Lauren McKeon
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, December 24, 2008

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Turk Chan waited for 45 minutes at the hospital for a bus that never came Monday.

Deciding to go green for a few days during the holidays, Chan was set to take advantage of the city's free transit service, which started Monday.

Unfortunately, the holiday route reverts to route three - which skips the hospital - an important detail that Chan and the four others waiting at the stop didn't know.

Besides Chan, there was a woman with her arm in a sling waiting and one man who ended up just walking downtown.

"I just happened to be one of the people saying 'hmm ... it's holiday time, maybe we should go for green for a few days' and guess what, it's not worth it," he said.

"I appreciate that they run the bus for free but with a frozen toe I'm not going to do it again," he added.

Chan suggested the city could save transit riders a lot of time and frustration if it just put a sign up.

"Get somebody to put a sign there - tell people it's a temporary thing. Then people would know what is going on," he said.

Otherwise, trying to take the bus is "just a waste of time," said Chan.

Public works engineer Wendy Alexander acknowledged there is no sign at the hospital stop to explicitly alert riders there's no service there during the holiday season.

"Usually it happens the first day we change the schedule," said Alexander, referring to people showing up at the voided stop.

She added there is usually a lot of confusion with riders despite the radio ads and notices on the website that precede the temporary route change.

"People tend to call," she said, referring to riders who double-check routes.

Indeed, that's exactly what Chan eventually did, reaching two voice mails before he was put through to somebody who told him the stop had been scratched from the holiday route.

"If I didn't make the phone call people would just keep waiting and waiting," he said.

As for why the holiday route skips the hospital in the first place, Alexander said the holiday route runs on a hour loop.

The hospital stop would put the route five minutes over schedule, throwing off the whole route, she said.

Alexander added new 2009 bus schedules, which include full day Saturday service, will clearly mark there is no hospital stop during the summer - and will likely add the same note for the holiday season.

Free transit ends Jan. 3, after which the route will revert to normal.