Since August 1980, Rocky View Regional Handi Bus Society has been providing services to rural areas within the county of Rocky View for those that are unable to get themselves to places on their own. Over the last five years, Paul Siller – General Manager of Rocky View Regional Handi Bus Society, has taken on the concept of making regional municipalities more like neighbourhoods of each other and less like individual communities.
“At any given moment, 1% of a community needs the services of a handi bus – but at any given moment, circumstances can change that makes residents unable to drive themselves to work or appointments and we are here to help them. We consider ourselves to be a Community Bus service….not just a handi bus”, says Siller. Since 2003, Rocky View Handi Bus was transformed from a specialized para-transit service, formerly reserved largely for ferrying people with disabilities to medical appointments to now a more broadly-based regional rural transit services. The agency now also transports able bodied individuals who, for example, have lost the ability to drive because of decreased visual faculty, and mothers of small children who have not yet learned to drive.
It was for Sillers’ contribution to this service which has resulted in the betterment of this public transit initiative with the Rocky View Regional Handi Bus Society that he was the recipient of an excellence award at the Canadian Urban Transit Association Individual Leadership Awards held in Niagara Falls, ON on November 19, 2014.
“I was very surprised to be receiving an award because for me, I’m just trying to provide a much needed service. I’ve been working on this for over a decade and specifically been delivering the service to Chestermere since 2007”, said Siller.
Due to Mr. Sillers efforts, rural Albertans in the Rocky View Handi Bus area now have transportation for vulnerable residents. Siller went on to say, “When speaking with some municipalities, I’m still being met with that rural mentality of ‘if residents need that type of service, they should move to the city’…which is not the right way to look at it. I say, if the service is here, why would they need to go anywhere else.”
To learn more about the Rocky View Regional Handi Bus Society and the services they provide, you can visit http://www.rockyviewbus.ca/index.htm
