Victoria is making it easier for people under 19 to obtain free transit passes without having to visit city hall.
The city launched an online portal Friday where youth can apply to have the June, July and August passes mailed to their homes.
“We weren’t going to be rolling this out until September, but COVID-19 has pushed us to move more quickly, particularly with transit fares coming back in as of June 1,” Mayor Lisa Helps said.
B.C. Transit waived fares during the pandemic, but plans to begin collecting them again next month as the economy reopens.
In the past, youth had to line up at city hall to collect passes for one or two months at a time. Officials intended to work with school districts so youth could eventually use their student cards as bus passes the same way university and college students do.
But Helps said the new online application process could eliminate the need for a student-card system.
“We’ll monitor it over the next few months and if it works well, [there’s] no reason to reinvent the wheel ,” she said.
Victoria began handing out free bus passes to youth late last year as a way to create life-long transit riders, reduce congestion and lower greenhouse-gas emissions.
Youth must live in the municipality of Victoria to qualify and have to provide proof of age and residency.
A list of acceptable residency documents, as well as a link to the online application process, can be found at victoria.ca/transit.
