The feelings were mixed about the cuts to STC Bus services across the province.
But for Eric Ruthven at Kemway Lanes, it was a sad day on May 31 as the final bus departed the Humboldt depot at 8:20 bound for Saskatoon.
Ruthven had people in his restaurant almost in tears, he says.
Many of them do not know what they are going to do now that the service is gone, he says.
You knew it was happening sooner or later, says Ruthven, but when it came to the bus pulling away from the depot, he could not believe how emotional he got.
Ruthven saw posts on Facebook applauding and mourning the departure of STC but for him, he saw the people who needed the bus service week after week. Ruthven was also on the front lines of freight transportation and says they had around 200 pieces of freight leaving the depot on a weekly basis.
Ruthven is now seeing the number of private companies who are trying to fill that gap in service for both freight and passengers.
As to the money that was going into the program, Ruthven thinks the cuts were unfair since many other government subsidized programs cost taxpayers far more than the $11 million budgeted for STC.
“City of Saskatoon and City of Regina each get $22 million, and yet we were covering the whole province...it was a public service is what it was.”
Jerry Saretsky was there to pick up his daughter-in-law, Jungmi Lee who came in from Wadena.
Saretsky even made sure to take commemorative pictures of Lee as she got off the bus, which was also the first one she ever got to take.
Even though Lee has not had to use the bus herself, STC was there for her family when a snowstorm hit and they had to get her visiting relatives to the airport.
STC was there for them then and Lee is really sad to see it go now.
Saretsky says he feels bad for the people who do need it, especially those who used it to get to medical appointments.
Especially when it comes to cutting the whole service, Saretsky says the government could have done a lot more to limit service without cutting the whole program.
That bus meant the end of a 20 year partnership that Ruthven had with STC and many of the recurring drivers who drove the routes through Humboldt.
