. As of this week more than 100 of the temporary passes have been sold. It's unknown how many transit riders purchased other passes or tickets, and what the additional cost may have been.

"We made the order as soon as we were aware that our supply wouldn't last as long as previous years. We've never run low on those passes this early and we weren't anticipating it with our rider numbers down this year," DalSanto said.

Usually the municipality orders cards for the entire year in August or September, and typically have enough cards to last until then.

"Basically what's happened is that a large order is coming in a little bit late from the printers, (it) should have been in (last week)," DalSanto explained.

In other transit news, the RMOW and District of Squamish have agreed to extend the Squamish-Whistler commuter service for two weeks, through to May 4. The change was brought about by the cancellation of nightly highway closures for construction, until May 4.

That means theĀ  9:10 p.m. Squamish to Whistler bus service and 12:20 a.m. Whistler to Squamish route will continue until the week of May 4.

The schedule is available at www.bctransit.com.