REGINA — After experimenting with a four-month fare-free transit pilot project for high school students, city councillors will look at exploring expanding options.
Between September and December 2025, the city enacted the pilot project at F.W. Johnson Collegiate. This move was prompted by transit advocates, calling on the city to provide free transit for youth.
A report brought to Wednesday’s Regina executive committee showed collected data for the pilot, including tracking the number of students utilizing free transit and how ridership on routes fared
Stats show 386 out of 751 students (51 per cent) at F.W. Johnson Collegiate redeemed the free bus pass.
As for ridership, this was roughly three times higher than when the same students were required to purchase a bus pass.
Access to education
Sarah Cummings Truszkowski, school board trustee with Regina Public School (RPS), encouraged Regina’s executive committee to continue fare-free transit for students.
“When students have consistent and reliable modes of transportation to attend school, get to part-time jobs and appointments, their likelihood of graduating and then being successful contributing adults is far greater.”
During the pilot project, RPS monitored student attendance and compared it to attendance levels without the program in place.
The pilot saw slight attendance increases among Grade 9 and Grade 12 students, while attendance averages for Grade 10 and Grade 11 students stayed consistent.
Beyond attendance, Cummings Truszkowski said fare-free transit can help over 10,000 students in RPS or Regina Catholic Schools who are facing poverty.
“Continuing fare-free transit for students would help alleviate small portions of costs.”
Targeted vs city-wide
In the report, the City of Regina states that having fare-free transit for all high school students would be $2.26 million in operating costs and $16.8 million in capital costs. Additionally, the city would see an over $2 million revenue loss.
Instead of a full-scale approach, Cummings Truszkowski suggested a targeted approach, working with the city to look at offering fare-free transit at six schools: F.W. Johnson Collegiate, Scott Collegiate, Sheldon Williams Collegiate, Thom Collegiate, Balfour Collegiate, and Martin Collegiate.
These schools have the highest number of students requesting bus tickets, which are issued by principals and cost RPS about $40,000 annually.
Ward 3 Coun. David Froh said this potential approach is worth the investment.
“Transit is one of those ways we lessen that financial burden for families having a hard time during a cost-of-living crisis.”
Meanwhile, Ward 5 Coun. Sarah Turnbull said investing more in transit is a choice on whether councillors want a thriving community, preventing people from falling through the cracks.
“We can invest in transit now, and invest in our communities' futures where people come out, and they graduate and become thriving taxpayers to the community or contributing, or we pay the bill on the other side because we will pay the bill for shelters, and health care, and police cars.”
Looking at a bigger picture, Ward 9 Coun. Jason Mancinelli said the city could combine various concerns, including parking, affordability and congestion into one solution.
“To flip the needle, we have to start looking at something like a hope and ride system; we have to look at crossing off multiple problems with one investment.”
The long-term vision was also something Mayor Chad Bachynski wants to focus on.
“What does transit look like in our city in five years, 10 years, 20 years, that's really the vision. We have a lot of considerations in our Transit Master Plan.
“[Some of us] will be working with administration to look at what is the path we want to look at and give them some focus and direction to bring back some information,” he added.
The report will return to council with amendments on June 10.
