With the funding put in place this week, a summer long weekend transit connection to the mountains is one step closer to becoming a reality.

Cochrane Mayor Ivan Brooker says the On-It bus service, connecting Calgary's Crowfoot LRT station, Cochrane, Canmore and Banff, should be up and operating by mid-June and will continue until the Labour Day Long Weekend. The pilot project will operate Saturdays, Sundays and holiday Mondays.

Getting a funding agreement in place was the final piece in making the pilot a reality and having Parks Canada and Banff come on board and pick up any financial shortfalls was key to making the price attractive for users.

"We want to keep the rides cheap and reasonable so we're dropping the price down to $10 and Banff and Parks Canada will cover any shortfall," says Brooker.

What makes this unique and more intricate than the other On-It transit service that currently connects four communities to Calgary from Monday to Friday is the number of partners involved. On-It is an intiative of the Calgary Regional Partnership (CRP) and they are working with Calgary Transit and communities falling outside of the CRP plus Parks Canada on this particular project.

Brooker, who is the CRP treasurer, saw an opportunity for Cochrane to be a stop along the way and give Cochranites the opportunity to enjoy a weekend connection to Calgary and the mountain communities.

"Because Canmore and Banff are not a part of CRP anymore and won't be part of growth management board in future, I took it upon myself to approach the rest of the CRP members to see if we can get support from the group to give consideration to a pilot on weekends and long weekends going from Calgary Crowfoot through Cochrane and out to Canmore-Banff during the summer months," says Brooker.

The response was positive and the pieces started to fall into place.

"We're not the major players in it, and we're not the major benefactors necessarily but I thought it would be great to offer our residents the opportunity to hop on the bus and go to the mountains and not have to worry about parking," says Brooker. "It's going to be a busy suummer there."

While the schedule still needs to be firmed up, proposed are two stops here in the morning and three in the evening. The town is advocating to use of the old community hall site, an empty lot located between 1st and 2nd Ave. W. and 2nd St. W,  for the park and ride because of it's a convenient access to Hwy. 1A and the availablility of parking.

Should the pilot be successful it may continue next summer. In the meantime, On-It continues to working towards a Monday to Friday service to connect Cochrane to the Calgary LRT, similar to the service they provide for High River, Okotoks, Turner Valley and Black Diamond.

On-It transit manager Ettore Lannacito says they are already receiving a steady flow of inquiries about the weekend service launch and says details will roll out soon.