Selkirk students get free ride as part of transit pilot

SELKIRK — The City of Selkirk will be the first municipality to test free transit for youth this summer.

Selkirk Mayor Larry Johannson unveiled a new transit pass Tuesday that will allow students aged 12 to 21 to ride buses in the region at no charge, starting immediately.

“Free youth transit is about more than just the rides. It’s about building a long-term vision where public transit is a natural, reliable choice for transportation,” Johannson said. “It’s about giving our youth more agency and more access to opportunity and making life more affordable for families.”

The pilot project, dubbed Next Stop, will offer transportation to about 1,700 students from Selkirk, St. Andrews and St. Clements. Passes can be picked up at Lord Selkirk Regional Comprehensive Secondary School, École Selkirk Junior High and the City of Selkirk civic office with identification and proof of enrolment.

The Kinew government’s 2026 budget included $10 million to provide students with access to public transit in Winnipeg, Brandon, Selkirk, Winkler and Flin Flon.

The goal is to have free transit for students aged 18 and under by September, Kinew said. The announcement was met with boisterous applause from a group of students who attended the news conference at Lord Selkirk Regional Comprehensive Secondary School.

Johannson said the city will spend the summer testing the program and make adjustments to routes and bus inventory after the pilot ends in September. Selkirk has a fleet of four buses.

The mayor couldn’t say how much the project would cost. Kinew said the $10 million allocated in the province’s budget will be used to help municipalities make up for lost revenues from the program.

The city had already planned to offer youth in Selkirk free transit passes as part of its 2026 budget. Days later, the province announced a similar initiative, which allowed Selkirk to expand its program to youth in surrounding municipalities.

Bus fare in Selkirk is $2 for youth aged 6-11 and youth under 18 who are not enrolled in school. Monthly passes are $20. Ridership has tripled since Selkirk Transit was launched in 2011, Johannson said. Current annual ridership numbers were unavailable but the mayor said it was in the tens of thousands.

A song released this week by musician John Samson Fellows called on the provincial government to reinstate a cost-sharing agreement for transit funding for Manitoba municipalities, and improve the service. Kinew said the province is on the same page.

“The hope is that a young person today will start riding the bus as a teenager, and along the way we’ll keep buying more buses, we’ll keep improving the transit services across Manitoba, and then that way when this generation is in adulthood, they’ll just keep that healthy, climate-friendly habit going forward,” the premier said.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca