By Vanessa Broadbent

Osoyoos Times

A Kooteney man is hoping to fill a void left by Greyhound when the bus service ended its routes in Western Canada last year, but he needs public support to make it happen.

Mike Hathaway is working on starting his own weekly bus service, connecting his hometown of Kaslo with Vancouver and Edmonton. His route will pass through, and have a stop in, Osoyoos.

Unlike Greyhound, Hathaway’s bus will run on french fry oil instead of only diesel.

He collects oil from local businesses in the Kootenays and processes it in an 1,800 square foot facility on his property. Right now he’s got about 7,000 litres stored and ready to be used.

The process for using vegetable oil is simple, Hathway said.

“You run two tanks: a straight diesel tank and a vegetable oil tank,” he explained.

The vehicle starts on the diesel tank, and once the system is warmed up, it switches to vegetable oil.

“When you go shut the vehicle off it needs to idle down and it will need to flush the entire system with fresh diesel because if you shut it off with vegetable oil in the pump, the oil will gel and stop the vehicle from starting again and cause a whole bunch of problems.”

Using the dual-tank system saves about 90 per cent of fuel use and uses only 10 per cent diesel, Hathaway said.

“It’s not rocket science. There’s a lot of people who have done it, just not a lot who have done it on a commercial scale.”

• Read more: BC Transit hears feedback on new bus route to Kelowna

Once up and running, he’ll also be looking for restaurants along the way willing to donate their used vegetable oil.

“My hope is that if word gets out about the company, we’ll have more restaurants willing to give us their fry oil contracts.”

The current system will help keep ticket prices low, Hathaway said. He’s aiming for about $100 for a trip to Vancouver.

He’s also planning on including a hop-on, hop-off fare that will allow travellers to buy a ticket and use it at their leisure, staying in cities and towns along the route, including Osoyoos.

Right now Hathaway is working on an application for the provincial passenger transportation board, which includes demonstrating support from affected communities.

So he’s emailed every town hall and chamber of commerce on his route, and is asking for businesses and patrons to help support him with letters of support.

So far, he’s received around 50, including two from Osoyoos, and more are coming in every day.

“People have been very positive about it,” Hathaway said. “I think we’ve got about seven letters in the first 24 hours.”

The plan is to have the bus service up and running in the next few months, before summer.

Initially, it will be weekly, likely heading to Vancouver on a Friday or Saturday, and back to the Interior on a Sunday or Monday.

If there’s a need, a second mid-week route will be added as well.

Hathaway is asking anyone in support of the bus service to send him a letter of support. They can be emailed to [email protected].