Residents who rely on the Greyhound for transportation will have to search for alternatives after the bus company scrapped their daytime Lac La Biche service to and from Edmonton and Fort McMurray.
“There isn’t a significant amount of passenger demand in Lac La Biche,” said Stephen Hutchings, Greyhound’s director of operations for Western Canada. “From a business perspective, there was just no demand.”
The route, which started in April, was popular with workers heading to camp jobs and for residents making trips to the city said Lac La Biche Greyhound employee Laura Quintal. However, last week the company informed the local branch that effective Nov. 14 they would be scaling back to night-service only: a bus will run to Edmonton from Lac La Biche at 9 p.m. and to Fort McMurray at 2:55 a.m.
“For me, I’d say this is a disappointment – and a lot of passengers would say so too,” Quintal said. “A lot of the workers won’t be too pleased. If they take a bus at three in the morning it means they’ll have to wait for hours when they show up – and there’s nowhere to wait [in Fort McMurray].”
There is still a daily bus running both ways from Edmonton to Fort McMurray via Grassland and then up Highway 63, but currently there is no shuttle to connect Lac La Biche with the service.
Lac La Biche resident Jim Elphinstone said the disruption will affect people, himself included, who need to go to Edmonton but don’t own a vehicle.
“There are seniors who’d use it to go for medical appointments,” he said. “Or there are the Filipino workers, or the students – basically, if you don’t drive that’s how you get to the city.”
Elphinstone, who relies on the service to make it to medical appointments, said he’s passed on his concerns to the mayor and county council. But right now, his main concern will be locating consistent transportation to Edmonton so he can see his doctor.
“I have to find a way to get in, but there’s nothing obvious now,” Elphinstone said. “I’ll have to try and get rides, but that’s fairly difficult to try and arrange. There’s going to be a lot of people affected by this.”
If demand increases it’s possible Lac La Biche could regain the Greyhound day service, Hutchings said.
