Inter-city buses helping connect B.C. families during the holidays, amid highway travel restrictions

With non-essential travel restrictions on highways 3 and 99 in effect through the holidays, inter-city buses are the only option for travellers in B.C.'s Interior hoping to get to and from theLower Mainland by road.

The buses arean essential service in the provincewhich means vaccination is not mandatory and travellers do not need an essential reason to use them.

"A lot of people haven't seen their families in a long time, " said Michael Hathaway, the owner and director of Mountain Man Mike's, "so I think it's important right now to bring families together."

Mountain Man Mike's is an intercity bus company that provides round trip services between Nelson and Vancouver and Nelson and Calgary.

Hathawaysaid he's been in a frantic rushto get his larger buses in service beforethe holiday, as bookings have increased significantly ever since travel restrictionswere announced mid-November.

"Our bookings have actually tripled," said Hathaway. "A majority of our volume is on that Nelson to Vancouver corridor and Manning Park. We're getting a ton of bookings for that area.

Glenn Desjardine, the operations manager for Ebus, said they've added more travel dates and times to their schedules this holiday season to accommodate the spike in passengers.

Ebus's three major routes are theKelowna to Vancouver corridor, theKamloops to Vancouver corridor and the Kamloops to Kelowna route.

"The last few days we've seen a lot of bookings, especially on the primary days that people want to travel like December 21st to the 24th and then again the 26th to the 30th," he said. "So we encourage people to book in advance."

Currently, proof of vaccination is strongly recommended butnot mandatory to ride the Ebus, Desjardine said, but they will be implementing afull vaccination policy come Jan.10, 2022.

"We didn't want to impose achange on our travel policy just before Christmas, leaving people with no other option," he said.

"I think it's the responsible thing to do to the communities that we serve and the people that we're serving as well."

Costs a barrier

Suman Kumar who lives in Prince George, B.C. says she was planning to drive to Surrey to visit her husband and two children but she might be spending the holidays alone again this year.

Kumar said she can't afford a bus ticketas she hasn't been able to find full-time employment after losing her job twice during the pandemic.

"I'm just teachinga few hours a week at the college and I also teach piano," she told CBC News. "It's not easy for me to pay my bills."

A round-trip ticket from Kamloops to Vancouver on the Ebus costs approximately $135and an 11-hour ride including delays from Nelson to Vancouver using the Mountain Man Mike's service costs roughly the same.

Kumar said she moved to Prince George four years ago for a job and decided to stay as there were more career opportunities available for her there.

"It's going to be expensive if I take the bus and then I'm going to miss work on the fourth of January because the bus comes back from Prince George only on Tuesdays and Fridays," Kumar said.