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Esquimalt teen riding every bus route in Greater Victoria to encourage transit use

Atticus Dachsel Kerr plans to complete every route in numerical order over a year
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Atticus Dachsel Kerr has always enjoyed taking the bus and hopes to encourage more people to join him on transit. (Courtesy of Atticus Dachsel Kerr)

An Esquimalt teen is on a mission to ride every bus route in Greater Victoria and in doing so encourage more people to take transit.

Atticus Dachsel Kerr, 16, who is a student at Esquimalt High School, said he’s always enjoyed exploring Victoria by bus and decided to set himself a challenge. He plans to ride every route in Greater Victoria in numerical order and document the experience via his Instagram account @busvictoriabc, in the hopes of encouraging more people to take transit.

“I follow other accounts similar to this on social media and while I do like them, it’s mostly focusing on the stuff that needs to be improved on and some of the more negative aspects of public transit. I decided to have something that was positive, and relatively wholesome and just to work from there, because I figured if first, we got to get the people to take the bus and then once there’s enough ridership, then we can start talking about some of those problems.”

So far Dachsel Kerr has shared his experiences on route 1 through 6 and plans to keep on riding all the way to route 88 (which runs from the airport to Sidney) within a year.

READ ALSO: The ‘Colwood Crawl’ doesn’t go through Colwood

With the municipal election coming up, Dachsel Kerr has talked with candidates about their plans to address issues like the “Colwood crawl” and increasing rapid transit between the West Shore and Victoria. He said the City of Victoria does a good job encouraging young people to ride the bus – he rides free thanks to Victoria’s policy of giving free bus passes to youth under the age of 18 who live in the city – but there are still some challenges.

“The dream is that everyone in Greater Victoria can buy for free but we just have to take small steps at a time.”

The Esquimalt teen is considering pursuing urban planning after high school, although plan A is a career in the arts.

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bailey.moreton@goldstreamgazette.com

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