Holyrood bus on backburner

By Mark Squibb

When former Avalon MP Ken McDonald announced nearly $500,000 in funding for electric passenger buses to be operated by the Town of Holyrood back in 2023, he boasted the town was one of the first to receive such funding in the whole province.
The electric buses were posited as a green answer to the region’s near total lack of public transportation. But the plan has been put on the back burner after a feasibility study commissioned by council found the Town would not be able to afford to operate the service.
Holyrood Mayor Laura Crawley, who took office as the head of a new council in October, said operating an electric bus service would “put the Town in a significant deficit each year.”
She added, however, that while the idea has been tabled, it has not been taken off the table altogether.
“We’ve asked the (federal) government to reserve the right to keep the funds on the back burner, (for us) to be allowed to reapply,” Crawley. “So, we didn’t lose the funds. We reserved the right to go back and use those funds if something changes. We’ve actually speaking with some other towns that have transit programs in place to see if there is a way to not have such a deficit because you need to make sure that it’s affordable for people to use – which would be about $8 to go to town (St. John’s) and back. But the charging stations, the buses, the maintenance, the booking system, the drivers, would all put us in a deficit.”
The feasibility study was completed by consultant Pat Curran at a cost of $49,834 and paid for out of provincial funds provided to the Town and not out of its own coffers.
Crawley said the decision to put the service on the backburner was not by motion of council but was presented as information during a public meeting earlier this past spring.
squibb@theshoreline.ca