Beginning today, the Botanical Arts City will have a botanical-themed bus route.
The bus on St. Albert’s Botanical Loop will make stops at the Enjoy Centre, the St. Albert Farmers’ Market and St. Albert Botanic Park on Saturdays from 9:30 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. There is no cost to ride the Botanical Loop.
While patrons can enjoy the free transportation the botanical bus will provide more than just wheels. Volunteer interpretive guides will provide facts and tidbits about St. Albert and the bus will contain live plants.
“It’s not just a regular bus ride,” says Joan Barber, manager of marketing and research for St. Albert Economic Development. “It’ll be more fun than a normal bus and it will be completely wrapped as the botanical bus. And then inside it’s going to have additional plants in it so it will feel different.”
Riders can also hop off to enjoy a free tour of the St. Albert Botanic Park.
Barber says the Botanical Loop will provide tourists with the opportunity to further explore and spend additional time touring, eating and shopping in St. Albert.
Sixty-three percent of the 10,000 weekly visitors to the farmers’ market come from outside St. Albert and 69 per cent of the hundreds of daily visitors to the Enjoy Centre reside outside of the city.
The Botanical Loop will run from Aug. 3 until Sept. 14 and St. Albert Transit is hoping to make it an annual summer route.
“It’s a pilot project for 2013,” Barber says. “It is our plan to run the bus service again starting hopefully in 2014 mid-June until mid-September.”
The loop is a partnership between the City of St. Albert, the Enjoy Centre, St. Albert & District Chamber of Commerce, the St. Albert Botanic Park and Travel Alberta.
