Kasper Transportation cuts Selkirk to Winnipeg bus line

An Ontario-based bus company announced Monday it'ssuspending its route between Selkirk, Man.,and Winnipeg until further notice over financial woes.

Kasper Wabinski, CEO and founder of Kasper Transportation told CBC's Radio Noon the line hasn't been profitable for about two years, even after implementing a price increase and reducingthe number of trips per day.

"Right now at this point we're losing $2,000-$3,000 a month," he told CBC News, saying they had about half the number of passengers needed to make the route workable.

Duane Nicol, Selkirk's chief administrative officer, told Radio Noon he's surprised, but not shocked by the announcement.

"This is the third bus company to attempt to provide the service over the last five years. All of them have indicated the economics don't support the provision of the service at this time," he said.

To top it off, the provincialmotor transport board stopped supporting chartered and scheduled bus services in March.

To help ease that burden,Wabinski said he asked the City of Selkirk to support the line, but was turned down.

Nicol said the city doesn't provide subsidies for for-profit businesses, but even so it asked Wabinski to provide statistics about ridership so the city could analyze it.

"It's commonly referred to as the Selkirk-to-Winnipeg service, but they also provide service to West St. Paul residents, St. Andrews residentsand Winnipeg residents, so a number of people do ride the bus from Winnipeg to Selkirk to work here, as well. None of the other municipalities were approached for funding, just the City of Selkirk was asked," he said.

Nicol said about 22 passengers a day go into Winnipeg, but Kasper couldn't tell the cityhow many of those are Selkirk residents.

Even so, he knows this will affectpeople who live in Selkirk and other places on the route.

"This will definitely have impacts on some Selkirk residents who either depend on the service to get to school or to get to work, but it's beyond just our municipality. Even on this one route, there are four different municipalities that are negatively impacted by the loss of this service, and we're just one route," Nicol said.

He hopes the province will get involved in the discussion.

"It needs to be a broader conversation," Nicol said.

Wabinski agrees and hopes the federal government will get involved to help get the route back on track.

Filling a void

Kasper Transportation is one of several smaller companies who stepped in to fill a void after Greyhound cancelled routes in Western Canada in October 2018.

Last year, Wabinski said KasperTransportation hadless overhead than Greyhound, which he said would help the companywhen it comes to operating in the western provinces.

Kasper now only has one route entering and leaving Manitoba, which runs between Winnipeg and Sioux Lookout, Ont.