Free ride

Thunder Bay Transit is encouraging people to buy the ticket and take the ride during the Thunder Bay Blues Festival this year.

For the first time ever a ticket for the popular festival, now in its 10th year, will allow concert goers onto any bus in the city for free during the weekend of July 8. Thunder Bay Transit’s Jon Hendel said it’s a perfect way to avoid traffic congestion and find a parking spot for the festival.

"We’re really opening up this event to the whole city and making it accessible to the whole community. So that wherever you are you don’t need to take your vehicle, you can just jump on a bus and take it right to the event," Hendel said. "The whole system is opened right up that weekend."

Because construction on the waterfront has reduced parking in the area, Hendel said transit looked at how other cities deal with special events and found the idea for free transit with a ticket purchase to major downtown events.

He added that it’s also a good way for people who have never taken the bus to try it this summer.

"We’re really trying to encourage the whole community to try transit," he said.
It’s also a good way for the festival to go green, said BluesFest spokesman Trevor Hurtig.
"Festivals do make messes there’s no doubt about that but this is one way that we can all do something for the environment as well," Hurtig said. "And riding the bus instead of all those cars parked downtown that’s a win too."

Hurtig said although transit and BluesFest have been in partnership since the event began with shuttle services, the fact that concert goers can get a free ride is a huge opportunity for BluesFest.

And because it’s a licensed event, people can now have a couple of drinks and not worry about how they’re going to get home.

"That’s no longer an issue you just walk across the street to the Water Street bus terminal and you’ve got basically a free ride home as long as you got your ticket with you.”