People have their hearts in the right place when they share concerns about closing Saskatchewan’s Crown bus company, but we need to make sure our desire to help doesn’t do more harm than good.

The reality is that Saskatchewan Transportation Company (STC) didn’t serve everyone even though we all subsidized it through our taxes.

People needing a ride from Shaunavon or Outlook were out of luck because STC didn’t go there. And those who didn’t want to or need to ride the bus paid for a service they weren’t using.

Other omissions are harder to explain. There seemed to be a lack of First Nations among STC’s destinations. For example, STC didn’t have a stop at the Whitecap First Nation, although it offers its own shuttle service to the Dakota Dunes Casino. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation filed a freedom-of-information request asking STC which First Nations it serves and it couldn’t provide a list. STC’s 2015-16 annual report didn’t even mention First Nations other than a reference to its diversity hiring policy.

STC left out most people because it simply didn’t serve their needs. For example, given the number of people fighting rush-hour traffic from Martensville to Saskatoon, a bus would seem ideal. But STC buses left Martensville at 10:55 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays and 12:40 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays – it’s a schedule that didn’t work for anyone with a job.

Then there are the local charter bus and package delivery businesses who where harmed when they had to compete with a government bus company.

Despite losing more than $100 million in a decade, STC failed to help many Saskatchewanians and made life harder for some. The subsidies rose steadily. And the ridership numbers kept falling. STC certainly helped some, but was it the best way to help?

Consider those commuters from Martensville. A local business called AV Transit is planning to step in. Instead of an STC bus rolling through well after the work day starts, AV Transit buses will show up from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. throughout the work week. After taxpayer subsidies, STC charged $21 for the round trip and, without taxpayer subsidies, it’ll only cost $15 to go with AV Transit.

Other local businesses are popping up to provide passenger and parcel services. They’re tailoring those services to local needs. While STC didn’t pay business taxes and needed millions in subsidies, these local businesses will pay their own way and pay taxes as well.

Good people at STC did their best, but its system was flawed. Someone starting a parcel delivery business with a hands-free phone and a minivan doesn’t have to pay a board of directors thousands of dollars for a few meetings a year. A local shuttle service can pick people up at the mall and sell tickets with an iPad instead of paying for expensive downtown terminals and sales software costing a couple of hundred grand.

Change isn’t easy. The government will need to work hard to manage this transition for STC’s few remaining riders. But avoiding the difficult by reverting to status-quo STC operations would be bad for people who are left out of the Crown’s one-size-fits-few operation; bad for local businesses that would close because they can’t compete against their own tax dollars; and, bad for taxpayers who would be stuck with an increasingly unsustainable bill.

When something isn’t working, even difficult changes offer the opportunity for improvement. We have yet to see what all of those improvements may look like, but people in Martensville will pay less for rides that actually arrive at useful times. And entrepreneurs across the province now the opportunity to dream up unique solutions to serve their communities.