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Free Press files<\/p>\n
Winnipeg Transit is providing youth passes free to students aged 12 and up for the 2026-27 school year.<\/p>\n
The city knows this and is responding accordingly. September\u2019s rollout will be staggered to give Transit a chance to watch where demand
\nappears and then adjust. According to the
\nWinnipeg School Division, older students are
\nexpected to receive passes first, with other grades following through September. This is specifically to give the system more room to adapt.<\/p>\n
What we should avoid is treating every new rider, crowded bus or early growing pain as evidence the idea is failing.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s important to remember that eligible youth are not the same thing as brand-new riders. Winnipeg Transit estimates roughly 65,000 youth are eligible for the program and initially planned around 30,000 passes. The city\u2019s report notes that roughly 15,000 youth already purchase passes.<\/p>\n
For those riders, the person on the bus is not new; it\u2019s just who\u2019s paying for the trip that\u2019s changing. Young people will also use transit differently. Not everyone travels downtown at 8 a.m. Some trips happen after school, in the evening or on weekends. Some students will ride every day. Others will use the pass occasionally.<\/p>\n
The important thing is to measure what happens instead of assuming the worst before the program starts.<\/p>\n
Winnipeg is already planning additional peak-period service and more trips on feeder routes serving high schools. This is the right approach: implement, collect data, identify pressure points and adjust.<\/p>\n
And let\u2019s not forget the longer-term payoff for the whole community.<\/p>\n
Kingston started providing high school students with free transit access in 2012, adding grades over time. Research on the program found Grade 12 students used transit about three times as often as Grade 9 students. That makes intuitive sense. As teenagers gain independence, get jobs, volunteer and travel farther from home, their transportation needs grow. Because they already know the system, transit is an option they understand.<\/p>\n
The more interesting number comes later.<\/p>\n
Kingston\u2019s annual after-high-school youth monthly-pass sales increased from 5,740 in 2018 to 11,934 in 2025. That is an increase of approximately 108 per cent. Youth transit cannot be judged only as a short-term fare policy. It is also rider development.<\/p>\n
A teenager who learns to use transit becomes a young adult who understands the benefit of transit. That person may one day buy a pass, advocate for better routes or vote for transit investment.<\/p>\n
There are immediate benefits for the community, too. Every independent trip can connect a young person to public investments we have already made \u2014 schools, recreation centres,
\nlibraries, parks, employment programs, cultural facilities and community services \u2014 along with providing them access to local businesses as patrons and employees. It can also give a parent back the time they would otherwise spend driving.<\/p>\n
None of this means Winnipeg should ignore capacity. Quite the opposite.<\/p>\n
\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n
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The ultimate success of this program will require listening to operators and planners, watching for overcrowding, funding the service required and changing course if the evidence says to. It will also involve recognizing that a successful transit system is supposed to attract riders.<\/p>\n
There will probably be bumps this fall. Winnipeg is introducing a significant program into a large system during one of its busiest periods. Let\u2019s give it room to work. Measure it carefully. Fix problems quickly. And keep the longer view in sight.<\/p>\n
If more young Winnipeggers learn that the bus can take them to school, work, recreation and the rest of their community, that is not a transit problem.<\/p>\n
That is how you build the next generation of transit riders.<\/p>\n
Dan Hendry is project director of Get on the Bus, a national youth transit initiative through Small Change Fund, and helped develop Kingston\u2019s youth transit program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Winnipeg\u2019s free youth transit pass rolling out this month, the city should expect more young people to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":890279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-890278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=890278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/890279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}