Due to the number of illnesses among staff, those in the Red Deer area may experience City service interruptions. All of those who experience symptoms must stay home as apart of the provincial isolation requirements.

“Our priority is to have staff stay home when sick and take care of themselves until they’ve recovered fully, whether they have COVID-19 or not,” said Tara Lodewyk, Interim City Manager. “As a municipality, we have the responsibility to maintain a certain level of critical services to the community, and as of today, there are service impacts to Transit due to staffing shortages caused by illness. We continue to monitor the situation daily with all services we provide in the community.”

City transit will be reducing hours starting on January 12. The reduced service will begin after 7:45PM from Monday to Saturday with the exception of the Route 1 Rapid Bus and Route 12 for Gasoline Alley connecting at Bower Mall. Dynamic Shuttle Service will once again be offered beginning at 8 p.m., taking riders from Sorensen Station to their bus stop of choice within the city. There will be no impact to school routes or the Action Bus. 

The City of Red Deer encourages transit users to visit their website, the Transit app, or call 403-342-8225 in order to plan their travel.

Some city workers will be taking on extra hours in order to maintain some of the City’s more critical services such as Emergency Services, Water, and Wastewater, and Electric Light and Power.

“While staff may need to work additional hours, we are also acutely aware that burnout can happen, and we need to protect our staff’s health – mental, physical and emotional,” said Lodewyk. “With increasing staff absences, we are continually monitoring what services are absolutely required, and how our staff can maintain them.”

Information on service interruptions can be found on the City's website here.