The city of Moncton will be extending public transit services to the Moncton High, Calediona Park and Costco area.
They’ll also be looking at adding ongoing service on 3 statutory holidays.
Councillor Shawn Crossman moved the motion and despite staff recommendations to hold off on the project, it passed in a 6 to 5 vote.
General Manager Don MacLellan says it was difficult to find the funds necessary for the project.
“As a leadership team, we’ll be scrutinizing all of the budgets again to try and figure out how we can fund this. It’s very clear from council that they want to see this happen so we’ll go back and see where the funds come from,” says MacLellan.
Crossman says he’s not worried the city will find funds.
“I raised a few points in the budget process this week that stated that there was additional funds within that budget, for example the ‘jeux de la francophonie’ games which were cancelled by the province. There’s 750 thousand dollars in a bank account somewhere and if my math [isn’t] off that’s about seven years of that service throughout the city of Moncton,” Crossman stated.
Mayor Dawn Arnold says there are many projects and that council has to weigh each of them carefully.
“This one was sort of cherry-picked out. We have to just make smart decisions and make sure we are prioritizing things as we go along,” she says.
Angela Allain, Codiac Transpo’s Transit Manager, says the service could be available as early as the Spring.
Total cost of the project is estimated at just over 102 thousand dollars.
