Williams Lake company to provide inter-city bus service in Cariboo, Southern Interior

A charter service company based out of Williams Lake has received its final approval to begin operating two inter-city bus routes throughout the Cariboo and Southern Interior regions.

The Passenger Transportation Board provisionally granted Adventure Charters and Rentals with the licence in early April but the company had to complete several additional steps following the licence approval, according to a press release.

Greyhound abandoned most of its bus routes in Canada last year.

“One of the requirements was for us to publicly release our detailed routes, schedules, fares and even obtain ticket pre-sales as of April 15,” Adventure Charters owner Janna Gertzen says in the release.

Gertzen says they have already received some feedback from future passengers.

“One aspect we were pleasantly surprised by, is that passengers are quite interested in close-community hopes, like 100 Mile House to Williams Lake,” Gertzen says.

Since the company has received feedback, Gertzen says they have immediate plans to introduce fares more suited to shorter trips.

The Adventure Charters bus that will travel from Williams Lake to Kamloops has a capacity of 20 while the Prince George to Surrey bus can accommodate as many as 36 people.

“The twice weekly schedule is a start point. Once we determine our ridership, we’re fully prepared to add another bus or more scheduled runs if that is warranted,” Gertzen says.

Stops will be made in several smaller communities when tickets are pre-booked. So far, those communities are Prince George, Hixon, Quesnel, Kersley, McLeese Lake, Soda Creek, Wildwood, Williams Lake, 150 Mile House, Lac La Hache, 100 Mile House, 70 Mile House, Clinton, Cache Creek, Kamloops, Hope, Spences Bridge, Lytton, Boston Bar, Yale, Chilliwack, Abbotsford and Surrey.

“The routes and schedules were well thought out and then optimized to allow passengers to transfer to other public transportation infrastructure already existing,” Gertzen says.

Busses will begin operating as of May 2.

For information regarding bus service schedule, fares, routes and reservations go here.

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