Edmonton’s accessibility transit service celebrates 50 years

The City of Edmonton is celebrating 50 years of its paratransit service – Dedicated Accessible Transit Service (DATS).

DATS is a door-to-door service that provides access for riders who cannot use conventional transit due to a physical or cognitive disability.

On Monday, the Edmonton Transit Service (ETS) held an open house at the City’s main DATS facility: the Percy Wickman Garage. DATS riders celebrated alongside the staff and toured the garage.

DATS began as a two-year pilot in 1975. In 2024, DATS provided over 930,000 trips.

“This is an important milestone,” said Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi. “DATS is capable of changing people’s lives by providing them access and connections to events, appointments and other opportunities they may not otherwise be able to get to. Seeing how the service has grown over the last 50 years has further strengthened my belief in the service’s tremendous value, and how collaboration is vital to its continued growth.”

A new plaque marking the milestone is now displayed at the front door of the garage. The garage’s namesake, Percy Wickman, was a disability advocate who had a 25-year political career as an MLA and Edmonton city councillor. His contributions were crucial to the creation of DATS and he successfully championed wheelchair accessibility on the LRT.

“For services like ours, it truly takes a village,” said Paul Schmold, the manager of paratransit at ETS. “We are so grateful to our internal and contractor staff, local partners and our riders, past and present, who have helped build DATS into the service it is today.”